In David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, wide-eyed Jeffrey waxes poetic about Heineken. To Jeffrey's small-town sensibilities, Heineken is an opening to a wider, more mysterious world. Its status as import clearly lends it cache. Sandy, however, replies that she’s never tasted Heineken, instead offering, “My father drinks Bud”. In this small exchange, Lynch has divulged a polarity of American beeriana: Bud is the King of Beers, the old guard, as well as the authority figure. Sandy’s cryptic remark suggests that we, perhaps, ought to drink Bud. It’s just what’s done, isn’t it? Heineken is, by mere contrast, rebellious sophistication. It’s European, for God’s sake, never mind that it’s also ubiquitous (or at least it was in the 80s).

The tidy beer dichotomy, however, is soon shattered by Frank Booth’s psychotic explosion: “Heineken?! FUCK THAT SHIT!! Pabst! Blue! Ribbon!”. Frank tears down all our illusions: Heineken’s sophistication is a veneer – a sly marketer's romanticization of European tastefulness. Pabst, on the other hand, knows what it is – the hard stuff, the real thing, a beer without pretense. And who wants sophistication in a beer anyway? For Jeffrey, the inexperienced drinker, Heineken is a vehicle for something else and someplace else – a darker, more alluring (and more lurid) world. Frank’s world is already dark, impenetrably so – Pabst is clarity and solidity, an utterly authentic drink (in fact, drinking PBR is probably the most understandable decision Frank makes – his world is otherwise so dark as to be nigh on opaque). But what does this tell us? Should one drink Pabst (or for that matter, Bud or Heineken)? Why would a person take Frank’s advice on anything, even drinking? Well, I’m not going to speak to oughts, and, anyway, the American beer landscape has changed rather dramatically since Blue Velvet.

It’s been said many times that we’re in the midst, especially in America, of a beer renaissance. Certainly, this is true, largely thanks to the rebirth of the microbrew. The Great American Beer Festival was held at the Denver Convention Center recently, and through some modest trickery I gained entrance to Saturday’s connoisseur’s session. The Beer Fest is where the artisans of the small-brew industry come to show off their wares, and to see what else is going on in the beer-brewing world. This used to be a very under-the-radar affair, but it's becoming a major event. En route to the convention center, the bus I rode was so full of beer “connoisseurs” that it stopped picking up passengers, leaving them abandoned on the side of the road. I attended the Beer Fest three years ago and I would guess that there were easily double the number of attendees this time around. In 1983 there were apparently 80 breweries operating in the United States. Currently there are something like 1500 new breweries and brewpubs, a great number of whom were represented at the Beer Fest. So, Blue Velvet’s triumvirate of beers no longer maps easily onto the beer drinking reality.

It's been a long time since Heineken was considered exotic (though, I suppose this image may still persist in small Midwestern enclaves). In fact, Heineken’s position as most popular import was usurped by Corona in the 80s – leading a Heineken distributor to initiate the bafflingly persistent rumor that Mexican plant workers urinate in Corona bottles. So, what’s the current drink of choice for the artistically inclined? As evident at the Beer Fest, IPAs (India pale ales) and Belgian Ales currently have tremendous appeal. IPAs are very hoppy beers, and there seems to be a growing rivalry among brewers for claim to the hoppiest brew (several breweries at the Fest featured double and triple IPAs). The growing popularity of IPAs runs parallel to the popularity of the range of Belgian beers, also. Belgian ales lend an impression of fruitiness, and both Belgians and IPAs are distinctly aromatic, the stronger ones even flowery.

Both these varieties can be quite powerful, which may be a key to their popularity. As microbrews become more popular, people are beginning to demand a stronger drink (this heightens their status as foil to the big three – Bud, Miller, and Coors). Also, microbrews are becoming dramatically more alcoholic. At the Fest I sampled The Beast, a barleywine reaching almost fifteen percent alcohol – far more akin in taste to a raisiny sherry than to American Standard Lager. There’s a virtual arms race between the Boston Beer Company and Dogfish Head Craft Brewery for the highest alcohol content brew (Boston Beer, I believe, is currently topping out at twenty four percent). So, Heineken notwithstanding, beer is becoming sophisticated. The Beast, for instance, is intended for after-dinner sipping – just the thing for the artistic crowd. It was evident at the Fest, however, that brewers aren’t going in wild new directions. The range of beer styles was rather tame – I didn’t see any wild rice beers, no horseradish, no spruce – virtually nothing that strayed from the standard varieties (though, there was a rumor circulating that one of the brewers had home-brewed a chicken lager). Instead, brewers are working on perfecting a small number of styles, making them both more powerful and more delicate.

And what about Budweiser? It turns out that Sandy’s drink of choice still sits well with most Americans. Bud is still the King of Beers, consumed by fathers everywhere. Actually, the most consumed beer in the U.S. is not Bud, but Bud Light, which, itself, is a little bizarre (after all, if the most popular beer is Bud Light, shouldn’t we just call that Bud, and call the original Bud, Bud Heavy?). Curiously, though, Bud was at the Beer Fest, as were Coors and Miller, in an attempt to show that it, too, can be sophisticated. The most bizarre concoction I encountered at the Fest was Anheuser Busch’s cactus and lime brew. I’ve actually been curious about the possibility of cactus as an adjunct for quite some time, and was stunned to see it toted by that conservative stalwart, Anheuser Busch. It was terribly disappointing, though. The cactus was undetectable, and the lime overwhelmed an otherwise unremarkable beer. Homebrewing guru Charlie Papazian, one of the most widely respected of the beer cognoscente, famously buried a few bottles of prickly pear beer somewhere in the foothills outside Boulder, Colorado, leaving them for a future generation of determined beerophiles to exhume. So, perhaps it was in response that Bud offered its own cactus brew. Still, it was remarkable that the Bud purveyors were trying to appeal to the connoisseur crowd (as the beer choice of fathers, Bud’s attempt to stay relevant might be subject to an Oedipal reading – and would that mean that microbrews are destined to slay Bud on a desolate intersection, outside of town?). And why bother? Despite their dramatic increase in popularity, microbreweries still account for a quite tiny percentage of the beer-drinking market. Bud, Miller and Coors more than dominate.

It did seem to be the case, however, that our dear Buds, Coors and Millers were indeed having an affect on the state of the microbrew. Since attended the Great American Beer Festival three years ago, I’ve discovered that craft brewing has shifted significantly, in just that short time. At the earlier session, the best beers hailed from the Midwest. Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Chicago all sported excellent brews: brown ales, Scotch ales, and all manner of stouts carried the day. Three years later, the flavors have changed distinctly. Now, the best beers are from Colorado and Oregon, with quite a few runners up in California (as an aside, I had the worst beer of my life from a Utah brewery – it purported to be a Vienna Lager, but tasted like soapy dishwater, and I mean that literally. That’s really what it tasted like. So, I can only assume that someone screwed up somewhere along the line. But, then, why serve it? For God’s sake, if your beer tastes like dishwater, don’t let people know).

There are (at least) a couple reasons for the shift. First, there has been a general popularization of IPAs and Belgian ales, which the Western breweries seem to have concentrated upon. Three years ago, however, the cache was in making a good stout (or other darker brew). Before craft brewing was a major industry (but after the Heineken star had begun to fade), Guinness was the import of choice among those who imagined themselves sophisticated. Guinness not only provides a much more interesting set of flavors than American Standard Lager, but it also came to represent a kind of beer authenticity (this impression of authenticity may originate in a prevailing stereotype about the Irish). As a response, a lot of the microbreweries focused on brewing a great stout, or other dark, wintery style – adding coffee or chocolate to deepen the flavor. But, currently, Belgium seems to hold the distinction of being the home of authentic beer (after all, in Belgium beer is brewed by monks, and with God on one’s side…). So, the weight has shifted toward perfecting the Belgian and IPA styles, and the stouts have suffered. But its not merely the case that the beer-drinking public has found a hipper style. Many of the Midwest breweries whose wares I sampled at the recent Fest were offering very bland drinks. In fact, they even seemed to be watered down – they just weren’t the same beers as were offered a few years ago.

I can only speculate that small breweries (particularly in the Midwest?) are feeling compelled to compete directly with the American Standard Lager Juggernaut: Bud, Coors, and Miller. To do this, they have to Heinekenize themselves – that is, make a slim, easily gulped beer that’s more interesting than Bud, but only slightly so. And here’s the trouble with the Heineken/Budweiser relationship (or, now, the watered-down Midwestern stout/Budweiser relationship), rendered in vaguely Freudian terms: Heineken (or the current incarnation of weak ales and stouts) envies the seat of power, so it makes a slightly more interesting alternative to Bud, but to maintain power it remains bland, not taking any risks. On the other hand, Bud is jealous of its unruly children – it doesn’t want microbreweries to be interesting or edgy (in the way that it once was), so it lamely introduces cactus beer in a failed attempt to remain relevant (the kid wants to be like Dad, but Dad pines for the glory days). As it turns out, though, many of the small breweries that have lasted have done so by making distinctive brews – think again of the Boston Beer Company and Dogfish Head, as well as Summit, James Page, New Glarus, and several others.

Still perplexing, however, is the Frank Booth question. How can we make sense of Pabst? Pabst closed its last brewery in 2001, but despite this setback, has seen a huge surge in popularity among a certain demographic of beer drinker. Pabst is now contract brewed by Miller, and is leading other relic beers like Strohs, Olympia, and Falstaff in popularity. Pabst has become the drink of choice for the countercultural set, a working class alternative to both the corporate giants and the snobbish sipping beers (never mind that Miller is one of the big three). Apparently, at Portland, Oregon’s one anarchist bar, Pabst is the top seller. Notice, too, that Pabst sponsors local bands in The Onion.

When Frank waxed maniacal for Pabst in Blue Velvet, it made perfect sense – Pabst was already a relic. No one drank it, it had no cache, a beer for the homeless and authority-less (recall, too, that scene in Midnight Madness in which the frat boy immerses himself in the Pabst vat – wait, you do recall Midnight Madness, don’t you?). Now, Pabst’s status as has-been relic is precisely its appeal (its status is its lack of status). But what are we nostalgic for? One would hope it’s not for Frank Booth (though, surely, when Frank’s visage one day graces Pabst cans, American capitalism will be hastening toward its own twilight). I can't help thinking, however, that Blue Velvet played some small role in Pabst’s newfound renaissance. And certainly, the penchant among urban youth for quaffing relic working-class beers hasn’t gone unnoticed by craft brewers. With great rapidity, microbreweries are giving up bottles to put their beer back in cans (or, rather, since these are mostly new breweries, they’re putting their beer into cans for the first time). They’re after that working-class Pabst appeal. To my mind, this is a little weird. Craft brewers put their products in bottles initially to gain an air of sophistication (beer is the new wine, after all), but now that they have the sophisticated drinker market down, they’re trying for something more. But, as concerns my own preference, canned beer just isn’t as clean tasting as beer in bottles. My feeling is that small brewers are sacrificing taste for market share (it used to be about the beer, dammit!). Though let's not forget Pig's Eye; they never left the can, and that’s probably what Frank Booth would be drinking if he were around today.

Clearly, beer has become sophisticated, and has done so in a way that Heineken never anticipated. Heineken was only sophisticated because it had nothing to compete against. The trend toward stronger beers is, ultimately, a good one, at least for beer drinkers. I am not myself a “hophead”, and am not terribly fond of aromatic IPAs or of Belgian ales (as a fan of stouts and dark ales I was saddened by the trend toward greater “drinkability”), but I’m very glad to see that strong beers are being made again. We can now buy a beer for its craft and for its taste, and not merely for its image. There is a clear irony in Pabst’s popularity among anarchists. The more loyal anarchist model of small-scale development is far better served by the presence of small, distinctive local breweries than by mass-produced cans (and, surely, a freshly poured growler carried home in the basket of one’s bicycle is to be preferred to a generic case of cans from the liquor store).

But, then again, snobbishness is hard to swallow, and small breweries have not yet become so widespread as to dispel the tastier-than-thou attitude entirely. And, truth be told, there is something appealing, somehow, in the simplicity of holding a can of, say, Milwaukee’s Best. But, then, I’m waxing nostalgic, too – and that’s not entirely undesirable. Increasingly, American beer drinkers have their pick of taste, image, or some solution of both. Clearly, neither one can exist entirely without the other, and I’m not sure I’d want it that way. It’s the interaction of the two, ultimately, that makes good drinkin’. Just as in a David Lynch movie, the assumed American beerscape of clear, smooth, commercially appealing lagers hides a darker side, but it's precisely the darker side that keeps us coming back.