Tangled Bank: Writings from Orion

A Declaration of Independents

29 A Declaration of Independents I don’t know how many times I’ve heard someone exclaim, upon seeing a butterfly,“Doesn’t that prove that there has to be a god, to put such beauty into the world?” The countervailing view seems just about as logical to me: how could there be a caring god in a world with death and sinuses, let alone leaf blowers? Silly as such ipso facto arguments sound, I love the one proclaimed by Benjamin Franklin:“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” I write in an agreeable Oregon brewpub, a pint of good India Pale Ale before me, old Grateful Dead playing soft on the PA.Thea and I have just seen You’ve Got Mail at the old single-screen, main-street movie theater across the way, for $2. I am trying to decide how I feel about a film that tackles a serious issue, the destruction of independent bookshops by giant chain stores, then blurs the issue with a happy ending. As an author, one of a class of people whose hard-earned income (royalties) is generally halved by sales of their products (books) in the superstores (those discounts come from somewhere), I have a stake in the preservation of the literary marketplace’s diversity. I also happen to love a good “indie,” and (along with many of my writer friends) will not sign books in a chain. Many of us also enjoy a good ale, and as members of a bioregional community,we consider good pubs and good bookstores to be elements of local diversity. (In England, one’s neighborhood pub is actually referred to as “the local.”) Now, alcohol is no joking matter, though it is the subject of almost as many quips and gibes as sex:“Beer—no longer just a breakfast drink,”reads a placard over the bar in my favorite alehouse, where the publican will serve nothing advertised on television.But at a time when many people are seeking to defeat their dependencies,and the evils of strong drink in homes and on the roads ruin more and more lives,beer is a serious subject indeed. This is no paean to drink or to drunkenness. TheTangled Bank:Writings from Orion 30 Still, Ben Franklin had a point. Properly approached, beer has its beauties—not the least of which is the inspired symbiosis among several organisms that its decoction entails:yeast,barley,and hops,mixed with pure water and time.The fermentation of malted Hordeum distichum,through the sugar-converting properties of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, fixed by the essential oils of the noble Humulus lupulus, creates a spectrum of rich colors and flavors.Malt beverages range in hue from fresh straw through fall foxplume to coal-scuttle black, in taste from dry-bitter to sweet-fruity to malty and chocolaty espresso, involving most of the talents of the tongue and all of its surface. In addition to all this, beer offers up an adventure in natural diversity. At one time, each valley in England had its distinctive ales, just as every Scottish glen distilled its own malt whiskey,with the smoky tincture of peat instead of the bite of hops. Using different yeasts and recipes, Continental brewers created lagers and pilsners as numerous and distinctive as the bitters and stouts of the British Isles.This Saxon beer heritage dominated in the U.S. until one of the great extinction events of our time erased it. Prohibition extirpated local tastes,traditions,jobs,and literally thousands of strains of yeast—individually selected forms of life that will never live again. Once down the drain, their DNA was as gone as that of the Xerces blue butterfly or the great auk.And when beer came back afterThe LongThirst, it was in a monolithic fountain of yellowish, watery lager lacking character or distinction. The same sort of pogrom threatened British beer in the 1970s, when six giant companies took over many regional and local breweries. A discriminating public bit back through CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, saving many of the family and village breweries and spurring the first new ones in a century.This success inspired the microbrewing movement in North America, with its center of diversity smack in my biome of the Maritime northwest.Which brings us back to this pub,this pint,and You’ve Got Mail, because the Pacific Northwest is also famous for its bookstores. Yet, even as small breweries have...