The Art of Pretentious Beer Talk: Confessions from a Craft Brew Enthusiast

Craft beer culture is a fascinating landscape filled with passionate enthusiasts, complex flavors, and yes, a fair share of pretentiousness. At a recent bottle share, I found myself swept up in the moment, eager to impress fellow beer aficionados. When a barrel-aged sour hit the table, I enthusiastically proclaimed my admiration for its unique characteristics. I waxed poetic about how I “truly appreciated the characteristic brett interacting with the oak tannins to create some beautiful phenolic compounds.”

In reality, I had no real grasp of what phenolic compounds were—my knowledge merely a patchwork of wine jargon stitched together with fragmented memories from brewing podcasts. The irony? The room erupted in nods of approval as though I had delivered a profound insight. The more they nodded, the deeper I dug, asserting that this beer “expresses local terroir through indigenous microflora.” If you thought my earlier statement was a stretch, this one was practically a leap into the absurd.

Reflecting on my verbose description, I remembered a prior instance where I had extolled the “mouthfeel complexity” of another brew. What I really meant to convey was simply that it had a thick texture. In these moments, I realized that many of us might just be participating in a sort of craft beer mad lib, mimicking the eloquence of seasoned experts while holding onto a thread of uncertainty ourselves.

It’s a peculiar dynamic—many of us find ourselves echoing the terminology we’ve encountered, hoping to be met with admiration rather than skepticism. Do you ever share these sentiments? Have you caught yourself in a similar situation, elaborating on flavors or attributes that you weren’t entirely sure about? Let’s hear your stories and rid ourselves of the fear of being unveiled as mere pretenders to the craft beer kingdom!