The Art of Beer Talk: Have You Ever Faked Your Expertise?

Last weekend, I found myself at a lively bottle share event – a gathering rich with shared stories, laughter, and, of course, diverse craft beers. As the evening unfolded, someone uncorked a barrel-aged sour that invited all sorts of tasting notes and discussions. Without hesitation, I jumped in with grand declarations about how I “truly appreciated the characteristic brett interacting with the oak tannins to create some beautiful phenolic compounds.”

In the moment, I delivered my line confidently, even though I was completely in the dark about what phenolic compounds actually are. It dawned on me later that I was merely stringing together wine jargon with remnants of information I had picked up from a brewing podcast, hoping it would sound profound.

The most amusing part? The group nodded in agreement, which only encouraged me to elaborate further. I went on to mention how the beer “expresses local terroir through indigenous microflora,” fully aware that these terms were probably lost on me.

Reflecting on my brewing banter, I couldn’t help but chuckle when I remembered a previous conversation where I described a beer’s “mouthfeel complexity.” In reality, I was just trying to express that it had a thick taste – an oversimplification turned into jargon.

It becomes clear that sometimes we’re all just engaging in a kind of craft beer Mad Libs, throwing around phrases we’ve heard and hoping no one will call our bluff. Can anyone relate to this experience? Let’s embrace the hilarity and absurdity of our attempts to sound more knowledgeable than we are! Cheers to authenticity in our craft beer journeys!