Aura III

** A year later...

Is it really only a year? It feels much longer time since this beloved
friend departed from us. It all feels so... useless. Once you find a good beer,
it is taken from you. And why? So that beers that at the
level of bad non-alcoholic beers can
maintain their sales. (Which they do not, I suppose).

Well this whole thing makes me wonder. What is the status of a beer actually?
Some people enjoy good beers that, at least in my opinion, as a art form.
Take Orval and try to find all its characteristics. Take Koff Porter and youll
find something new every time. However, thinking of this, it is easy to forget that
beer is mass market consumer goods. Almost all beer is consumed by people
who do not think or care what they drink, as long as it is cold so that they
dont have to taste it. Ive heard people in fully normal mental state claim,
that beer is bad by nature! "No-one really likes beer, but its cheap and
easy to drink."

Then what is the truth? Is beer bad and some snobs just pretend they find
fine elements from this bulk product? Or is it true that most of the people
who drink beer have never tasted it? Personally I prefer latter theory, but
in democratic election I guess Id lose.

So, from now on, lets assume that beer can really be product of high
esteem, up to the level of art! With this is mind, how do these sides of beer,
product and artform relate to each other? Are there any other forms of art that
behave similiarly? The differences usually are, that the beer is not a unique
product. Beer as it is, is not any one bottle but a sum of all the bottles
of it ever manufactured. (Sum is not a correct concept here, but lets not get
into mathemathics of beer or trying to develope a formula to describe "beer"
in this sense.) Beer is not one instance, but a process! A process which
produces instances of beer, usually with variance.

This beer, as process, being greater that life, has its own life, during
which it developes, changes and ultimately disappeares. No beer is immortal,
although some have lived longer that we have, although how pleasant it
would be think that there is something good and eternal in this world.
Beers die of different reasons, usually they are not nurtured lovingly enough
and they turn bad, pale shadows of what they once were, making its friends
turn their backs on it. Some are not cared ever, being born as unwanted
children of management and marketing, which does
not mean that they could not live long, even when they do not prosper.

But some beers die at their fullest power full of love and taste. They were
wanted and loved by people, but not many enough to full the expectations of
cold economical reasons. And then, even first among equals can depart.

As such died Aura. And we miss it!

(Story by EPS)