Craft Beer Snobs

Meh, I like Sam Adams better. Sierra Nevada make hoppy beers more often, people here like hoppy beers. Sam Adams make more approachable beer, most beer geeks could care less about that. It takes talent to make good approachable beer (why people confuse approachable with "mediocre" ?), that Sam Adams clearly makes.

 

Fwiw, it seems like you read that post wrong. He was being ironic/sarcastic with that part that you were replying to.

 

It's certainly more that those two breweries were appealing to different segments of the market. At this point in time, however, I'd have to agree with those who say that Sam Adams has diluted their legacy with too much fluff. However, they did build their name on some quality beers; and the Boston Lager was indeed stellar when it was 'on'.

 

For the life of me I can't begin to answer this. I love craft beer and have got non-craft beer friends to accept some of them but if they still like their macro beers as well it's all good.

 

I was being sarcastic and mocking the OP.

A person gets lectured in real life and hates it so they go online and lecture others about their experience, irony. Must be the ranger fan in you that doesn't see the joke ("king henrik" has no crown)

 

Boston Beer Company has made all sorts of beers, some of them remarkably unapproachable (Triple Bock and Utopias leap to mind). Sierra Nevada has made all sorts of beers, many of them not at all notably hoppy. I'm calling Boston Beer Company mediocre because most (though not all) of its beers, outside of its flagship, are roughly middling, whether considered broadly or by the standards of their respective styles.

I shouldn't minimize the merits of Boston Lager. It's a solid beer that struck a chord with consumers, although there were other, German-oriented microbreweries in the 1980s making good Viennas that didn't take off. Jim Koch of Boston Beer Company, like John Hall, who founded Goose Island, is a businessman first and foremost, whereas Ken Grossman of Sierra Nevada was a brewer first even if he eventually grew into a wildly successful businessman. It's the studio trying to make and succeeding in making a blockbuster v. the obscure auteur whose movie was so good that it became an unexpected hit.

All that said, Jim Koch has been a great ambassador for craft beer, and one could make a compelling case that his marketing efforts make him more responsible for the explosive growth in craft beer and craft breweries than any other individual. And Triple Bock and Utopias truly did push the boundaries of beer, even though that boundary-pushing in itself always was a marketing scheme (it was more about gaining attention for having made those extreme beers than actually getting them in the hands of consumers). Again, I have nothing against Boston Beer Company, but it's obvious to me why beer geeks don't treat it with the reverence that they* do Sierra Nevada.

* Well, at least some of them. The fact that someone just lumped Sierra Nevada with Sam Adams and basically asked "What's the difference?" suggests that newer beer geeks don't comprehend Sierra Nevada's historical creative significance.

 

FWIW I would suggest that Anchor Liberty Ale was the beginning of 'modern' craft IPA beers and that beer was introduced in 1975.

I am a big fan of Celebration Ale and I buy that beer every fall when it comes out.

Cheers!

P.S. My suggestion is that 'modern' craft IPAs are those beers which feature newly developed American aroma hops; which is Cascade Hops in the case of Liberty Ale.

 

Pick your battles. The kind of establishments you are choosing and that are deciding to not sell any of the beers you listed as your choices are definitely picking theirs, and sorry to inform you. Your personal choices in beer are not going to be a part in that. Since you bring up agism by zeroing in on millennials. There are several decades of reasons why such brands are not going to be served in a craft oriented eating establishment.

 

I wonder, are beer snobs comfortable in a group with other snobs? I mean, do they try to outsnob each other or just sit around sneering at we less gifted folks.

 

I never

I never understood the love for siera Nevada. It never agreed with me .same goes for Sam adam's.

I too do not understand why anyone cares what someone else's like a or dislikes when it comes to beer . everything is an aquired taste.

I use to see someone drinking a pabst blue ribbon and I would ask then how do they drink that crap never thinking or considering they may be short on cash like I have been as of late and been forced to drink natural ice.

I will take a good micro brew anytime but if I have the funds I enjoy a Guinness or paulander wheet almost as much.

 

Well written and I really like your prospective!

....and then you lost me.

So sad...

 

Tongue firmly in cheek on that last part. There's no sarcasm font on the internet.

 

While not a snob, I won't touch Budweiser simply because I dislike the taste.

 

Funny for this old fuck, me, to read about craft beer snobs, when back in the early 80's it was all about Big Beer Snobs who looked down on us all as misguided, un-American idiots drinking dark, bitter, nasty shit from Europe.

I drink all the beer I like, try not to be a snob like those AAL folks back in the day, and I recommend the same for everyone.

 

Don’t have to be that old or go back to the 80s to remember the Big Beer Snobs doing the ridiculing.

 

I just don't like many people in general. So I'll take my beer and drink at home!

 

Yeah, that "let 'em have their peach . . ." commercial was fairly recent.

 

Well... it can be argued there's a reason that commercial works...

 

Oh sure, plenty of market research went into it I'm certain, my point was the bashing beat goes on.

 

What about Duff?