The Oregonian's Best Beer Poll Is Bad and They Should Feel Bad

The paper's poll of the top 20 Belgian-style ales has over a dozen brews that are not Belgian at all.

Over the past two weeks or so, the Oregonian has been whittling down a user-voted list of the top beers in Oregon by style, as a follow up to their editorial staff's list of top 50 beers brewed in the state. The publication, with sponsorship by Columbia Distributing, hopes to find the top beer in each style, according to readers, and award the category-winning breweries a plaque to display in their brewhouse.

But of the 20 beers listed in the paper's poll of the top Belgian-style ales made in the state, 13 of them aren't Belgian-style in any way.

The top brews in the poll largely consist of hoppy, English-influenced, American-style pale ales like Deschutes Mirror Pond and Pfriem's Mosaic Single Hop Pale—two beers that made the top five. Selections from almost-exclusively Belgian-influenced breweries like de Garde, the Commons, and Upright are noticeably absent.

The results of the poll beg a question which many beer fans in the comments section asked: How does such a factually inaccurate snafu happen at such a large publication?

The Oregonian's answer may be even more shocking than the results. Randy Mishler, a copy editor and presentation designer for the paper, had this to say to critics of the article, in a post in the article's comment section (edited for brevity):

"We tried to take the almost limitless range of beer styles and create a manageable number for a general beer population to choose between. So a wide variety of beers with Belgian aspects and influences ended up here. During the nomination process last week, enough readers agreed and made them finalists. That said many of you make good points about how to define the styles and these comments will be part of our own discussions. Please continue to join in the public conversation. In the end, it only helps raise the profile of Oregon craft beer."

Here's the thing, though: a list of Belgian beers that aren't Belgian doesn't help raise the profile of Oregon craft beer. Instead, it hurts an industry which relies on informed consumers. That is hugely helped by the intelligent form of beer criticism that the Oregonian itself pioneered more than 30 years ago. After all, this is the very same publication in which craft beer legend Fred Eckhardt brought then rare and illusive beer styles to the attention of readers statewide.

As the famed beer pioneer himself would tell you, Belgian-style brews are known for their fruity, floral, yeast character, a flavor often achieved through higher-than-normal fermentation temperatures and special Belgian yeast strains. When someone talks about "Belgian beer," this is what they mean.

Not only is it flatly factually inaccurate to say that contemporary American pale ales— which are designed to showcase hops, and are mostly fermented with a cleaner English-origin ale yeast—have Belgian "aspects and influences," the statement does a disservice to a community that the paper helped foster in its infancy.

In a manner of speaking, the paper's reply is a slap in the face to the publication's own historical heroes. Eckhardt and other longtime beer contributors to the Oregonian, such as the recently-ousted John Foyston, helped raise the profile of once-new brewers like the Widmer Brothers, Full Sail, McMenamins, Bridgeport, and other pioneering regional craft breweries. They categorized the beer with intelligent, thoughtful, and kind eyes. They cared about the industry and its people just as much as the products of it.

And now, 30 years later, the most important paper in the history of Northwest beer criticism can't tell its readers what a Belgian-style ale is.

Ironic, considering that in 1989, Eckhardt himself published a book called The Essentials of Beer Style.

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