Pro-inconsistency: Drinking Knot Stock

Consistency in brewing has to be the most difficult thing to achieve. Working with active ingredients that are affected by the slightest environmental change creates a task that seems nearly impossible. Brewers have to worry about storage temperature, storage conditions, water temperature, water quality, the consistency of the boil, when you add the ingredients, the condition of the ingredients, and on and on and on. I am amazed that brewers can continually put out beers from different batches and different brewing facilities that taste identical. This is truly a remarkable feat.

I'm drinking a Furthermore Knot Stock right now, the strange and delicious APA brewed with black pepper. The first time I drank the beer, the black pepper hung around in the background, slowly growing into a slight tinge of hot spice that lingered after the beer was gone. Never quite crescendoing into a overwhelming surge of harshness, but making itself noticeable. I love it. I love the idea of a growing beer, a changing beer, a flavor that builds upon itself to create a full dynamic experience.

Age of the beer aside, I typically know what to expect when drinking a beer that I've had before. But not so with the newest batch of Knot Stock that I cracked tonight. Full-on barrage of cracked black pepper pushing the spice and heat through the beer at first sip. And, right now, tonight, with the temperatures plummeting toward -25F, this is what I want. I want the pepper to kick in screaming, keep screaming, and never back down.

I could chalk this up to brewing inconsistencies. I could allege that Furthermore can't keep their conditions straight. I could, but this is part of what makes beer so wonderful. It is a living, active thing: constantly changing, moving, shifting. This is why I can buy the same beer over and over and still have the chance at being surprised. There's a time for something familiar, something standard; but, more often I think, there's a time for a beer to get in your face and challenge the way you perceive it and the people who make it.