Beer writer Jay Brooks is peeved.
It definitely ruffles my feathers, [he wrote yesterday at his blog, Brookston Beer Bulletin] when other writers, and especially food or wine writers, write uncharitably about beer in somewhat dismissive tones, even when they’re trying not to, as if they can’t help themselves. That seems to be the case here, as [Tamara Palmer, at SF Weekly] writes in her description of DRAFT magazine. “Beer is not usually something you think of as classy.” <...>
I find it just so incredibly frustrating. I see so many people committed to raising the status of beer beyond mere commodity, pouring their life’s blood into it to no apparent effect whatsoever. I mean what exactly do the craft beer brewers, the better beer bars, and the beer savvy chefs at restaurants embracing beer have to do to attract the notice of someone whose very job is about food and drinks?
In the end, Palmer does admit “Draft gives the craft its due as a refined art,” but then why was it so necessary to first dismiss beer as being perceived as unrefined. <...> I’ve getting crabbier than usual, and for me that’s saying something. I need a nap.Dismissing Beer
Brookston Beer Bulletin
20 May 209
Jay,
Trust me: I understand.
Although I do have a preference for the nobler of the two beverages, I enjoy both wine and beer. And I sell both for a living. Almost everyday, I hear this beer-is-pablum (and wine-is-snotty) nonsense. So, in camaraderie, I offer you these two responses.
The second best would be to indulge in a frisson of schadenfreude. (Sorry: mixing French and German cognates.) While you sip your beer, look at the naysayer and think this: "I'm going to take great pleasure in this beer. That's something you will never experience." Maybe even have some pity for them.
But now, the best response. Don't sweat it.
It's you who are enjoying your beer, a wonderful beverage, and doing so usually in the fellowship of others who feel likewise. That is its own consummate pleasure and reward.
Yours for (most) good fermentables,
Thomas 'Tom' Cizauskas
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Thanks for your thoughts Tom, and the effort to calm me down. The funny thing is I love wine,, too. Most beer people I know do. The same is true for winemakers, and most casual wine drinkers. It's been my experience that only hard-core wine snobs and many food and wine writers are the ones who continually diss beer for no apparent reason, as if it's a contest. What's frustrating about that is that these writers have an audience of people who read them or they wouldn't have a job, and I just don't understand how they can be so clueless. Sheesh. J
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