Issue 7 of the magazine just went to the printers, so it's been a crazy week or so hence no posts. Consequently there is a backlog of things for me to get off my chest...
The first is beer snobbery. I love beer and I want to see it become a more valued drink. I want to see interesting lists served at good restaurants, I want to hear people talk about the hop aroma and malt profile and I want to see people care about how they store their beers and drink them from glasses. I think It's important that people know the difference between a lager and an ale. That is all about the enjoyment of beer - respecting it and not mindlessly guzzling it. What I don't want to see is beer become wine with the all of the posing and posturing and the one-upmanship that comes from supposedly knowing more than the bloke at the bar next to you.
Yesterday, I was introduced to a guy that "loves his beer and knows all about it, he tries new ones all the time". We had a brief chat during which I offered him a bottle of one of the beers that I had on me from a tasting I had conducted. It was from a small brewery and I thought he may not have tried it before. "No thanks, I've tried it," he said in a way that suggested he didn't think too much of it.
"How would you rate it," asked the pub owner who introduced us.
"Five out of ten," pronounced the connoisseur without hesitation.
This genuinely surprised me as I really enjoy this particular beer, it's well regarded by others and the beer has done well at various competitions.
"What didn't you like about it," I enquired, expecting an considered answer about hop and malt balance or some such, given the authority with which the rating had been pronounced.
"Don't like the style," was the reply.
Now, there are a stack of styles that I don't like...the previously mentioned low-carb lagers being an example. I'm also not a lover of highly-hopped IPAs - which puts me out of step with most latter day craft beer lovers - but there is a huge difference between not liking a style and not thinking that a particular beer is a well-made, balanced, true-to-style example of a style. This distinction is important. This guy was introduced to me as someone who "knows his beers" and either deliberately or inadvertently he is an influencer for his circle of friends because he is regarded as a beer authority. His pronouncements on a beer carry weight in that circle. If he damns a beer, as he did, just because he doesn't like the style, he may be denying his friends the chance to try a beer that they will like because they don't share his dislike of the style. He has also not extended his or their appreciation of beer if he tastes it and regardless of how good it is, doesn't like the style, dismisses it and leaves it as that. For him it could be the best made beer in the category ever and would still only get five out of ten because his enquiry stopped at not liking the style and yet was willing to damn it with what I saw as pompous authority.
It is a natural human condition to like to (a) know more about something than someone else, and (b) want to be recognised for that. In most areas of interest this can also lead to a snobbery or willingness to dismiss those who know less as being somehow less discerning and lesser members of "the club". But some of the best brewers and beer judges I have met are incredibly modest in their discussion of beer, even with the casual drinker of it. They genuinely listen to what the other person is saying about their experience of the beer. They do prompt with question like, "well what does that remind you of" when discussing a flavour profile, but they never say, "you're wrong, this beer doesn't taste like that," or "how can you say this is a good beer, it's swill" because everyone's experience of beer is different and perception of flavour is highly individual. For me, that's the difference between appreciation and snobbery.
While I want to see more people out there drinking, appreciating, discussing and debating beer, I hope that pronouncement and snobbishness are left to other areas of the drinks trade.
Afterall, it's just beer.