Brew the Beer You Love!

Add caption

Today I want to talk about beer snobbery, yeah I know that’s actually becoming a thing. Who would’ve ever thought that the drink of the common man (or women) would be used to promote elitist values and ideals? Well maybe that’s a slight overstatement, but in some ways it might actually be coming true, but why? For starters I want to say that beer is the drink of many different peoples, from many different cultures and it’s not beholden to anyone or any culture. You could easily argue that their is a beer for anyone and everyone, from the common man or women right up to the Queen of England! (I’m sure she loves a good pint of bitter by the way) But seriously beer is just a beverage, put simply it is a concoction of ingredients that has been perfected over centuries, yea even millenia, and these ingredients have been selected carefully over time to create what we know today as beer in its many forms and guises. And the purpose of beer is simple, it is to lubricate both the body and the soul, to provide pleasure and enjoyment to those who are seeking them. Beer brings people together and beer loosens peoples spirits to relax and enjoy life and friends and everything good about being human. In this sense beer is not political, it does not care about colour, or race, or the amount of money you earn, or the amount of influence you wield. No, beer cares not for these things, and yet we consume beer because it is satisfying and because it charges our senses and lifts our spirits and relaxes our inhibitions. Beer helps us to feel alive and gives us a taste of the goodness of life itself. Yes, beer does all these things, and yet beer is often beholden to trends, and it sometimes succumbs to politics and sexism, and in its worst form it succumbs to snobbery and elitism and becomes a dividing line between the haves and the have nots, between those who can afford and those who can’t. But was beer ever meant to represent certain sections of society over others? To be honest, I don’t really know, all I know is that the beer I’ve enjoyed has been the beer of the common man for most of my life and it wasn’t until I got into craft brewing that I started to discover that there were other ideas about beer. As far as the ancient history of beer goes I only know that our oldest records of beer date it back to the ancient Sumerian’s in the Fertile Crescent and possibly beyond, but why they made beer and who it was made for, well that also I do not know. What I do know is that in our modern world beer has almost always been synonymous with the common man, or has it? I, and many like me have been led to believe that It was wine that was the drink of the aristocrats, or champagne, fine whiskey and gin. But I think that many of these ideas are merely social constructs and that out there somewhere in the world, there is a society whose common man was as accustomed to drinking fine champagne as mine was to drinking Tooheys and VB!

But I digress, this discussion was after all about the merits and virtues of beer and it’s place in the rank of society as I know it. But social constructs are real, and in our modern world we are ruled by cultural ideas that are designed by sales people and reinforced through advertising. Ideas that are designed to make us think that we are a certain type of person if we consume a certain type of product and that said product will reinforce our self belief that was created by these sales people in the first place! Yes, even beer Itself has succumbed to such lowly tactics as to be commandeered by those who see it as a means to an end. So where does that leave us and to how shall we think of this golden beverage going forward? What place then shall beer hold in our hearts, and to what role shall it take in the society in which we live? These are very important and very valid questions, because by understanding these we can answer that very first question to which this conversation began and that is this, does beer itself represent the ideals of those who would segregate by class or wealth or heaven help us, even race? Is beer snobbery real and if so what can we do about it? The answer of course is yes, beer itself can be and has been successfully usurped by those who would use it to push their own agendas, whether of wealth or status. And that has always been the way, not just with beer but with almost anything that mankind has created. There will always be those who live to divide and segregate. But the good news is that beer is neutral, it is what you want it to be, and in your hands you can make it to be whatever you want it to be. We have the ability and choice to ignore what others say and believe about beer and we can embrace the truth, that beer is not a drink that divides but rather a drink that brings us together and that beer itself crosses all dividing lines, both real and imaginary.

So lastly, I want to ask this question, if beer is what you want it to be for you, does that mean that all beer is of the same level and the same status as any other beer that there is? This is an important question because in it lies the reasons why some elevate one beer over another both justly and unjustly. The truth is beer, like any other commodity or product is subject to the whims and desires or its creator and as such some beers are simply better than others for very real pragmatic reasons. Some beers are really made with more care and love, and some beers just have better quality ingredients. This is not a value statement so as much as it is a statement about reality. If I was to take these points that I have made and use them to argue that a fine Belgian dark strong ale, that was carefully made using the finest ingredients, and aged carefully over time to produce a sublime and truly amazing sensory experience, that it wasn’t a finer beer that that which was made using the cheapest of ingredients in the shortest possible time. Then you could well say say that I was truly insane! Of course there are still levels of quality in regards to beer as there is in regard to any product that is made by the hands of men, and just as some products are going to be cheap and nasty and some are going to be quality and fine, so it is also with beer. And also with beer as with other products there will inevitably be differences in price according to the cost involved in production, and price will also affect who is willing to purchase and the drink the beer. It stands to reason that a beer that is made with more ingredients or ingredients of a higher quality will also likely have a high price at the store, as will be that beer which has been carefully aged over an extended period of time to create a finer end product or a beer that requires more labour time in production. And lastly some beers are mass produced which drives down the price, while other beers are micro produced which can inflate the costs.

So what if I was to say then that beer is not either/or. That it’s not a drink for the common man only or a drink for well healed, and that elevating either position for beer really misses the point entirely. Beer is a drink which spans to whole gamut of society and it’s not beholden to any segment unlike some other products we consume. Beer is a beverage where the quality is not necessarily equal to the cost, you can find a quality beer on tap in a local pub being consumed by average people and you can find a quality beer inside a bottle Being consumed by the well to do. And as I argued in the beginning of this article, beer knows no one status or class, or colour or race or sex. Beer is the one drink that spans all classes, colours, races and sex. And that’s what makes beer so damn good, the fact that you can have a beer with anyone and that it can bring anyone together and that beer can cross the dividing lines, both real and imaginary and bring people together. And that’s where this short story will end. I have nothing else to say other than go and pour yourself a beer, marvel at it in all its glory and know that in your hands this fine beverage is yours to enjoy and yours to share. And if you ever have the privilege of brewing a beer yourself, well let’s just leave that one for another day...

Cheers, and happy brewing!