Why is "beer journalism" so bad?

As a beer writer that has been in Beer Advocate, Taps, All About Beer etc a lot over the past 15 years, what is hard to stomach is the amount of beer writers that write in the first person. The writer should be writing about beer not themselves. Writing in the first person is just lazy writing and these writers come across as overly narcissistic or ******ed. Now when this reader picks up a magazine and sees the first person over used in an article I just start counting how many times "I" is and if incessant just stop reading the article.

Also not enough beer writers make the subject fun, they seem to get lost in the glass and over describe what is in the glass all the time boring the FUCK out of the reader or at least this reader. This scribe purposely keeps all favour profiles to a sentence or less and tries to keep things fun and moving.

 

Any time you are an enthusiast of a subject the quality of mainstream journalism on that subject will seem terrible. It's not meant for you. It's meant for the 95% of people who don't know the subject. A quality journalist can communicate on the level of the casual observer and possibly get them interested enough in the subject to take the leap to the next level, but the reader still has to do the work to get there.

There are plenty sources made for enthusiasts whether the interest is Beer, Cars, Politics, Physics, Music, Travel, Food, whatever.

It does certainly feel good to latch on to one of the subjects I am knowledgeable in use that as the litmus test for how dumbed down I think the rest of the world is. That's always fun.

 

Is this mag not cutting it then? http://www.brewingnews.com/southernbrew/

 

I did not know about this. Thank you

 

This is why i hate people ... they write dumb articles!

 

I prefer to write in the second person.

 

You are one of the writers that this reader and writer enjoys reading

 

Too many beer "experts" and too few beer guides.

 

You get what you pay for.

 

Because we're kinda a bunch of snobby bitches - if a journalist makes a mistake calling a wheatwine a barleywine, we shred them for not knowing as much as us. Or if they forget to mention one of our favorite limited production beers that they can't even find, we rip them. Or if they put togther a list that includes something that is out of favor this month (see the threads around the GI sale to AB), we think they're stupid. We're ultra critical and most journalist have been assigned the story and are newbies and we know how we treat most newbies that try to trade their 4-pack of KBS for some white whale., shred-time.

 

As mentioned earlier, I'm pretty sure that there's a lot of articles being written by people who aren't completely into beer. They're given a story and write about it in a way that assumes that the reader doesn't know anything about it. I'd assume that the writer doesn't know much about it themselves in most situations. Not everyone writing articles nerds out as hard as people on this site.

I rarely read beer reviews because they are all subjective to the person's palate. Someone could say "This is the best __insert beer style__ I've ever tasted". But unless you know what they've tried in the past and their preferences, it is difficult to get a frame of reference.

I pretty much only read the "Top" or "Best Of" articles to look at the comments of people bitching about why their favorite beer didn't make it to number one. However, the "Top Beer Bars" and similar articles are pretty handy for when I'm traveling.

 

The crap money that's paid doesn't help. It makes any research that lasts more that 5 minutes financially impractical.

 

Ale Street is great reporting. Their local guy is super knowledgeable, and really a nice man to sit and talk with over a beer or five.

 

While I find this to be a complete contradiction, I will use it to springboard to my point. I do what you recommend not doing (reading reviews), for the exact reason that you use to explain why you are unable to trust others' opinions.

By reading many reviews of the top reviewers I found two men, Beerchitect and Buckeyenation, who have palates I trust completely, and I find that if they like or recommend something I will almost certainly like it as well.

This to me is the main purpose of this site, and I am always surprised and startled to hear folks proudly, and seemingly knowledgeably ,declare that they don't read nor use this site's reviews.

 

How is it a contradiction? I don't like reading reviews that are found in a local news paper or other non-beer media sources because they're typically redundant and rarely give me any useful information unless the beer is infected or just plain awful. I'm not refering to this site or other beer specific news/media outlets.

I'm fully aware that I can seach people's review history here - although I also don't like reading reviews on this site. This is just my own preference and not a matter of trust. I'd rather discover beers by myself and make my own unbiased opinion before tasting something. There has been plenty of beers that I have thoroughly enjoyed, then looked them up later on to get some bit of information (ABV, Brewery location etc), to find that they weren't rated very high. I may have passed those up had I did my searches and read my reviews before hand.

 

Point for comparison: Is wine journalism good?

This is not rhetorical, I have no idea. My sense is that the answer is probably no.

 

It's a contradiction because you said contradictory things, as I pointed out with what I quoted. Now you say a bunch of different things. I wonder about why you have your opinions, or how you came to those opinions?

You have every right to post those things. As I do to comment and inquire. Cheers!

 

is someone using Kendall's blog name on the PI website? I find www.washingtonbeerblog.com to be rather informative.

 

You've got people that are in it because of their interest, not necessarily because they are writers. I see sports journalism this way, too.

I think it's quite possible to have quality beer journalism that appeals to craft snobs (us) and plebes. It's all in how a writer weaves a story.

 

I never implied that you don't have a right to post or respond to me. I'm merely just trying to get a bit of clarity on your comment since it was directed towards me. I think we may have misunderstood each other. I don't recommend that anyone stop reading reviews. People can do whatever they want and if it helps them or they enjoy it, then that's great, but I personally just don't find reviews particulally useful or interesting and I stopped reading them a long time ago. This ESPECIALLY goes towards non-beer publications that have articles about craft beer.

My opinion for not reading reviews is derived from me tasting beers that I've enjoyed but were poorly rated. I have also expereienced the contrary (highly rated beers that I didn't like). If something is directing me in the wrong direction, then they those reviews aren't functional to me and the writer doesn't align with my own preferences. I'm not to saying that they aren't functional to others or that the people writing them don't know what they're talking about. Only I can align with my own preferences and I like to formulate my own opinions. One of my favorite things about this time in beer is traveling around the country and finding new beers that I enjoy at new breweries all over the place without relying on a strangers crtique which may or may not know what they're talking about. I don't really think that it's too outlandish for me to say that.

There are plenty of great writers out there that obviously have extensive knowledge and I'd assume that those people are writing for beer-centric publications (Draft, BeerAdvocate print edition, Ale Street), but should the reader of a generic publication (XYZ newspaper) need to research the authors history to know if they have a clue of what they're tasting? Unfortunately I'd assume that whenever that XYZ Newspaper publishes these articles, they don't find someone that has a true passion or knowledge of beer, which can lead to misinformation being distributed.

That's one of the reasons why while reading a magazine or other non-internet publication, my preference of reading material goes towards bars and breweries to visit, places to drink and events to go to. Any decent journalist can visit a place and figure out if it sucks or not - regardless if they taste the beer. I travel all over country for 80-90% of the year and use these articles as reference points for fun places for me to visit while on the road. For the most part, these articles haven't steered me wrong.

To me, it's interesting to read about how a brewery was started from the ground up or how someone came up with an idea for a legendary beer bar, or reading recipes for cooking with beer. That's the type of beer related journalism that gets me more interested. I don't like reading a review of a beer in a random non-beer centric newspaper or website where the author may or may not have any interest or knowledge of the subject and may just be writing a review for the sole reason of getting a paycheck.