The Art of Pretentious Beer Talk: Confessions from a Craft Beer Enthusiast

Last weekend, I found myself at a lively bottle share event, surrounded by fellow craft beer aficionados. As bottles were opened and flavors swirled around us, I suddenly turned into a self-proclaimed beer connoisseur. When someone presented a barrel-aged sour, I confidently proclaimed my admiration for how the “characteristic brett interacts with the oak tannins to create some beautiful phenolic compounds.”

Here’s the catch—I hadn’t the slightest clue what phenolic compounds really were. In that moment, I realized I had accidentally fused wine jargon with snippets of a brewing podcast I vaguely recalled.

What made the experience even more amusing was the enthusiastic nodding from everyone else in the room, as if my words were dropping pearls of wisdom. Suddenly, I felt compelled to elaborate further, tossing around terms like “expressing local terroir through indigenous microflora.” I could almost hear the collective approval as I crafted this seemingly deep analysis of the beer in my glass.

But let’s be real: last month, I found myself discussing a beer’s “mouthfeel complexity,” when my intent was simply to share that it had a rich, thick taste. It struck me that I was merely stringing together buzzwords in a craft beer version of mad libs.

I can’t help but wonder if many of us are simply echoing the phrases we’ve heard from others, hoping to blend in with the more knowledgeable crowd. Do you ever feel the same way when discussing beer? It seems that, at times, we might place more emphasis on how we articulate our thoughts than on the actual enjoyment of the beer itself.

Is it time to address the elephant in the room? Perhaps we should just relish the experience and enjoy our favorite brews without the pressure to sound like a brewing expert. After all, at its core, craft beer should be about enjoyment, experimentation, and camaraderie. Cheers!