Well, sure, in part. While some folks pooh-pooh this brew as an "entry" craft beer, I am quite fond of it. It does what it does very well, and much of what it does is refresh. Without meaning to imply in any way that it's simple to make such a beer, I think that Oberon does something that feels simple and straightforward, and it excels at it. Nothing wrong with that.
Even more important, though, is that it heralds the spring and summer, and that means a lot around here. Oberon, in short, is bottled optimism.
Its release signals that people will be getting outside again after a long winter to peer at the sun and feel it warm their bones. It means that the spring thaw is for real, and that the pleasant days will start to outnumber the crappy ones. It means daytime warming and still-crisp nights, and then the heat of the summer will be around the corner. It means flowers and gardens and farmers' markets, outdoor dining, walks and picnics, canoeing and kayaking, and time on the playground with the kids. Here in Ann Arbor, it means that townsfolk and the students lucky enough to stay for the summer will experience the particular joy of summertime in this lovely little city.
For some, it's a reminder of particularly sweet times. My wife and I, after knowing each other for a year in graduate school here, started dating in the warmth of late spring many years ago. She and I had more than a few Oberons together, whether on tap sitting outside at a pub or cracking open bottles in her backyard. Heck, back then, it might still have been called Solsun, but this post isn't meant as a history lesson any more than it's meant to be a beer review. The connections between senses and memory are strong. Really strong. The aroma, taste, feel, and sight of a beer can all be reminders of other times that we've had it, who we were with, what we were doing, or just how we felt.
Perhaps the giddy euphoria on Oberon Day is also about experiencing some optimism in tough times. Our state is wracked by a recession that started way before the nation's did, and it's not likely to recover with the rest of the county. People are out of work or under-employed in droves. There is no clear path forward in Michigan, and our state legislature has been reminding folks lately of clowns running around willy-nilly at a circus: funny, tragic, unpredictable, and somewhat scary in a way that's hard to place exactly. In this environment, the winter can feel particularly cold, dark, and endless.
Yet even here, the craft beer industry is growing. Beer is what many describe as an "affordable luxury," as I discussed a bit in an earlier post. Folks are very loyal to their local breweries and brewpubs, which can become hubs of community activity. Breweries reflect and enhance local flavor in ways literal and metaphorical. They employ local people - not in droves, to be sure, but we shouldn't sneeze at it, either.
We live in a state where the national-scale industries - mainly the car industry and its servant industries - have crumbled and contracted. They remain significant players, but as they've faded, no other industry has stepped in to fill the void. Our governor, echoing the President, points to green energy, and that's a possibility. But we shouldn't ignore the potential of industries that operate on a regional and local level, and brewing fits the bill nicely. Some go national, to be sure, but to me, that mainly means that they need to keep hiring in order to support their expansion, and that's a good thing right about now.
We need Oberon Day. We need that bottle of optimism to unleash our bottled-up optimism, and we should celebrate the release of a major product from one of our greatest breweries. Is this a lot to put on the slender shoulders of a bottle of beer? You bet. But when a beer taps into such a terrific feeling for folks, that's worth some celebration.
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