Specialty cheese-makers are starting to realize beer is a natural companion and great selling tool. And as I myself have found out, it’s a small and comfortable step from beer lover to beer and cheese aficionado. A few are starting to pick up on this. Rogue happens to be the name of both a creamery and a brewery, although they do not share ownership. But the two have been working a lot together to spread the message of great beer and cheese.
In terms of smell, humans are often denigrated as being much poorer than bears or dogs. Compared to mice, it’s true we have only a third as many working receptor types, but we have way more copies. It’s a fair bargain, because their extra receptors involuntarily control their behavior, while our cognitive brain does these tasks with far more flexibility—and free will. Each creature has its own lifestyle, and its sensory systems are adapted perfectly to it.
The marketing geniuses at the world’s industrial breweries have no clue what kind of beer you like. Even if they did, the best they could do would be to dump it into a pot with a hundred thousand other preferences and brew an accountant-approved approximation of the resulting mélange. Which is exactly what they do. By brewing it yourself, you can have what you want, when you want it. You are the niche market supreme.
As art, every beer is part of a larger story, and comes out of a specific context, whether it’s a traditional classic or an avant-garde experiment. These stories, technological guideposts and aesthetic characteristics shape not only the specifics of the drink itself, but our expectations, attitudes and ultimately the nature of our interaction with it. Tradition is a metaphoric bucket for certain ideas that get poured into beer along with the malt and hops.
5 Rabbit Cervecería was asked to participate in a 2016 Craft Beer Week collaboration with the Lakeview brewpub, DryHop Brewers. This would also include an art show, which I eventually understood to mean I had to come up with some actual art. While I’ve been doing beer labels and other commercial design work for decades, fine art is a little alien to me.