https://reveries.com/cool_news/2004/october/oct_14b.html
Farmhouse Ales. “No one has damaged the reputation of beer as much as the big beer companies, which through their own advertising have created the unfortunate image of the beer lover as bottom feeder,” writes Eric Asimov in The New York Times (10/13/04). “Nonetheless,” he continues, “the fans are on a crusade to prove that traditional beer, not the insipid supermarket stuff, is as fine a drink as wine to grace the table, if not better.” That crusade, says Eric, starts with “farmhouse ales … historically the products of an agricultural society. In the days before refrigeration, when summer was too hot for brewing, farmers in the French-speaking part of Belgium and across the border in France made beer in the winter and spring that they could put away for summer consumption.”