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Beer Diary:

Oh You Damn Beer Snobs!

Why don’t we just get off our high horses and drink good old American beer?
by Eddie Glick

As a beer dork, I don’t mind being called a “pompous ass-hat” for the mere fact of voicing my opinion about the craptacity of industrial light lager. I actually enjoy it, since it means I’m doing my job of pissing people off. What I don’t like is when folks defending their preference for (or job marketing) shitty macro beer feel the need to attack craft beer drinkers and promoters as snobby elitists or pompous cityfolk or rich yuppies or some combination thereof who are out of touch with “the working man.”

The reason we hear these barbs so often is because it’s so damn effective. With a single sentence people who prefer locally brewed, flavorful beer are cast as alien interlopers who are bent on changing everyday Americans’ daily lives, like making everyone celebrate Bastille Day or forcing dogs and cats into unholy marriages.

But the reality is this argument/insult is bullshit. Complete bullshit. Go to a brewfest and you’ll see young and old, men and women, people from all kinds of backgrounds and from all walks of life. Hang out at a good beer bar for a while and you’ll meet just as varied a group of people as you would in a place that only sells Bud Light. One of the last brewfests I went to, I drank beer with a retired machinist, a carpenter, a shoe salesman, and a nurse, among a whole slew of people from a variety of backgrounds.

And the biggest fans of craft beer are the brewers themselves. And calling them pompous, effete elitists is even more out of touch than Mel Gibson and the cast of The Hills rolled into one giant ball of crazy. Brewing beer is hard, dirty work with only a nominal financial return. It’s about as “working man” (and woman) as you can get. But they do it because they have a passion for locally crafted, flavorful beer, along with the beneficial cultural impact that comes with it.

That passion is the exact same reason we “beer snobs” drink craft beer. So if any jackwagons out there feel the need to call all craft beer drinkers and brewers pompous snobs, just keep your piehole shut—it’ll make you sound smarter than you actually are. (Which is the case with most people, irrelevant of beer preferences.)

But feel free to have at me. I’m used to it. And besides, I am a snobby elitist. Just the other day I was pretty damn put out when my swan marker—the lazy plebe—complained because his last day off was a measly five years ago. And I said, “Those swans aren’t going to mark themselves! What if some dirty villager trespasses on my estate and poaches one of my prized swans, and I can’t prove it because the creature isn’t properly marked? I’d have to hang the entire village to make sure the culprit was punished. Do you realize how much rope I’d have to use?” So I threw the ingrate into my dungeon—along with his wife and eight children, the dirty little beggars—and hired another swan marker. But I paid him the same as the previous fellow—3 schillings a day, minus his room and board, of course—because I am such a magnanimous fellow, even for my station. Now if you’ll excuse me, my scribe has spilled ink all across the desk and I must flog him for his insolence.

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