Has Beer Become a Luxury Item?

Seems like it wasn’t long ago that beer in the US was the sole province of the working man. Today, however, it’s revered by many as one might revere a fine wine or spirit—with an attitude and price tag to match. Proper glassware, serving temperatures and decanting methods are hotly debated. Being able to decipher ingredients, having a thesaurus in your palate, and bragging that you’re “friends” with the brewer have become commonplace for those in the know about beer. Chefs are pairing and cooking with beer. Consumers are “trading up” to better beer, paying upwards of $25 to $125 for a single bottle, and restaurants and bars are slowly starting to cater to this demand by offering vintage beer lists.

Clearly, this sort of thing isn’t just for wine anymore.

Is any of this a bad thing? Hell, no! Personally, we’re all about elevating the image of beer, getting geeky with it, promoting new ways of looking at beer, and advocating all of this to the masses—so long as the enjoyment of beer isn’t terminally snobbified in the process.

Beer ascendance does bring up an interesting point, though. Many mainstream beer drinkers do, in fact, view specialty beers as luxury items, simply because they tend to cost a few bucks more than their fizzy yellow brew. That’s all well and good, but in our opinion, beer still has a long way to go before it’s viewed as a high-end luxury item by the masses.

With that in mind, we offer the following checklist. Once beer satisfies all the criteria listed below, we can all luxuriate in our snobbery. So, all together now, you know beer has become a luxury when…

1. You hear Westvleteren 12 and Dark Lord Imperial Stout shoutouts in rap lyrics.
2. Beer bars overnight fresh specialty beers from Japan.
3. A fridge full of Arrogant Bastard appears on MTV Cribs.
4. Virgin Airlines offers vintage Thomas Hardy’s Ale in first class.
5. Celebrities start demanding Utopias on their riders.
6. People toast with Bière de Champagne instead of cheap Champagne on New Year’s Eve.
7. Cruise ships are christened with Duvel jeroboams.
8. As a standard, upscale restaurants offer menus listing strong and vintage selections from their beer cellars to complement their existing line-up of fine single malts and Ports.
9. Music videos feature rappers and their hos chillin’ with bottles of DeuS (on lease) in hot tubs.
10. We have to go to court for allegedly assaulting paparazzi with a magnum of Cantillon. Honestly, it was the Shelton Brothers!

So yeah, beer’s not even close to becoming a luxury item … yet. In the meantime, it’s nice to see it slowly rising to the occasion and getting the respect it deserves.

Respect Beer. ■