The Art of Pretentious Beer Talk: Confessions from a Bottle Share

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you confidently spouted off intricate beer jargon, only to realize you didn’t fully understand what you were saying? It seems this is a common rite of passage among craft beer enthusiasts, and it happened to me just last weekend at a local bottle share.

As the evening unfolded, someone uncorked a barrel-aged sour, and I felt an irresistible urge to sound sophisticated. “I really appreciate how the brett interacts with the oak tannins to produce some exquisite phenolic compounds,” I declared, with what I hoped was an air of authority. In reality, I was fumbling around with terms that I can only describe as vague memories from brewing podcasts and snatched phrases from wine tasting notes. Phenolic compounds? No idea!

To my surprise, the room full of fellow beer lovers nodded in agreement like I had just imparted some great wisdom. Caught up in the moment, I leaned into the pretense even further, remarking about how the beer “expresses local terroir through indigenous microflora.” What a sentence! Yet, deep down, I knew I was engaging in a rather nonsensical game of craft beer Mad Libs.

Just last month, I found myself going on about a beer’s “mouthfeel complexity,” when all I actually meant was that it had a thick texture. It’s amusing to think that many of us might be echoing phrases and descriptors we’ve heard before, all in an effort to seem knowledgeable and discerning.

Does anyone else experience this? It seems that, at times, the world of craft beer can turn into a theatrical stage where we perform our bits, hoping nobody will realize we’re more or less ventriloquizing the lexicon we’ve absorbed from others. It’s a little absurd, but isn’t that part of the charm of the craft beer community? Let’s raise a glass—ideally, one filled with something delicious—so we can all share in the beautiful, if occasionally pretentious, camaraderie of our craft!