Share your "Beer Nerd Alert!" stories.

I think you'll find most of us here try to spread the love. After all, the name of the site is Beer Advocate.

I don't see what you did as snobbish in the least. Snobbish to me is if you turned to your wife and said, "Look at those clueless morons not drinking the great bottles, fucking noobs!"

Perhaps folks are confused about what is the point of this thread because advocating craft beer, especially to folks new to the hobby, is such a common thing for us to do we don't consider it something to bother remembering or commenting about

 

I'm more concerned about the kid being left in the car. That's a disaster waiting to happen and a beer is not worth it.

 

Not being pious - just stating a fact - I’ve never left my kids in the car to sleep. That said, OP mentioned this:

“(i.e the patio and the parking lot are next to each other)”

So I’m guessing at least one of them stayed close by and had eyes on the car the entire time. The other day we were back in Scotland. Went with some friends to an awesome coffee shop (made out of converted shipping containers) on the top of a cliff. When we got there my kids were awake, but my friends’ kid was sleeping. They got the very closest parking spot to the outdoor tables, had both doors wide open, and were never more than 10 yards away. That’s fine IMO (vs cracking the window and going to the mall which is obviously fing stupid). My impression was this scenario was similar.

Otherwise nice story OP - you seem to have gotten a tough crowd. Presumably nursing LD weekend hangovers.

 

When standing in a line for cans I often find that those either in front of or behind me creating conversation that gives me the unpleasant feeling that we are having a contest to determine who the more dedicated beer nerd is between the two (or more) of us.

I also frequently get the vibe that the other folks are looking for their new out of town beer trading partner.

I'm basically just there to pick up cans or bottles. Already have enough friends or acquaintances, desire no further complications.

Small talk is fine I guess, exchanging beer resumes and posing is not my thing.

Not necessarily saying this is what the op was doing, really just a general observation.

 

TL,DR after part about leaving kid in car so you could go drink.

 

Heat, some maniac stealing the kid, etc. Agreed and unfortunately a sign of the times.

My older brother used to walk 8 NYC blocks, unaccompanied by an adult, to elementary school every day in the mid-60's and nobody thought a thing of it.

 

Where I live people are told if you see a child asleep and alone in a car call the police.
I'm guess that his point is it's enjoyable to talk about beer with people you don't know.

 

I don’t think that happened in this case.

 

Go hit a bigger beer release, there’s guys in line sharing what would be considered rare beers and pouring freely from their stash. Hell, I got better beers standing in line vs the beers I was there to buy. But it’s completely normal, beer geeks love to share their beer.

 

Perhaps, but he's also correct. I have no idea what the point is supposed to be here.

 

What I took away from the story was that if we put down our phones/technology/move away from the tv/etc. and go out into the world and interact with people by treating them nicely and being friendly then we have a pretty nice and friendly world outside of the shitty stuff we hear about on the news.

 

a very real component

I would bring the bottle home, if the regs of the brewery allowed me to, and brought it home to consume with family and possibly with friends.

For me, the "beer community" is essentially a virtual reality.

It's the value of Beer Advocate to me.

I don't see this as any less an expression of beer advocacy than going to breweries and making new, superficial "friends" may be.

Once again, not saying you have condemned this approach, just acknowledging it as a very real side of modern day "advocacy"

Drinking some Surly Todd the Axe Man that the wife brought back from Wiconia, MN this week.

Cheers folks.

 

Probably could have used "beer advocate alert" as the title. Congratulations on your maturity (kid issues aside)

 

I edited the story for you. Makes sense to me now. Always a nice experience to share good beers with people. Cheers.

 

Beer geeks are the most generous of guys/gals, they share seats, tents, beers, food.

 

I really enjoy beer conversations with people I meet out and about. Just two days ago my wife and I were doing a three brewery trip to pick up donations for her charity event. At the first stop (Athletic Brewing a non-alcohol brewer, but impressive tasting beers) we met a group of three younger guys that were on a 5-brewery tour to get their CT Brewer Trail pamphlet stamped. My wife and I gave them lengthy descriptions of 6 or 7 CT breweries and their beers that we have been to but they had not yet. Great conversation and we ended up seeing them later at Two Roads and Tribus. They were like our new beer friends for the day.