A human being has many needs. The need to sate hunger, slake thirst, satisfy sexual urges, and most importantly finding somebody, anybody to look down on.
As someone who is, to put it mildly, at some distance from rest of human society, I see it pretty much everywhere. I've often been the victim of it myself, obviously different as I am. Oddly, the places snobbery seems most prevalent are those that must trumpet their open-mindedness and inclusivity.
Down the years, I've seen many instances of sneering elitism at the trendier end of the beer fan spectrum. The blanket dismissal of cask ale as "boring brown bitter", the deigning of certain populist pub chain as hangouts for the plebs, and of the drinker of " insufficiently Craft" beers as dupes of big business.
This school of thought reaches its apogee in this blog post from an Awesome Beer Curator in London, where he sees a beer brewed by one of his top faves in a Wetherspoons, and slags off the general public for probably not knowing who the brewer is or how good his other beers are.
I can only assume this is because Crafty Beer Fandom is mostly populated by middle-class and University educated people in their mid twenties. People of this background have, since the age of sixteen or so, usually only ever had extended exposure to people just like them . This produces a feedback loop of mutually reinforcing views and behaviours, meaning they can be as condescending as they wish to those who they consider inferior without any risk of real comeback.
So, instead of seeing things they don't like as things to be tolerated, ignored, or avoided, they see them as Problems that must Be Solved. In practice this means retreating to the local Crafty Bar, and blogging and tweeting about the Right People And Things to your mates to the exclusion of much else. Except to vehemently disagree with it.
I can live with this. As I found out gradually, people don't stay in their mid twenties forever and eventually grow up. Who knows, one day they may even end up like me.
But I'm in with the In Crowd.
ReplyDeleteThis is such an annoying thing about Craft Beer people. I can't imagine any well-respected beer bloggers from a less crafty background sneeringly telling us that anyone who claims to enjoy anything produced in Bermondsey is just a trend-following hipster sheep who's blown out their palate so far with endless "extreme hop monsters" that they can't tell that the murky grapefruit juice that they pretend to like is actually, objectively, scientifically provably Bad Beer.
ReplyDeleteIt's true in many other spheres that "the places snobbery seems most prevalent are those that most trumpet their open-mindedness and inclusivity."
ReplyDeleteLikewise an organisation that trumpets its diversity is probably markedly lacking in it.
The whole article oozes self-satisfied snobbery. He, naturally, has heard of John Kimmich. Wetherspoons is a 'soulless pit'. The great brewer has let himself down by brewing 'a 5.5% brown ale, albeit a very good one'. If I were John Kimmich, I'd be perplexed by criticism for brewing a very good beer.
ReplyDeleteAs a real ale drinker, I have a live and let live approach to beer: people can drink what they like as far as I'm concerned. He looks down on people who seek a cheap pint in Spoons. The fact that they may not have much spare cash never crosses his mind. He moans that Spoons will put other pubs that can't compete out of business, but gives no analysis as to why they can't compete.
But now I'm being silly: expecting empathy, tolerance and analysis from a narcissist.
"...where he sees a beer brewed on of his top faces in a Wetherspoons..."
ReplyDeleteI've read this sentence umpteen times and I still cannot make this part out.
Emma
I think it should read "brewed BY one of his top faces"
ReplyDeleteI think the Autocorrect monster has been messing with my posts again. I'll try and figure out what I mean from the context.
Delete