On organic beer and the great Forrest

As my dad once said, "the word organic is the best thing to ever happen to ugly food." I'd say that's a pretty safe bet for beer, too. Well overdue but still worth mentioning, this article about the new face of organic beer from the San Francisco Chronicle pretty much sums up why Forrest

Organically nazzzzzzzty.

Allen is my favorite beer buyer in the Bay Area (keyword: manure) and why the megabreweries that still dominate the market really are the "rat bastard evil empire."
Most interesting about the article is how it gingerly sidesteps the "what makes organic beer organic" question. Apparently my psychographics indicate that I like to be somewhat misled, as in order to call a beer "organic" it simply needs to include one organic ingredient (malted barley) and utilize steam over chemicals in the cleaning of the production facilities. Since organic hops are still behind in terms of the level of quality expected from the craft brewing segment and organic yeast is a little bit of a question mark, unless you were planning on adding a bunch of creepy preservatives and colorings (and you wouldn't want to do that, now, would you?) it's not like organic beer is all that different from the rest (and most folks recommend sterilizing with steam anyway).