Thursday 7th of July 2016 03:19:30 PM

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How long has beer been around?

Some posit that beer came into existence before civilization.
The theory goes like this; Our ancestors were hunters, nomads. We follow the herds that provide us with food. Until one day, some enterprising ape-like creature put some stalks of grain into a container, filled it with water and left it out for Mother Nature (and yeast!) to do its thing. When they tasted the result (Probably to wash down a brutally tough-meated gazelle) they got a little wasted…and liked it. So, in an attempt to re-produce that drink…whatever THAT was…they began to settle down and began communities with territorial rights and free discussion, stop lights, etc.

{Now stay with me here…the point is coming.}

I, for one, subscribe to this theory and here is my reasoning.

History reports as fact that beer is as old as we are…perhaps older. Traces of the anti-biotic Tetracycline - “discovered” in 1948 - were found in earthen jars from 10,000 years ago…jars used to hold beer. The slaves who built the pyramids were paid in…beer. A gallon a day. When the Belgian monks couldn’t get anybody into hear “the word” - they solved the problem by promising anybody who showed up…a tankard of beer. When Europeans were dying off by the thousands in the Middle Ages, what saved them? They found out it was the water that was killing them so everybody in the family began to drink….beer. In the most dire of economic times the world has ever seen, what do we insist of spending money on? Beer.

{Here it is…the point}

You would think, after all this time and experience and practice, that folks would know how to make a good glass of beer.

Valley Center Brewing apparently is trying a new approach.

Since wife Permission and I started this beer-tasting journey many years ago, we’ve run into some grand, WONderful beers…and some stinkers. But there has always been at least one sample in a place that we would not push away.

Not at Valley Center.

A sample of 12 brought tastes of soap, perfume, old tires, dirt. These are not the tastes we prefer; perhaps some do who live in the shadow of San Diego’s Cuyamaca (Qwee - uh - MAC - uh) mountains. And at almost $30, it’s hardly a bargain.

They also produce sours which we did not partake. This style of beer of the current fave of the nation. It is temporary. It will pass. It now makes money and that’s the only point of its existence. It is NOT beer.

But let me posit my own theory now;

Americans tastes have been “dumbed down.” We don’t want too much taste in anything. So our restaurants, our groceries, our breweries — in an effort to attract the most customers (and therefore money!) make certain their product doesn’t offend….anybody. And how best to do that? Keep it bland. Without character.

With that in mind, Valley Center has succeeded.