Heady Topper – A refreshing video

I came across a link to this video of John Kimmich, of The Alchemist brewery, explaining some of the questions around the relatively hard to get Heady Topper. A beer that is currently atop the Beer Advocate charts as the best beer in the world: http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/27039/16814/

The video is almost 9 months old (incidentally as old as one of the beers in the video) but I hadn’t seen it until now.

I found it as refreshing as I imagine a can of Heady Topper would taste (as I haven’t tried it and I don’t have FOMOOB enough to go to any extreme lengths for it).

I’ll put a link at the bottom but I’ve pulled out some quotes that I enjoyed.

Firstly he explains, why they chose to can the beer. Discussing the protection from the outside world but also…

It’s because I want beer, especially heady topper, to just be considered a beer. It’s nothing elevated, nothing more than what it is and what it is is the perfect drink for the working person, the common man…

We don’t want broken glass out in the rivers, all my favourite swimming holes. I know people are going to take the beers out there and I just couldn’t handle it.

On drinking straight from the can.

If you pour it in a glass you’re inundating it with oxygen. Just slamming it in there it gets all oxidized and smells wonderful for a short time. but when you get down to the bottom of your glass and it sits there for 20 minutes it is a completely different beer.

On aging his beer:

It doesn’t go bad. We go to great lengths to get it in perfect condition in the can and it’ll be a completely different beer as it ages because being unfiltered unpasteurized it continues to change in the can which is not a bad thing it’s just different.

One of the most interesting things I find, is when people learn that glasses, and certain styles of glasses, are better for tasting and appreciating a beer, they ignore some basic facts around why glassware can be a bad thing.

The amount of oxygen and light you can introduce into a beer is massive – especially if you are out in the sunshine. You can expect a beer such as this to be ruined in a matter of minutes due to light-strike (skunking).

So it makes perfect sense to enjoy from a bottle or can. Yet say that to a room of beer lovers and you are likely to be outcast… by the very people who will scream about beer in green bottles being ruined by the very same thing.

The other thing I enjoy about this is the point about it “not going bad”. Again, another thing people learn early about IPA/IIPA is that fresh is better. Which is true to an extent but it doesn’t ever go “bad”. It just changes.

Finally he touches on the oft asked question about the logo of a man drinking from a glass – yet the label recommends drinking from the can. The reason for that – the logo predates the packaging. Simple as that.

Anyway, here’s the full video. I probably spoiled it already though.

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