In many professions and pastimes, much can be made with a little bit of image, a show of money, and a lot of talk. Brewing, however, is not so amenable to such chicanery. In brewing, the product speaks for itself. No amount of posturing or verbiage is going to make a bad beer better, and a great beer has a way of grabbing your attention all of its own.

I like to think of brewing as an equal opportunity craft. As with most things, money and education help, but in the end they can't ensure success. In brewing, the economic and educational underdogs have an equal chance of brewing a top-quality beer.

The question, then, is not how much money you spend on equipment or even how much technical information you might cram into your head. The real question is, can you brew a great beer?

This question assumes, of course, that some standard of quality actually exists, and it is here that our slope becomes slippery. Some would say that all beers are good and that their individual qualities are a matter of personal interpretation and taste - a safe position, to be sure, but in the end one that misrepresents the way people work and the way beer is experienced. To say that all beers are good is to say that none are good. Some beers, however, are clearly better than others. Some are downright great.

What is the standard of quality? The full answer to that question must be left for another day, another editorial, another session with friends ruminating on the complexities of beer judging criteria. What can be said without much fuss or dispute is that judgments about beer tend to fall into two categories - those driven by "content" (adherence to style, innovation in interpretation, or the blending of flavor and other attributes to create distinctive beers), and those driven by the demands of the mass market (the demand for lighter styles, fruit beers, and big-beer industry knock-offs, for example).

I think it's fair to say that most BrewingTechniques readers care about substantive quality and recognize a good beer when they taste one. I think most readers will therefore welcome my premise that beer is not a respector of persons and that great beer is within the grasp of any brewer, regardless of their financial or technological limitations.

Successful brewing comes down to choice and creativity - choice, because you can always choose a higher road, and creativity, because it can overcome every challenge and limitation.

Consider, for example, Ray McNeill, whose story is told in this issue's "Craft Brewery Operations" column (pp. 82-90). He started his pub brewery with small handmade equipment and no previous background in brewing, yet his commitment to self-training, his dogged adherence to traditional standards of quality, and his innovative use of common equipment led him to three medals, including golds at the 1995 Great American Beer Festival and the 1996 World Beer Cup.

Similarly, even extract-based homebrews are known to bring home gold medals from competitions great and small. At either end of the scale, competition judges (and consumers) care about the beer in the glass, not necessarily where it came from.

Technology and gadgets do help, of course, or they wouldn't be invented, built, or sold. These products also come in varying degrees of quality, and sometimes good quality can cost. But it is important to remember that a lot of expensive breweries are built only to produce swill designed merely to satisfy a mass market. Likewise, expensive home brewing systems won't help the brewer who fails to follow up with a sound foundation of understanding or the commitment to brewing excellence.

So to all of you who strive for perfection in your glasses, BrewingTechniques dedicates its publishing efforts. May your next beer be better than your last, and may you find deep satisfaction in your commitment to the path toward great beer.

Stephen Mallery
Publisher