OMG Beer Snobs

A lot of people seem awfully concerned about not coming across as "old curmudgeons," as if any hint of not being on top of the latest crest of a cultural wave is some unimaginable social offense. Call it "competitive progressivism." Some changes are good, and some are bad. Some will stand the test of time, and some will prove regrettable fads. People inevitably will disagree as to which are which. I say call out what you consider the negative changes as well as the positive ones. That balanced conversation among consumers is a non-trivial part of the market deciding; considering advice from fellow consumers is as old of a practice as exchange itself. There's no need pathetically to tuck your tail in fear that someone will hit you with an "Old Man Yells At Cloud" meme. In fact, doing so introduces a thoughtless inherent bias in favor of novelty for the sake of novelty.

 

It's hard to find a brown ale or porter in a lot of taprooms lately. I love ipas, lately been drinking more pale ales. I have the occasional NE style. I enjoy my share of imp stouts. I just would like some more variety outside of those two styles, especially in taprooms. I suppose fall will bring some of that though.

 

I treat snobbish comments and an old reactionary's droning the same way I respond to my neighbor's dog barking in the night by simply ignoring it because, after all, it's just noise.

 

In the long run the market will determine what is available to us to drink, what sells is what gets made and what is offered. There are a lot of newer styles out there for those who want to try them. Some I enjoy, some not so much. Call me an old curmudgeon I really do not care, but I miss the availability of British beers that we once had here in the U.S.

 

Well, so far at least, this is going better than I thought it would.

 

We all think back to times when things seemed better, and there is always gonna be that curmudgeonly side of being older and wiser, of knowing things that folks newer and younger haven't learned due to be newer and younger. But the idea that things were better back in time is largely the result of inaccurate whimsy and nostalgic longing for those days themselves, for our younger selves alive in them.

 

Well, you know, that’s just like, your opinion, man.

 

I remember the "good old days" having things like Michelob and Heinekin as top shelf offerings. Innovative new beers were things like Miller Genuine Draft, Bud Dry and "Ice" beers. The good old days were awful. We are living in a beer wonderland. There are more good beers now than I could ever possibly drink. Long live the new days!!

 

Get off my lawn !!!!!

 

I think the OP has it backwards. The "beer snobs" are the latest and greatest beer seekers no matter what age they are.

 

Agree. My experience is there are far more beer snobs among the 20-somethings than among the 40+somethings.

 

Wait, you want the average American consumer to dictate what you get to drink?!

 

What'd the guy even say there towards the end. I think that the tasting experience is a big part of beer. You have to expect the curmudgeon. I like mine this way. "I remember when" if that experience disappears. What brought me to beer was the variation in style. i am already curmudgeony.

 

Everyone's welcome to have their opinions about the current state of craft beer. Just don't bang on about how we're living in a beer wonderland. If you can't objectively see that there is a significant downside to what's happening in craft beer these days, you are drinking the craft beer Kool-Aid.

No. It was about unfair taxation.

Yes . . . long live the days when every tap list is 50% hoppy beer and 75% of the beers on the shelves are as well. I think that it's great that wonderful traditional imports from Europe are getting harder and harder to find and styles other than the handful that provide the most obvious of aromas and flavors are as well. Yes, what a beer wonderland!

 

Yeah . . . that oughta be a hoot.

 

Snobs that usually know next to nothing about beer. Hilarious.

 

I agree with you agreeing. At 39, I'm def too old to be young, but not old enough to really have "good old days."

The youngin's are relentless in their snobbery.

 

I reject this revisionist history of what came to be called "craft beer" in the US as being all about "innovation".

It simply wasn't - at least, in the beginning decades. Maytag revived an all-but-extinct US beer style (steam beer) and then brewed a porter (originally bottom fermented- which had been typical for many lager brewers who offered the style), a hoppy ale, a wheat beer and a barleywine. All styles that had formerly been common in the US (save for the barleywine, borrowed from the UK - although there certainly had been well-hopped strong "stock" ales of that sort brewed in the US).

The early portfolios of the other early microbrewers followed the same template - hoppy ales, brown ales, porters, stouts, wheat beers, all-malt, highly hopped, amber lagers - beers that had all but or completely disappeared from US brewers' lineups.

Jack McAuliffe took the name of his brewery from a defunct California company and learned the trade by studying 19th century texts. A decade later, Jim Koch's early promotion for his Samuel Adams Boston Lager emphasized that it was based on a family recipe dating from the late 1800s, and he was the fourth (or fifth or sixth - sources vary ) generation of Koch brewers. Brooklyn hired a brewmaster whose family brewed for generations to create their flagship lager based on pre-Pro era beers..

Craft was started by "backward" looking people - those trying to revive or preserve US brewing styles, not those trying to create "New!" "Improved!" flavored beers.

"Innovation"? That was the forte of the large US brewers - light lager, low calorie light beer, bottled/canned "real draft" beer (i.e., unpasteurized, micro-filter), low-hopped neo-cream ales, ice beer, red beer, dry beer. Beers brewed in computerized automated brewhouses using liquid hop extract, syrup adjuncts, force-carbing, sped-up lagering/aging. Modern brewing industry "Innovation" was what the early craft brewers were rebelling against.

 

It's funny because the upper 30-something craft beer friend I have scoffs at the idea of consuming PBR or Bud Light, meanwhile my younger friends are just as cool with a Two Hearted or local IPA release as they are with a cold Stag or Miller Lite.

Guess this is turning into another older generation v. newer generation debate. To be more on topic - there will always be 'frenchy-style wine snobs' in every interest area. It's up to each individual whether you'll hear them out or go about enjoying your life otherwise. Personally, I'll enjoy the beer I please. If it makes me snobby for turning down one beer for another, then I guess I'm a snob.