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Steven Coulson
Steven has been drinking beers, wines and spirits for decades and has a propensity to go about them at length after a few drinks.
Latest Posts
- Dissecting The Beer Menu – An Irish Pub & Layered Brews
- Has anyone else noticed that every “limited release” somehow stays on shelves for months?
- Dissecting The Beer Menu – An Irish Pub & Layered Brews
- Headed to Asheville – looking for top breweries to get German style in cans / bottles
- Does anyone else feel guilty drinking beer alone because it’s supposed to be a social experience?
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The Craft Beer Conundrum: Pretentious Phrases We Use Without Understanding
Craft beer culture is a fascinating blend of creativity, flavor, and—let’s be honest—a fair amount of pretentiousness. Many of us have found ourselves in a situation where we’re surrounded by fellow enthusiasts, and suddenly, we feel the pressure to sound like experts. But how many of us are guilty of tossing around complicated terminology we don’t fully grasp in an effort to impress?
Take, for example, a recent bottle share event I attended. One of the highlights was a barrel-aged sour beer that had everyone buzzing. Without much thought, I dove headfirst into a discussion about how I “truly appreciated the characteristic brett interacting with the oak tannins to create some beautiful phenolic compounds.” In reality, I had no clear idea what “phenolic compounds” even were! I think I had mixed up some wine jargon with distant memories of a brewing podcast I once listened to.
What made the moment even more ironic was the nodding heads around me; it seemed I had struck a chord of wisdom! To add to my ruse, I emphatically declared that the beer “expressed local terroir through indigenous microflora.” Genuine conversation or pretentious fluff? You decide.
This isn’t an isolated incident. Just last month, I caught myself enthusiastically describing a beer’s intricate “mouthfeel complexity,” when all I really meant was that it had a thick texture. Let’s face it: sometimes, we’re just stringing together fancy phrases in a sort of craft beer Mad Libs, hoping that nobody will challenge our expertise.
Does anyone else feel this way? Are we all just echoing what we’ve heard in a bid to join the ranks of the knowledgeable? If you’ve found yourself in a similar situation, you’re not alone. Perhaps we should take a step back and embrace the simple pleasures of beer without the need for highbrow vocabulary. After all, at the end of the day, isn’t it all about enjoying what’s in our glass?