What Meatloaf and Beer Have Taught me about Audiophiles

@erik_squires 

Sorry to put this here, but for some reason I can’t message anyone here anymore. Would you see if you can message me?  I have a question for you, but it’s not part of this thread.

Thanks.

A treatise on the creation of the name "India Pale Ale"

https://beerconnoisseur.com/articles/complete-truth-about-origins-india-pale-ale-ipa

As far as I know it is "India" pale ale

Yes, you and others are, of course, correct.  It is also too late for me to edit.

@gano I never had a good meatloaf in restaurants. Homemade, yes. 

Same experience, I wonder why they can't get it right but when I make it at home, it's always fantastic.

Hey Eric... thanks for the great little essay on a vitally important subject.

Not the anyone cares but I like meatloaf as long as it's not too greasy.  A delicacy indeed.

Beer is great as long as it's beer and has a good bit of flavor, not IPA or something else.

However, and despite your elegant transition, beer and meatloaf are not to be taken together.   Beer is for pizza and Blue Crabs.  A nice, not overly expensive red wine matches the glorious meatloaf's beefy flavor.

Time for some music.

Best...

https://forum.audiogon.com/posts/2796248

As far as I know it is "India" pale ale. My first beer sample when young - I HATED it and didn't start drinking for many years after. Then I made up for lost time and then stopped drinking 8 years ago. Having said that, there is a non-alcoholic pale ale made in CT that is outstanding.

Now, back to meatloaf!

Borrowing from Homer, I'll have the meatloaf - and to drink? Meatballs!

waytoomuchstuff

As one who likes to add context and clarity to complex situations, I'd want to make a simple distinction between Meatloaf, the performer, and meatloaf, the meal. 

The performer is not "Meatloaf," but Meat Loaf, aka Michael Lee Aday.

Erik_Squires.  Excellent writing skills.  Seriously.  Nice to read an author who sets up a subject and executes the take.

ps. Here at Chez Lang’s, meatloaf is a big pleaser.

@ghdprentice 

Audiophiles are crazy fanatics trying to reproduce music that sounds like the real thing, as accurately and nuanced as possible into the home. Most folks and certainly many on this forum are not audiophiles.

If you choose a particular seat in a particular venue, listen to a particular orchestra, and use it as the primary reference/baseline for your home system, that I can grasp (at least conceptually).

But to speak of "live music" as if it’s one thing, instead of countless performances by countless artists in different genres in countless venues with what can be wildly differing sonics, yes-- that seems crazy. One might as well say one is trying to reproduce restaurant food at home. 

My best goodbye, while heading out the door, I've ever heard is... "Hey, don't let your meat loaf". I don't know why that seems soooo darn funny, but it is.

As one who likes to add context and clarity to complex situations, I'd want to make a simple distinction between Meatloaf, the performer, and meatloaf, the meal.  I just happen to like both, in this case.

I am also a Bad Company fan.  But, certainly not a fan of bad company in my, or any other, home.

@erik_squires 👏✨👍😎

Obviously you hit a common nerve that didn't hurt.... Quite the contrary..

Genius

Perfect timing to start the weekend with, besides giving everyone to go off the rails if only for the while.  And the nerve being we're all the same in having more than one preference and expectations as to where 'Absolute Bliss' grinds down to 'That that we take the hose to dissolve It'.
And how big that span can be in us on just audio, beer, food....

A tiny slice of human pie chart.  The bulk of us have never met in person, but we've this vague image of each other that very likely has zilch in real time.

Anyway, Bravo! ...keep 'm coming. ;)

What conditions my systems recognize:

- AVL was a recent beer capital and it's only growing like the fungus in The Last Of Us....The latest is dedicating the South Slope of our downtown to the breweries.  I've no clue if they're ruining what are good to begin with adulterants of nearly anything you'd love or puke from.  I'm one to agree with a party participant back in Houston that "...light beer is a crime against humanity!"  Well put.

- I like black licorice....had some ice cream of that back in Oakland that was from an creamer that did custom short runs for the local swank restaurateurs...
Mary's would always run a 5 gal. test that ended up in the storefront.  Once was treated to a malt that ran the max butterfat.
I gained a pound, I swear.
Peter was a wiry guy who always was dressed in lederhosen....YES, always.
I was in the shop when a couple w/2 kids came in and asked for Rocky Road.
The momentary silence was electric.
Peter briskly told them that " we don't trifle with rocky road, but I'm sure the Dreyer's down and across the street will please you.  Good Day."
( The way they left the store was as if they were told to go to hell in a very firm delivery of condemnation without malice. )  

- Spouse Evelyn makes a beef/turkey/pork meatloaf that's better than my mothers'.
Mom was a NB farm girl from a brood of 12...granddad's organ apparently didn't have any stops...worked minor miracles in the dinky ass kitchen I grew up in.
Made peanut butter cookies with bacon grease (Yes...chunk less, but...) that I could trade at parochial school for nearly anything a child could...
Addictive....took awhile to retune to what a 'normal' PB cookie is...

Ev's is killer.
Recipe only if you're serious, PM.
 

Of course you are...   Have an excellent weekend, J

I use half ground pork in my recipe. Give a cow a break :)

Meatloaf.  Making the world a better place! Except for the cows.  Ground turkey meat loaf anyone?  Cows do not have a monopoly here. 

the civility, class and warmth of these comments is repulsive. Can we just go back to be ourselves?

I have had meatloaf in a 5 star restaurant and it was dang fine indeed. I have recently been enjoying my wife's organic ground turkey meatloaf and it is right up there, that good. I was doing a beer app at one time and tried, far more than one each, 600 new to me beers in one year and many were awful no matter how expensive or highly praised and only a few were outstanding. I like your analogy as it makes sense, we all have different taste based on our individual lifetimes of culture, exposure, and I think just plain differences in our DNA.  I have since stopped drinking alcohol, 17 months and not a drop and do not miss it. Part of that is having kidney issues and also after a lot of research finding out how beer, wine and others have some seriously unhealthy ingredients in them and not regulated or have to tell us about it. I am finding I just do not care to drink any longer and likely never will again.

Same goes for audio, makes sense, we all are a big different in our perception and taste, if one can be happy with a low budget system, great for them, if another loved to go after the best, to them, they can no matter the cost, great as well.

Rick

Meatloaf rocks! Best restaurant meatloaf I had was at the Collegiate, aka the Jet, in Alfred, NY, in 2019. A thick generous serving with a buttery mushroom gravy, amazing mash potatoes and a choice of veggies. With a huge apple pie ala mode, $20.

This thread reminds me of Jerry Garcia’s description of the Grateful Dead-"Not everybody likes licorice, but the people who like licorice really like licorice.”

Pass the ketchup, please.

@misc-audio. Easily the best damn post I’ve ever seen on this forum. Meatloaf? Love meatloaf, even bad meatloaf! IPA’s? Who ever thought of that junk? Hipsters? Well, yeah! Adding crap to beer? Well, then you just don’t like beer! Not to say others can disagree, but what audiophile doesn’t? Comparing meatloaf to audiophilia is a genius touch….the IPA gambit is something else. Highest praises here!

Food for thought.

I like meatloaf, but l don’t make a meal if it.

This post is just nuts…….. l had to double check l was still on the right site and double check…..yes you read that right, right?

And after reading all this l think l need a drink.

Seriously this has been so funny and has made my day.

I was a bit surprised by your comment. I too make meatloaf , my Mom's receipt and have never seen anyone who doesn't like it. Good with homemade mashed potatoes and scratch gravy. I use french bread crumbs and a bit of bbq sauce along with the ketchup. Makes a great cold sandwich the next day if there's any left over with mayo , horseradish and a slice or red onion.

Meatloaf used to coach the girls softball team in my town. Is that on topic? Also,  IPA seems to have taken over local breweries and I'm kinda tired of it. I prefer Belgian style or simply Guinness these days. Pilsner...

Not sure meat loaf related (meatloaf adjacent?) but last week we stayed in a small Arizona town with one restaurant, and it was packed, and no one had even been served so we left.

"Lets see what Dollar General has to offer" We got some of their frozen dinners and went back to motel and nuked them.

I got Salisbury Steak and mashed potato. If you are old enough you probably ate a lot of them growing up. It was divine, like I was tossed back 55 years into the past. The next night I ate 3 of them. They were on sale a $1 each. 

My wife got some pasta dishes and she liked her's too. 

My mom made a meatloaf where she rolled the beef out, laid down slices of ham and swiss and then rolled it up. 

Full disclosure- I'm a beer nut.

Certain beers are appropriate for special times and different seasons. I don't drink a dessert stout on the beach in summer but in winter in front of a fireplace, yum.

Also usually only drink heaver stouts late in a beer session, save them for the finale.

Lighter beers like Wits, hefes and blonds taste better in the warmer weather especially after yard work.

So match the style to the weather, food or other considerations.

I recently was in line buying 3 single craft beers for 30 bucks. The guy in front of me got a 30 pack of Natty Bo for 30 bucks. Occurred to me I had approx the same weight of barley and hops in my 3 as he had in 30. No judgement, horses for courses.

For me to totally agree with @nonoise and 100% disagree with @ghdprentice is unusual. 

Confit de canard (no caps required) is something of a French meatloaf, in spirit if not in preparation. Dunking quartered poultry in fat and letting it slowly braise while you do something else isn’t the stuff of Michelin stars. Meatloaf is actually harder to make than confit. I love both, by the way, and now I want to make some meatloaf!

I too disliked fruity beers in general, though sometimes a Kriek hit the spot, and breweries like the tragically departed Cascade Brewing made/make excellent fruit sours. But to be honest, the rise of incredibly talented local cidermakers and the fantastic ciders they produce is such that I hardly ever drink beer anymore.

You receive the Booker Award for Literature in the elegant way the analogy of meatloaf and beer leads to the thesis of showing respect for the music and equipment others appreciate.  The appreciation of genre, composition, performance, recording engineering, and playback engineering will always have subjective component based on psycho-acoustic science.  Therefore, respect of the opinion of others should be a given.  Like meatloaf and beer, we each have our own musical appreciation palette.  Well written and entertaining.  
 

PS:   I am a meatloaf lover.  My favorite is made with a beef, pork, veal combination … my Italian-American heritage.  I do not care for turkey at all.  A must is to be served over Romano/garlic mashed potatoes.  We agree IPA, each with its unique palette and finish, is the beverage accompaniment of choice and flavored beer is an “abomination”.  
 

I really enjoy meatloaf.  I have enjoyed many different kinds from people over the years. I like all kinds of beer, but not as much the sweeter brews. It is so nice to have such variety to partake of, both with music and food.  This is a great thread, thanks Erik. 

I think this is a question of semantics. I completely agree that there are all sorts of tastes among people that love music and buy equipment to reproduce it. Just as there are among eaters. However, there are common folks and epicureans. People who love ketchup on eggs and those a carefully prepared Confit de Canard and can tell nuances in it. 

An audiophile is a person who is passionate about high-fidelity sound reproduction. They strive to achieve the most accurate and enjoyable listening experience possible, focusing on capturing the nuances and subtleties of music. Sounding like the real thing.

There is a focus on accuracy... there is a target. Lots of folks have consumer products... they are not audiophiles because the output does not approach sounding like the real thing, and they don’t care. Some folks have very expensive systems with a wall of subwoofers... they are not audiophiles. They love music and systems that plaster you against the rear wall, but nuanced accuracy to the real thing is not there. There are folks that are into vintage gear that is incredibly warm and romantic, but is not approaching the real thing. Yes, you are correct, there are lots of tastes out there. 

There are also people with incredibly modest system who have spent hundreds and hundreds of hours choosing and tweaking their systems... wires all over the place... who have done incredible things to make their system outperform and sound more like the real thing than folks with a lot more money invested who’s system doesn’t sound real. They are audiophiles.

I think I understand the point of the post... audiophiles have different tastes. With that I must respectfully disagree. Audiophiles are crazy fanatics trying to reproduce music that sounds like the real thing, as accurately and nuanced as possible into the home. Most folks and certainly many on this forum are not audiophiles. Not an insult... doesn’t mean they are not passionate about equipment and the sound they like and love music. 

There are other categories of folks. High end enthusiasts for instance, audio.

While I have no doubt that one to the great chiefs of the world, or maybe even the OP could produce a epicurean meatloaf... in modern language meatloaf and beer (as in six pack Joe) allude to simple tastes and big flavors not nuanced, complex and carefully balanced as the audiophile would require in his sound in order to reproduce music well. 

@erik_squires 

Turkey Meatloaf is a favourite around here. Back in my home brewing days an IPA or Pilsner Urquell like beer was on tap in five gallon soda containers. (I may have become somewhat carried away with home brewing.) Blueberry flavoured beer is gross. 

My  meatloaf can beat up your meatloaf.

Lisa Douglas made hot cakes that doubled as hockey pucks

I have a mild form of tourettes syndrome- way back in my 20s went to a friend's apt for dinner, his wife was a newbie to cooking.

She brings out a too liquidity meatloaf that had flattened out and misshapen.

I said "it looks like an elephant turd". She still calls it that to me.

No flavored beer or coffee, please.  Why cover up the flavor of what already tastes good?  And IPA's are misunderstood.  Ice cold they are bitter.  Try one about 50-55 degrees and you might change your mind. Oh, and Bat out of Hell is way overproduced [sorry, Todd], but it's great on the car stereo.  

Love the meatloaf dinner at Twin Peaks and they have a great selection of adult beverages. 

Love meatloaf; hate flavored beer - all I want is beer in my beer.  I don't even like light beer - I want full-flavored: I helped empty countless coolers of Busch Light in college, but now I want quality, not quantity.

The parallel to music is an interesting one.  We want to share what we like because we genuinely want to spread the joy, as a religious disciple would want to spread the word.  But I also know that my own passionate advocacy has rarely landed: "You really like that?"  Yes, I do, and I am confident enough in my taste that I am perfectly comfortable being the only person I know who genuinely loves all the obscure 80's underground bands that I enjoy exploring and devouring.  So what if nobody I know ever shares my love for Guadalcanal Diary or Naked Prey or Green on Red; my ears are the only ones I really need to please.

I make meatloaf wrapped in bacon and smothered in Sweet Baby Rays bbq sauce and Guinness Stout. I like my system with my ProAc studio monitors or my baby Maggie’s. Not much for beer or tea that tastes like fruit or flowers.

I like meatloaf just fine, but IPA's? AACK! Both the tastes and the smells of those things offend my senses. But then, the only 'beers' I really like are hand-pulled 'traditional' or 'Best Bitter' cask ales that I get in the UK when I'm there visiting... 

@hickamore 

Maybe I missed something here. Have we some reason to suspect that audiophiles’ tastes in food are markedly different from those of the "ask your smart speaker to play X" crowd?

Yes, I think you missed the entire meaning of my post which was focused on human nature and how we promote things we like to others, whether that be food or music or stereo equipment and the difficulties we face when others don’t feel the same way.

Maybe in the future I'll write a post on how we filter and re-imagine what we hear and read through our own lenses.

Maybe I missed something here. Have we some reason to suspect that audiophiles' tastes in food are markedly different from those of the "ask your smart speaker to play X" crowd? I personally am only a "B" level audiophile, but an "A" level gastronome who has not touched conventional American meat loaf in maybe 50 years. On the other hand, I recall a superb minced veal terrine with cornichons in gelée; a langoustine terrine in lime aspic; and likely a squab version that I can't quite recall to mind. 

In the interest of full disclosure I've been partial to the Voodoo Ranger Juice Force line lately, but that's as far as I'm willing to go. 

I just had knee replacement surgery.  Far and away the best meal in the hospital was meat loaf and mashed potatoes.  And like Eric I detest fruit beers.

Timely, as I had meatloaf for dinner last night. I left the recipe to Costco in this case, however I am capable of making a pretty decent one myself. 

Great points on personal tastes, the wide variety of speakers is proof of that.

Great post @erik_squires 
 

I am in 100% agreement with you.  Thursday night meatloaf was a staple growing up and there’s a restaurant near me that still has it only on Thursday’s. And I to can’t stand fruity beers and the sour crap the sell.

I love meatloaf sandwiches 🥪. My wife cooks an awesome meatloaf.  My amplifier is awesome too so there IS a connection between meatloafs and amplifiers. This post is so enlightening 🙂

  Not liking meatloaf is just un-American! That's a tongue in cheek statement for anyone getting ready to blow a gasket. I know lots of people who don't like it, and I'm fine with that. For myself, I love it so much that I had to learn to make my own. BTW, @erik_squires, I like to add a healthy dash of Worcestershire sauce to mine during the mixing. 

  Addressing the issue of beer, another indulgence I partake of, I even went so far as to buy a chiller refrigerator to keep mine slightly below freezing. Though I'm not nearly as adventurous as @erik_squires when it comes to trying new beers. I did recently try a new to me brand with an offering named after an arrogant fellow of questionable birthright. It was absolutely the most horrible tasting ale I have ever drank, and I had no problem sending the five and two thirds remaining cans down the drain, though I did feel guilty for treating my plumbing that way! 

  As to our chosen hobby, I can honestly say that I've never put another enthusiast down because of their choice of equipment or the music they choose to play on it. That type of judgement is rude and uncalled for. Tonal preferences are as individual as birthmarks, and everyone of us has their own idea of what reproduced music should sound like. How we each address that issue with our choice of equipment should never be a cause of dissent amongst us. This is, after all, just a hobby, not a life threatening event. 

Your post has me thinking about bands and musicians that are named after food.  You can’t go wrong with Meatloaf or meatloaf or Meat Loaf cause 2 out of 3 ain’t bad.  

@cleeds

Thanks, I was aware of that but took artistic license for the sake of humor. 

@erik_squires you have out done yourself. If I recall correctly on my first post you were the only one who found something nice to say and I’ve always been interested in what you have to say since. This is a seriously well written and thought provoking post. Thanks for taking the time to share.