Radical Brewing

The world desperately needs more Moshers. If only we had more Moshers, the Tasmanian tiger might return from extinction. Mike Tyson at his peak would be able to step into the ring with Muhammad Ali. We would be able to see and hear the great performers who pre-dated the recording of sound. I might even now be sipping a pre-Prohibition beer and checking whether Buddy Bolden could be heard across Lake Ponchartrain. Or I might be sampling Harwood’s Porter in a London pub, or an India Pale Ale aboard a clipper heading for Calcutta.

To be truthful, I know only one Mosher. He is Randy, which in the United Kingdom, where I live, means feeling sexy. I know nothing of his private life, but there is passion in the heart of this seemingly quiet, kindly man. His activities are probably a threat to our morals. Passion, imagination, and tenacity are a challenge to the established order. So are people whose definition of progress is not acquiescence.

As a teenager, I learned this when I saw an item on television about a London pub in which the walls were lined with friezes showing merry monks. The pub was scheduled to be demolished to make way for road widening. In the TV programme, a slightly crazy-looking English poet was arguing that the pub was a temple to the pleasures of drinking and should be saved. It was. The poet’s name was Betjeman. I thought at the time that we needed more Betjemen.

We don’t call them that; we know them as conservationists. A pity. I prefer Betjemen. Until now, there has been no name for people who go a stage beyond conservation, and somehow bring back pleasures that have been lost.

A revivalist? Randy does more than that. He and I once presented a tasting of rare Northern European beer styles, using examples that he had brewed. One of the styles was Grodzisk, from Poland. I had tasted the last commercially-brewed Grodzisk; Randy had only read about the style. Despite this, he made a beer that tasted like the Grodzisk I had enjoyed.

A beer archaeologist? People like Randy can find old “recipes” for some of the beers that have been lost, but they are very hard to interpret. The brewer of a century ago knew what “Mr. Smith’s malt” tasted like, but we do not. Nor do we know that characteristics of hops that long preceded today’s varieties.

A scholar? Randy’s researches represent diligent scholarship, and make possible a Jurassic Park of beer styles.

So what is he? He is a Mosher.