Categories
real ale

Fear of being disappointed

Lots of new breweries are opening in Cornwall: we know of three that have opened since autumn last year. This is exciting news, especially as at least one of them seems to be intending to fill the gap in the market for stronger and more intensely flavoured beers.

A few years ago, we’d have bent over backwards to get to them as soon as possible but, these days, we’re a bit nervous and a little reluctant.

The really silly thing? One of them has a brewery tap less than five minutes from our house in Penzance. And yet we walk past, we don’t go in. We fancy a pint, we go somewhere else.

Why? Why are we putting it off? Well… we’re afraid their beer might suck, and it’ll be disappointing and awkward.

We don’t worry about this a lot, by the way — just enough to keep “try that new brewery” slipping down our to do list. Next week, though, we’re going to do it. And if we don’t mention this again, it means their beer did suck.

Categories
beer and food opinion

Sucking up a social class

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLoVF7vcBtY]

In his column in the 5 December issue of New Statesman, Will Self, on the subject of wine, quotes his French translator who says “when I have a glass of wine, I’m imbibing the region where it comes from.” Self ponders this and suggests that “when an English person drinks wine, she’s sucking up a social class”.

Is that also what’s going on when people drink craft beer? Is it becoming an accessory for those who aspire to, or wish to emphasise, middle class credentials?

We like to think that beer is in the process of being stripped of any specific class associations — that it’s becoming socially mobile, as comfortable at an Islington dinner party as in a working men’s club. But maybe we’re kidding ourselves.

Either way, there’s plenty of work to be done before beer is quite welcome to a seat at the shabby chic dining table in front of the Aga. The Cheese Shop in Truro — one of the most middle class shops you can imagine — has wine, port, sherry, sparkling cider, soft drinks… but not one drop of beer. Not even a politely packaged Fuller’s Vintage Ale getting dusty in a corner. Shame.

This agonising over snobbery and social class isn’t going to end anytime soon, we’re afraid. It is much on our minds.

Categories
Generalisations about beer culture opinion

Beware snobbery but not afraid of change

There’s a fine line between enthusing about better beer and being a snob.

It’s something that’s been on Tandleman’s mind lately. Pivni Filosof, Velky Al and numerous others over the years have posted variations on the point that, for many of us, beer’s appeal is, in large part, that it’s not pretentious, expensive or exclusive.

Even some posts for Session #58, including our own, reflected the same anxiety.

And it’s certainly something that’s worth being vigilant about. “Am I being a dick about this?” is probably a good question to ask yourself from time to time.

Having said that, we mustn’t let this thoughtfulness lead us to the false conclusion that, to be true to the roots of beer, we need to embrace shite pubs and crappy products. After all, eating greasy, grey meat pies might be ‘traditionally working class’, but they just don’t taste nice, and surely it’s a good thing that lots of ordinary people are now enjoying more interesting, tastier food and that the good stuff isn’t just reserved for the nobs? (In fact, is this the opposite of snobbery…?)

The “craft beer revolution” is real — you only have to look at London to know it — but, even if your town isn’t directly touched by it (Bridgwater is probably never going to have a stripped pine and chrome, forty tap craft beer bar, for example) the very fact that the idea that the idea of good beer is being talked about (in newspapers, on TV) will eventually reach every corner of the market, even if only in a modest way.

Six degrees of beer appreciation

1. Snobbery. Making a big deal about buying beer because it is expensive or exclusive. No friends.

2. Fussy. Offending people and/or causing social awkwardness in the pursuit of good beer.

3. Discerning. Drinking the best beer available for the occasion. (A fine line between this and the above.)

4. Interested. Being aware of the idea that there is good and bad beer and trying to choose the former. Can lead to accidental snobbery.

5. Disinterested Uninterested. Not interested in beer at all. Missing out.

6. Oblivious. What do you mean “good beer”? All beer is good! Wa-hey! Happiness.

7. Inverse snobbery. Drinking bad beer because to do otherwise would be pretentious. Misery.

 

Note: if you’ve posted on this subject — lots of people have — let us know and we’ll add a link.

Zac at Pavement and Beer for Peace

Sean Liquorish wants bland mainstream lagers to be tastier.

Pivni Filosof has touched on this subject here, here and here.

The Pub Curmudgeon reckons the ‘craft beer revolution’ is an exclusive bubble disconnected from most people’s experience of beer.