Tribute To Beer Writer Jackson

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Jackson’s most enduring legacy may be one that is still working its way through our culture: the elevation of beer to its deserved status as equivalent to wine and spirits. He enjoyed all three—he is perhaps more celebrated in Britain for his writings on Scotch whiskey than for his discourses on beer—but found it galling that beer was considered of lower status. “Beer is by far the more extensively consumed, but less adequately honored,” he wrote in Michael Jackson’s Beer Companion in 1993. “In a small way, I want to help put right that injustice.”

In a large way, he has. Jackson created the idea of the tutored tasting—a group of people sampling beers selected and presented by an experienced moderator—for beer. He expanded that idea to pairing different beers with appropriate courses in a beer dinner, from tart aperitif beers to whet the palate to rich, chocolaty beers to enhance desserts. His own beer columns have spawned others by showing editors that beer appeals to a popular interest. The notion that beer can be taken as seriously as wine—and command serious prices—can still bring a laugh, but from a dwindling audience.

Jackson was a man of the moment, an experienced journalist who loved beer, found a niche, and threw himself into it with a passion. He drove himself hard, constantly sampling, traveling for weeks at a time, writing late into the night, and running a Red Queen’s race as new breweries and beers popped up all over the world—tiring evidence of his success.

I talked to one of Jackson’s favorite brewers, the uncontrollably innovative Sam Calagione, founder of Dogfish Head Craft Brewing in Milton, Delaware. How do we replace Jackson? I asked. “We don’t have to replace him,” Calagione replied. “Lord knows we can’t. But we can collectively pick up his very big, bright torch and keep spreading the word.”

That’s the kind of fervor Jackson created and encouraged: a deep passion for beer with flavor and character, and a missionary’s drive to bring others to it. Those of us who caught it will continue to spread it.

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