Beer Snobs "forget the true meaning of beer"

I had to laugh when I read this part:

"When I stopped at a popular beer and hot dog joint in Regent Square, for example, my wallet choked at the thought of forking over $4.25 for a single take-out can of Boddingtons Pub Ale. The thick, creamy British brew can be had just down the block for about $40 per case, which makes the idea of buying a six-pack for nearly half that much a real pain in the pint glass."

The place just down the block to buy a case is owned by the aforementioned hotdog joint and happens to also be the best place in Pittsburgh to buy a case of exotic beer.

sorry that I read this so late. What a complete dumbass!

I sent him this, under the subject line "Hey, it’s America, you’re entitled to your opinion":

Hi Mike

Your opinion piece rare beers was wide from the mark by a considerable margin. I can’t speak for all beer lovers, especially those in Pittsburgh. And I’m sorry if the culture around rare beers feels intimidating due to price, or the acumen of the drinkers, or the attitude.

But beer is only workingman’s drink in the advertising of American megabreweries. They brewed the cheapest beer they could, sold it as cheaply as they could, and directed their message to the largest audience they could find--the workingman.

And, sure, plenty of styles have a history of being associated with physical laborers and the refreshment they seek. Porters come to mind--they’re *named* for a type of physical laborer. Any kind of low-alcohol, light-bodied beer that qualifies as a "session" beer (sorry for the snooty jargon there, friend) would be associated with factory workers in Anglican nations.

But beer has historically been the drink of pharoahs, kings, monks, ship’s captains, and other assorted fancy pants who got a fancy degree and made a living without getting their hands dirty. Just like, ah, journalists, bud.

I hope you take some time off from your shift in the coal mine and get that gritty keyboard dust out from under your fingernails and stop to think for a second that beer is EVERYONE’s drink. Guys with lunchpails in their hands have no more a monopoly on beer than Kentucky horse trainers have on good bourbon.

But you’re such a regular unpretentious guy that good bourbon’s probably too high-falutin’ for you.

I’ll let you get back to your bread-baking and horse shoe throwing now, you good old down home so and so.

Cheers
Tom

Originally posted by after4ever
I sent him this, under the subject line "Hey, it’s America, you’re entitled to your opinion":

Hi Mike

Your opinion piece rare beers was wide from the mark by a considerable margin. I can’t speak for all beer lovers, especially those in Pittsburgh. And I’m sorry if the culture around rare beers feels intimidating due to price, or the acumen of the drinkers, or the attitude.

But beer is only workingman’s drink in the advertising of American megabreweries. They brewed the cheapest beer they could, sold it as cheaply as they could, and directed their message to the largest audience they could find--the workingman.

And, sure, plenty of styles have a history of being associated with physical laborers and the refreshment they seek. Porters come to mind--they’re *named* for a type of physical laborer. Any kind of low-alcohol, light-bodied beer that qualifies as a "session" beer (sorry for the snooty jargon there, friend) would be associated with factory workers in Anglican nations.

But beer has historically been the drink of pharoahs, kings, monks, ship’s captains, and other assorted fancy pants who got a fancy degree and made a living without getting their hands dirty. Just like, ah, journalists, bud.

I hope you take some time off from your shift in the coal mine and get that gritty keyboard dust out from under your fingernails and stop to think for a second that beer is EVERYONE’s drink. Guys with lunchpails in their hands have no more a monopoly on beer than Kentucky horse trainers have on good bourbon.

But you’re such a regular unpretentious guy that good bourbon’s probably too high-falutin’ for you.

I’ll let you get back to your bread-baking and horse shoe throwing now, you good old down home so and so.

Cheers
Tom

Originally posted by FROTHINGSLOSH
I had to laugh when I read this part:

"When I stopped at a popular beer and hot dog joint in Regent Square, for example, my wallet choked at the thought of forking over $4.25 for a single take-out can of Boddingtons Pub Ale. The thick, creamy British brew can be had just down the block for about $40 per case, which makes the idea of buying a six-pack for nearly half that much a real pain in the pint glass."

The place just down the block to buy a case is owned by the aforementioned hotdog joint and happens to also be the best place in Pittsburgh to buy a case of exotic beer.

My letter:

Subject: Wow, man

I just gotta ask: have you ever paid 8 bucks for a crappy Bud at a ball game? Did it come in a plastic cup and did half of it spill by the time it got passed down the row to you? That’s overpaying for a beer. I also have to ask if you bothered to do any research on beer at all for this article. Many of the styles of beer you denigrate as snobbish were originally brewed for the working people--lambics, saisons, and biere de gardes for example. Check out Farmhouse Ales or Wild Brews for some information on why these beers are so complex and weird-tasting. I’ll give you a hint: it’s not because they were historically brewed for beer snobs or royalty.

...

Your ignorance is kinda funny as you fumble trying to insult something that you clearly know little-to-nothing about. It’s also sad, because the imagined label of ’snob’ might well prevent a person from trying a funky beer and discovering that he likes it. We should all drink to our tastes, so leave me to mine and I’ll leave you to yours. Oh, but I’ll suggest you ditch the styrofoam cup. The way they are made creates millions of tiny crevices in the cup wall, and when you pour a beer in it, those crevices encourage rapid bubble formation. The result is that styrofoam sucks the carbonation out of your beer. Regardless of your other drinking preferences, I doubt you like your beer flat. Happy drinking.

Cheers,
Em

Originally posted by allendodd
What a doof. Dropping a finger wag on him won’t make much difference though. It’s pretty clear he doesn’t see much of what’s going on around him. Do what Matt did and cc to all of the editors. They are the ones who control what he writes and they don’t want to look stoopit because of something he wrote.

this guy is going to get a good laugh at some of these emails. some ratebeerians apparently have difficulty writing concise sentences with proper use of commas. i am certainly not an english major or a grammar whore, but some of those letters were painful to comprehend.

So what is the true meaning of beer, anyway? I didn’t see that spelled out anywhere in the piece. Just complaints about what other people will pay for beer.

Does this guy realize that beer is thousands of years old and a center for many civilizations??

Does he know that Star Trek was a ficticious television show????

Can we vote and revoke his beer-drinking card for life?