I dug the initial intense craft beers that started coming out in the late 90s/early 2ks, but got sick of it pretty quickly. A highball with American whiskey is my goto chillout drink, but when I drink beer, I like subtlety-- European pilsners, really mellow dry stouts, brown ales, and things like that. Most US craft beer fans' palates, and the commensurate offerings from craft breweries, are so jacked up that they don't even realize how distant they are from something I'm interested in drinking. The styles of the same name offered by US craft breweries are so extra compared to their namesake styles that they're totally different animals.
I'm not going to lie-- I'm also put off by some vibes in the craft beer scene has taken on in the past 10 or 15 years. When many craft beer fans see me order a classic European pilsner, with shocking frequency they a) attempt to shame me for ordering such a 'boring' beer, b) assume they need to educate me about this amazing thing called craft beer that I've clearly never encountered before, or c) assume my palate is unsophisticated. Like... listen bro... I'm a classically trained chef-- I've spent more time actively developing my palate than you've spent even thinking about it. I can tell you things you didn't know about the beer you're drinking based solely on your breath. Some very big names in craft beer were my multiple-times-per-week drinking buddies for years. I'm glad you've cultivated a passion for a locally-made food/bev product... now go be smug about your foamy bug spray juice elsewhere. lol
An old strip from the newsprint comic Zits has always stuck in my mind. In the strip, the kid takes a sip of his father's wheatgrass smoothie and describes it as licking the bottom of a lawnmower.
That is how I feel about most of the overpoweringly strong IPAs that have been all the rage for so long.
That's wild. Sorry people were negative to you. That sort of reaction is very alien to me. I've had thousands of beers with many hundreds of people and never really encountered that.
No need to apologize for other people's bad behavior. Craft beer doesn't have more snobs than any other group of passionate people-- certainly not more than fancy food-- but the nerdy one-upsmanship is much more prevalent. I think for some of these guys it's their equivalent to trash talking about sports or other kinds of fandom, and for others, it's a way to quell insecurity about their own knowledge level in a realm that they consider competitive.
I worked in bars and restaurants as a side gig for about 15 years and full-time for a few so the sheer number of people I've encountered naturally means I'll have encountered more dinks than most. And because of my food/bev-industry-heavy social set, I've spent quite a lot of time in the more "serious" craft beer bars, and those are magnets for that type. That said, I've also spent a ton of time in high-end restaurants and wine bars and never had anyone make snide comments about, say, ordering a more straightforward wine or a cheeseburger (but in kitchens, I've definitely heard chefs talk shit about people ordering burgers... mostly because they're frustrated more people aren't trying their more creative offerings. And then they go home and eat hot pockets for dinner.) And most sommeliers I've encountered are so worried about coming across like snobs that they almost overcompensate.
I mean, I'd definitely try such a thing if someone offered it to me. You often can't predict how multiple complex flavors will snap together and sometimes weird-sounding things are counterintuitively amazing. That said, the chance I'd drink something like that regularly is zero.
While I'm classically trained, my focus is from-scratch bar food while keeping it at the same price point as the frozen food service shit. I used white truffles, beluga caviar, and things like that when working in fine dining and in culinary school, but never once have I purchased such things for my own menu.
Considering that I'm responding to other people's assumption that they are superior to me based on my beer order, I don't feel the slightest bit bad about taking a dig at them.
As an aside, how often do you offer unsolicited patronizing critique of other people's beer order?
Might be because there's a lot of people like me that only like that style of beer. I don't dislike other types of beer, but I'd rather drink something else than a lager, stout, porter, pilsner, etc. I've found that there aren't a lot of diehards for any other style, but IPA diehards are a dime a dozen.
Agreed, IPAs(west coast, hazy, etc) are pretty much the only beer I enjoy drinking(for taste). Occasionally, I'll take a lager on a hot day when I want something really "light".
I could drink a hazy pale or NEIPA anytime, it would be my desert island style for sure. Never liked the high IBU IPAs that were everywhere for a while because of the bitterness. (And I love all the Campari-adjacent cocktails)
I feel similarly about the store-bought THC products in Canada. They're like high ABV, hopped-up IPAs when really I just want a light, refreshing, repeatable beer with good flavour.
yep. I'm currently pretty fatigued with the offerings at bottle shops and taprooms....increasingly glad I committed to brewing my own a long while back. Currently sipping on a very delightful British Golden Ale - a style I haven't seen commercially available around me, but will now be a standard in my summer brewing.
