Pretentious Beer Talk: Have You Ever Said Something You Didn’t Understand?

Last weekend, at a gathering dedicated to craft beer enthusiasts, I found myself in a situation that many might relate to. As the host unveiled a barrel-aged sour beer, I felt a surge of confidence (perhaps too much) and began to extol the virtues of the brew with phrases that could have easily confused even the most seasoned beer connoisseur. “I genuinely appreciate the way the brett interacts with the oak tannins to produce exquisite phenolic compounds,” I proclaimed. To my dismay, I found myself uttering a term—phenolic compounds—that I didn’t really grasp.

What’s ironic is that my comment was met with nods of approval from my peers, as if I had just shared some groundbreaking insight. Seizing the moment, I decided to elaborate further, adding how the beer wonderfully “expresses local terroir through indigenous microflora.” It felt triumphant in the moment, but the truth is, I was simply stringing together buzzwords I had picked up here and there—mostly from a brewing podcast I had listened to previously.

Not long ago, in another casual conversation about beer, I caught myself describing a brew’s “mouthfeel complexity.” What I truly meant was that it had a thick, satisfying texture, but somehow I felt compelled to dress it up in fancy terminology. It struck me then how easy it is to slip into pretentious lingo that, upon reflection, sounds like complete nonsense.

It seems we often find ourselves in a cycle of repeating phrases we’ve heard, hoping no one will challenge our claims. It’s almost like a game of beer-themed Mad Libs, where we fill in the blanks with sophisticated-sounding terms—often with little understanding of their true meaning.

Do any of you resonate with this experience? Have you ever found yourself caught in the web of beer jargon, pretending to have a deeper knowledge than you actually do? Let’s share our stories and perhaps chuckle at our collective moments of craft beer overreach.