I made a joke thread about LODO trying to provoke a discussion, but it was soon to be relegated to the drunken ramblings forum which honestly was probably appropriate.
The thing is, someone went off a little in the LODO forum and after a short time a couple of LODOrs suggested that the LODO forum was a safe place for the technique to be discussed without dissenters coming in and kicking their sand castles down.
So generally, I oppose the LODO ideas for several reasons, but feel like we ought to be able to have a civilized discussion about it. I will lay my ideas out there and then if someone would like to kick down my sand castle, I would like that very much.
1. The “it” factor that German beers have demonstrates that LODO techniques are valid.
This supposes that German brewers make better beer than Americans or otherwhere. I am not a BJCP or Cicerone so I can’t really know for sure, but I’ve definitely had some “it” factor beers right here in the U.S. While staying at The Alise in Chicago, I had a brown ale from Boulevard that I couldn’t stop drinking. Usually, I try everything on tap over some days if I’m at a hotel for a while, but that beer was so good I kept going back for it. Just sayin’ that Germans don’t have a license for being the only ones who can make tasty beer. You might ask, “How much German beer in Germany have you had sir?” I can quite honestly say, I have never been to Germany, but I can’t concede to not knowing. Conformation bias is a powerful thing and I would bet a lot of my own money that I would enjoy German beer in Germany more just because I was drinking it on draft from a bar retrofitted into a castle somewhere in Nuremberg.
2. Commercial breweries fight oxidation like it was the devil himself.
So they probably do. I really can’t say if they do, but again and again, commercial processes are being found to be anywhere from somewhat valid to completely invalid to homebrewers. I would even venture to say that sanitation is a whole different ballgame at the commercial level. They just make so much more beer than most of us. Also, there is a certain economy of scale that commercial breweries must abide by. For example, you don’t need as much hops or specialty malts to achieve the same effect when the batches are massively scaled up. There are so many factors in making beer, how can we know that this is the factor that counts?
3. My beer was good before LODO, but since I started LODO, my beer is spectacular.
Maybe so. It isn’t my place to tell someone why they should do this or that. We all want to think we are super knowledgeable, but the fact is, most of us are just going by conjecture and hearsay anyway. But there is a corollary to the work lost fallacy that says, “The harder you work at something, the better the result.” And there is a correlation, zero effort generally means zero results and lots of effort means somewhere between zero - great results. But consistency is the hobgoblin of the simple mind and working hard at the right things counts more than just working hard. That brings me to the Brülosophy exBeeriment in which LODO beer vs. normal beer had an uncharacteristic significant result. Further tasters preferred the normal beer over the LODO beer. So I don’t have to taste a LODO beer to know that it isn’t preferred, someone has already done it for me. Besides, I am biased against LODO beer, so if I had one, I doubt I would like it.
4. Why do I care?
If I get any responses to my thread I predict that many will say, “why do you care? You brew your beer the way you want to and I’ll brew mine the way I want to. Why all the drama?” The answer to that is I do care what my fellow brewers say a great deal, you all have helped me understand the importance of sanitation, have guided me to making better recipes, inspired me to try partigyle and exotic hops. I care what people say on here and if someone can demonstrably say that brewing during a full moon makes better beer, then I might just brew during a full moon. But, if someone says that LODO is better because they say so, welllllll, that might not be enough for me.
Even if I don’t get a response, I’m glad I got that off my chest.
The thing is, someone went off a little in the LODO forum and after a short time a couple of LODOrs suggested that the LODO forum was a safe place for the technique to be discussed without dissenters coming in and kicking their sand castles down.
So generally, I oppose the LODO ideas for several reasons, but feel like we ought to be able to have a civilized discussion about it. I will lay my ideas out there and then if someone would like to kick down my sand castle, I would like that very much.
1. The “it” factor that German beers have demonstrates that LODO techniques are valid.
This supposes that German brewers make better beer than Americans or otherwhere. I am not a BJCP or Cicerone so I can’t really know for sure, but I’ve definitely had some “it” factor beers right here in the U.S. While staying at The Alise in Chicago, I had a brown ale from Boulevard that I couldn’t stop drinking. Usually, I try everything on tap over some days if I’m at a hotel for a while, but that beer was so good I kept going back for it. Just sayin’ that Germans don’t have a license for being the only ones who can make tasty beer. You might ask, “How much German beer in Germany have you had sir?” I can quite honestly say, I have never been to Germany, but I can’t concede to not knowing. Conformation bias is a powerful thing and I would bet a lot of my own money that I would enjoy German beer in Germany more just because I was drinking it on draft from a bar retrofitted into a castle somewhere in Nuremberg.
2. Commercial breweries fight oxidation like it was the devil himself.
So they probably do. I really can’t say if they do, but again and again, commercial processes are being found to be anywhere from somewhat valid to completely invalid to homebrewers. I would even venture to say that sanitation is a whole different ballgame at the commercial level. They just make so much more beer than most of us. Also, there is a certain economy of scale that commercial breweries must abide by. For example, you don’t need as much hops or specialty malts to achieve the same effect when the batches are massively scaled up. There are so many factors in making beer, how can we know that this is the factor that counts?
3. My beer was good before LODO, but since I started LODO, my beer is spectacular.
Maybe so. It isn’t my place to tell someone why they should do this or that. We all want to think we are super knowledgeable, but the fact is, most of us are just going by conjecture and hearsay anyway. But there is a corollary to the work lost fallacy that says, “The harder you work at something, the better the result.” And there is a correlation, zero effort generally means zero results and lots of effort means somewhere between zero - great results. But consistency is the hobgoblin of the simple mind and working hard at the right things counts more than just working hard. That brings me to the Brülosophy exBeeriment in which LODO beer vs. normal beer had an uncharacteristic significant result. Further tasters preferred the normal beer over the LODO beer. So I don’t have to taste a LODO beer to know that it isn’t preferred, someone has already done it for me. Besides, I am biased against LODO beer, so if I had one, I doubt I would like it.
4. Why do I care?
If I get any responses to my thread I predict that many will say, “why do you care? You brew your beer the way you want to and I’ll brew mine the way I want to. Why all the drama?” The answer to that is I do care what my fellow brewers say a great deal, you all have helped me understand the importance of sanitation, have guided me to making better recipes, inspired me to try partigyle and exotic hops. I care what people say on here and if someone can demonstrably say that brewing during a full moon makes better beer, then I might just brew during a full moon. But, if someone says that LODO is better because they say so, welllllll, that might not be enough for me.
Even if I don’t get a response, I’m glad I got that off my chest.
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