Confessions of a Craft Beer Enthusiast: The Art of Pretentious Jargon

As I attended a recent bottle share event, I found myself swept up in the excitement when someone popped open a barrel-aged sour. In that moment, I felt a surge of enthusiasm and confidence that compelled me to declare my appreciation for how “the characteristic brett interacts with the oak tannins to create some beautiful phenolic compounds.” To be honest, I had no true understanding of what phenolic compounds actually entailed; this was merely a mashup of wine terminology I had half-absorbed from a brewing podcast.

What struck me as I spoke was the collective nodding from my fellow attendees, as if I had shared a brilliant revelation. Encouraged by their reaction, I threw in a comment about the beer “expressing local terroir through indigenous microflora.” This was my attempt at sophistication, but I couldn’t help but feel like I was playing a game of craft beer Mad Libs—filling in the blanks with terms I’d heard tossed around but didn’t fully grasp.

Just recently, I found myself using the phrase “mouthfeel complexity” to describe a beer’s texture, when the reality was that it simply tasted thick. Isn’t it amusing how easily we can get wrapped up in pretentious language? It seems many of us in the craft beer community are often just repeating phrases we’ve picked up, hoping to avoid being called out on our lack of genuine understanding.

Have you ever experienced something similar? Perhaps you’ve felt the pressure to sound knowledgeable about craft beer, only to realize you were parading around with a vocabulary that didn’t quite align with your true comprehension. The world of craft beer can sometimes feel like a language of its own, where a select few hold the keys to its myriad definitions. It’s high time we embraced the joy of beer, without the burden of feeling obligated to sound scholarly. Let’s raise a glass to honesty and simplicity in our appreciation of this beloved drink!