What Comes After the Beer Snob?

Here's the passage that stuck out to me-
"Here’s a thought, though: Maybe if macro brewers dialed back the populist messaging, and if so many craft brewers didn’t lean into the whole flavor-exploding-iconoclast thing so much, the beer world wouldn’t feel so binary."

But here's the thing- the recent "craft beer world" sure presents itself as a binary one (and thanks for that, Brewers Assoc. ) ; the world of the "beer enthusiast" , a la Michael Jackson, isn't. Two different subsets of people. I have always counted myself among the latter. This whole piece came across as totally missing the point to me.

 

The piece comes off as a cool person trying to be so cool that he's too cool for just one little definition of cool.

And the theory of poptimism is a terrible starting point for some of us. I love a ton of pop music. I also love James McMurtry.

My world isn't binary. Not in music nor beer. I know the world is binary for some, but I think the writer is caught up in the idea that it exists for all. Seems awfully shortsighted for someone capable of using so many polysyllabic words and modifying clauses.

 

Tell me about it. My thought when I read that part was that Beyonce and Springsteen are a lot closer on the music spectrum that this clown can even imagine .

 

After beer snob, I'm planning to become a wine snob and a chocolate snob. As for the article, I gave up at Slate.

 

Hahaha! Yeah, that's about what I was thinking ... The Beatles, Michael Jackson and Springsteen ran through my mind. U2 just did, too.

 

"Can't we all just get along?"

 

I agree! That is a great term "beer enthusiast"! Very positive. It describes me perfectly and maybe many others. No two of us are exactly alike...other than our enthusiasm for this ancient beverage.

The writer actually lost me at "...beer is also made from things that grow from our fickle, dying earth." For what it's worth, I think this is the best planet in the neighborhood to live on! Yeah!

Sorry, I've been drinking.

 

Yes, but I really dig your enthusiasm .

 

As*hole

 

I agree with your thinking. For some, the binary perspective is very real, but it's not a perspective that allows any real perspective.

You know you're in for a limited ride when an argument uses an analogy in order to illuminate, but the starting point of the analogy is presented too simplisticly. It's not like rock music was always taken seriously... serious pop appreciation didn't begin in 2006... and there's no clear line between rock and pop as two distinct things. I'm trying to say that if you simplify the groundwork you won't get far.

Case in point - can you really call Shaun Hill a "beer poptimist" because of one comment he made? The author is certainly force fitting his beers into a ill-fitting box.

Apologies for nitpicking the author's work.

 

I get what he is saying, kinda. Don't look down on people that enjoy what they enjoy. If someone wants to listen to the latest top 40 hits while downing bud, that's their choice.

In many ways both Pop music and macro brewing has been reduced to a science. Pop music has been dissected to a point they can mathematically create tunes that people will enjoy. The big Macros have done the same thing with brewing, making something a large part of society can enjoy without thinking. That is an accomplishment, and an astounding one. However, this article seems to rail against music that takes some human creativity and beer that has flavor. Are we entering an age where the Bud Light/Miller/Heineken drinkers are the snobs? If flavor and music with soul is wrong, I don't want to be right.

I guess if I want to stay cool I better start pounding back natty and jamming out to Beyonce, because that's what's really important in life. Being cool

 

After " Beer snob " I plan on becoming a corpse six feet under the ground.

Either through liver failure or some other means

 

I'm continually amazed at how many "journalists" abhor the beer geek. I see it as a product of craft beer's relative youth. Wine snobs have been around for a long time, still exist, and don't seem to be annoying food writers in droves. In another 40 years, craft beer will be the same.

I suppose craft beer is simply finding its place in popular culture, but man, people who write about popular culture are the worst.

 

Wine Snob.

Ppossibly Tequila Snob.

 

DUDE! *You* should've written the article.

Analogies help my little brain understand things, but you're right about them. They don't make great foundations for court cases, or at least I wouldn't think they would. But then what do I know?

I'd just love to beat this dude with a copy of the "White Album". Or maybe _The Joshua Tree_.

And now I'm confused about what do I do with the first six or seven Chicago albums? Do I appreciate those as fantastically sophisticated music or chuck 'em because they're pop?

Jake Tuck, you jackass! You would supposedly write for McSweeny's. I even *like* McSweeny's!

 

. . . and a cheese snob over here. The idea is to berate those, albiet with intelligent sounding sentences, who prefer something that is in fact better than something else. Is craft beer better than budwizer? It is. Is it better than miller high life. It is. I am just as entitled to my opinion no matter how long it takes me to say that. That makes me a conoisseur not a snob. Just like when I prefer gruyere to kraft singles. As for music There's crappy music everywhere just like there's crappy food and drink every where. Just because it's familiar and just because you can sing along and feel part of a larger mentality does not make it the standard you should accept. Pinkies up people. We, as a group of snobs in general it seems, are not the lowest common denominator.

 

Maybe if I can just find one little way of looking at this over worked, over cliche'd, outdated, ridiculous, topic I can squeeze some clicks out of folks who were already sick of reading about this made up issue before I tried my first sip of beer- the author rationalizing to himself writing this piece of trash