The Diary of Our Own Jimmy Bracken: All your beers suck ... well, no, just that one beer. Same difference.

My diary entries are purposely published without buffing and polishing, rather in the format of a notebook of ideas. Maybe they'll be cleaned up later; maybe not)

At the outset, please note that what I’ll be discussing in this diary entry is a habit of thought, which to me isn’t a sensible habit.

To repeat, I am about to disagree with a way of thinking, which to me isn’t logical. I am not “calling out” an individual. For this reason, I have changed the individual’s identity.

I’m taking great pains to explain my motives because in this day and age, it has become increasingly difficult to debate a topic coherently without personalities coming into play.

The exchange in question occurred on social media, where I observed quite simply that NABC’s director of brewing operations was giving a tour of our downtown brewery to members of the local homebrewing club.

Soon there was a reply. “Mr. Wood” wrote:

When they make a beer that is worth drinking let me know. ....... cause I'm disappointed everytime I go. I've tried numerous times and it's ridiculous how inconsistent it is

I can’t explain why an innocuous photo prompted the critique, but that’s who we are now, as a people, and it’s beyond my control. However, marshalling an argument is something that remains important, hence my critique of this critique.

Note that Mr. Wood begins with a universal statement of reality, which if more capably written might read like this: “NABC beers are not worth drinking because they disappoint me with inconsistency every time I go there and drink them.”

It’s a broad and sweeping claim, one that does not concede exceptions, although it is implied that Mr. Wood drinks the inconsistent NABC beers on draft in our own two establishments rather than in bottles (“everytime I go”). In short, NABC’s beers are being comprehensively damned.

Rather than sob into my hankie, I chose to ask questions.

I'll be sure to do that, but can you be a bit more specific? Which beers are at fault, and when/where did you have them? Thanks.

Mr. Wood replied.

Elector has been inconsistent in my opinion for years, I grew up here and moved back here from13 years in indy and I really want to like the beers here but I can't. I like the pickmans pale and single hop series but everything else has tasted watered down in my opinion

Now we can infer a bit more. Mr. Wood’s tastes tend toward hops, and his disappointment seems to center on Elector to the exclusion of others. I continued to probe with questions.

I appreciate the answer. It's always helpful to move from general to specific. If we're to be judged by the original brewery in the growth stage, it's one thing, but a beer like Elector has been dialed in for a while now. What about Community Dark, or Bonfire or Black & Blue Grass? A better question is this: What do you mean by "watered down"?

Mr. Wood responded.

Community dark is the exception, it's great. Elector was a red hoppy beer and I liKed it but it has no hop aroma or taste from what I've had lately, wecompare it too a green flash hop head red and it's no comparison. I can't comment on black and bluegrass as I have not had it. I appreciate you commenting back I root for you guys but am not exciTed go try beers lately

I see. Compared to one other randomly chosen commercial beer, Elector has no hop aroma or taste, and thus is “watered down.” It’s a shaky definition, and not really what I asked for, but it will have to do.

Mr. Wood then quickly added that because of a customer complaint posted the night before, he’d decided not to keep his inconsistently rendered beer money in Indiana, and had gone to Louisville to drink on Saturday night. I thanked him for the give and take, and went to bed.

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NABC brews 25+ different beers during the course of a year. In his opening statement, Mr. Wood suggests that inconsistency is a hallmark of the brewery, across this wide expanse of differing styles – some of which aren’t even hoppy because THEY’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE, which is something one can glean from a brief survey of the very concept of style, and something that Mr. Wood himself belatedly concedes with his comment about Community Dark, an English-style Mild.

It would seem, then, that Elector’s current state is the only real point to Mr. Wood’s comment, and that he does not often drink NABC’s other styles, probably because as a hophead, his flavor profile is more narrowly defined, and they’re not what he prefers.

No problem. Fair enough. There is nothing wrong with this view. To each his own. We’re entitled to our own opinions … although not to our own facts.

But here’s the issue, at least to me: Mr. Wood begins the chat by broadly maligning the whole range of NABC’s beers, many of which he seemingly would not customarily drink owing to personal taste.

As such, how can judgment be passed on beers that never touch one’s lips? Furthermore, when questioned, is transpires that Elector obviously is the very specific point apart from Mr. Wood's broad and generalized opening statement.

So, Mr. Wood, why not instead begin with the defensible specific (“I think Elector is inconsistent”), and not the indefensible generality (“NABC does not brew consistent beer”)?

At least an exchange of views is possible as to the first assertion, while the second is nonsensical unless the speaker has repeatedly tried them all, because without repeatedly trying them all, he'd have no way of establishing criteria for consistency vs. inconsistency.

Has our Elector evolved? Yes, of course, but it has been what it is for a very long time now.

Is it to be compared with Green Flash This or That? I’d think not, but if it were to be compared, and came out poorly in a BLIND taste test, I’d accept the verdict. Elector tastes fine to me, and continues to sell well.

Finally, as for the meaning of “watered down,” wouldn’t this concept pertain more to the absence of malt character than hops? Nuance fades, and we're left with hop juice.

I suppose that efficient argumentation is a lost art. At the same time, the very nature of social media isn’t about sensible argumentation or coherent logic.

In fact, it’s ridiculous how inconsistent it is.