«Hola, mi nombre es Michael Jackson. No, no ese Michael Jackson, pero estoy en una gira mundial. Mi gira persigue la cerveza excepcional. Por eso es que me llaman The Beer Hunter”
El experto en cerveza Michael Jackson -más conocido como “The Beer Hunter” (“el cazador de cerveza”) murió a los 65 años de un ataque al corazón en su casa de Londres, el 30 de Agosto del 2007.
El cuerpo de Jackson fue encontrado por su empleada y compañera, Paddy Gunningham. Ella dijo que él había continuado escribiendo y viajando a pesar de sufrir Parkinson y que planeaba escribir un libro sobre esa enfermedad.
“El era simplemente el mejor escritor sobre cerveza que conocimos”, dijo Tim Hampston, presidente del British Guild of Beer Writers (Gremio de Escritores sobre Cerveza Británico) a The Associated Press. “Contó historias fascinantes sobre la cerveza a través de las personas y era gracioso y erudito al mismo tiempo”.
A Jackson le gustaban especialmente las de Bélgica. Sus libros «The Great Beers of Belgium» (“Las grandes cervezas de Bélgica”) y «World Guide to Beer» (“Guía mundial de la cerveza”) las introdujo a numerosos mercados, incluyendo al estadounidense.
Jackson sabía que nunca iba a ser tan famoso como el Michael Jackson cantante, y eso se ve reflejado en un mensaje en su sitio web sobre críticas de cerveza: “Hola, mi nombre es Michael Jackson. No, no ese Michael Jackson, pero estoy en una gira mundial. Mi gira persigue la cerveza excepcional. Por eso es que me llaman The Beer Hunter”.
«La cerveza es lo que por lejos más se bebe, sin embargo es lo que menos se honra. Con un pequeño grano de arena quiero intentar enmendar esa injusticia».
He aquí una de sus últimas entrevistas:
“I had nothing to do with the starting of CAMRA, but I joined early on. I’d already traveled quite a bit as a journalist, and I’d tasted interesting beers in other countries. Particularly, I was very aware of the Belgian traditions and to some extent the German tradition. I thought, it’s very good that CAMRA is fighting for British tradition, but what about the tradition of these other countries? I think the motivation was almost like the motivation of some of those musicologists like Alan Lomax who went down to the Mississippi Delta in the ’50s and recorded old blues men before they died. I wanted to kind of record Belgian beer before those breweries didn’t exist anymore. I certainly didn’t see it as a career possibility, but I think all, or many, journalists have in them a sort of element of being an advocate.”
He published his first book about beer, The English Pub, in 1976, but it was his second, the World Guide to Beer (1977) that dovetailed with a quite young beer and brewing revolution in the United States. The book became a bible for both brewers and drinkers reconnecting with traditional beer.
In the 30 years since his books about beer and spirits – he was as authorative writer about Scotch as he was beer, but this is a beer publication – sold millions of copies. His television documentary called The Beer Hunter remains a cult classic almost 20 years after it was compiled.
He considered himself a journalist first, but also took equal pride in the words he put to paper.
Expect the flow of words to continue for months.
They won’t be enough.
From Beer Therapy blog by Stan Hieronymus.
Posted by The Beer Hunter at 10:01 PM
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