Oh, this was fun. I am such a coffee snob that I complain about the coffee in New York City. My local barista and roaster, who inspects each bean by hand before roasting, cannot be beat. I like people and their obsessions. I do not like beer but I love my friend’s endless craft beer posts on Instagram. I love my wine snob friends. Due to their company I’m now just a little bit of a wine snob.
I wanna put in a plug here for one of the virtues of midwestern culture: it seems like here in the midwest, we're better at getting enthusiastic about stuff without turning into insufferable snobs. So for instance, here in Cleveland, beer culture is pretty huge, with tons of very popular local breweries all over the place. But everyone at these breweries is, pretty much universally, helpful and excited to show people new beers they might like (and are happy helping beer newbies get started). And yeah, I'm sure there are snobs floating around, but most of the beer guys I know are perfectly happy to drink a PBR or even a white claw if that's what's available.
So my hot take, I guess, is that snobbery doesn't necessarily have to be correlated with enthusiasm and knowledge. I think snobbery is really it's own distinct cultural phenomenon that infects whatever it touches. Beer or coffee enthusiasm doesn't turn people into snobs, but snobby people are happy to weaponize whatever interests are available to grab on to.
Great article! But as a hardcore dumbass (I’m literally wearing a youth of today t-shirt right now), I mostly wanted to say: very good straight edge joke up top!
As a Michigander who was college age a few years later than you, I admit I have taken for granted how nice it is to have Bell's, Founders, Short's, and a bunch of other local options available pretty much anywhere I'd like except for dive bars and party bars (and even in some of those, occasionally). And I wouldn't have discovered my longstanding love for extreme and unorthodox metal if I hadn't stumbled across people gushing about Opeth's Blackwater Park and Isis' Panopticon on nerdy forums as a high school student in '04. So, here's to the nerds and snobs.
I'm going to put in a plug here for Jimmy Carter, who legalized home brewing of beer and helped launch the craftbrew trend. In this particular case it wasn't just the internet.
James Fallows published an overstated take on this in the Atlantic, but since he had to walk it back slightly I'll link to the correction and not the original:
I read this with Skallas's essays on refinement culture in the back of my mind (https://paulskallas.substack.com/p/refinement-culture). Seems like we could say refinement happens in two directions: flattening certain things (basketball, graphic design) and fracturing others (beer, coffee). Is that fair to say? Other thoughts on how these analyses interact?
I guess for me the amusing part has been being overtaken by a whole new generation of coffee snobs leaving me totally bewildered. When I grew up we considered ourselves lucky to live in the land of Peets Coffee and it was indeed so much better than what you could buy at the supermarket -- so that's how I learned to love coffee -- strong and rich and a little burnt tasting. So when third wave coffee came along with all kinds of new descriptive terms I was completely confused -- I would find myself in pour over coffee temples reading descriptions and they would sound good until I would get to the word citrus or something like that and think what do I want with citrus notes in my coffee -- which one is like Peet's Italian Roast? I mentioned this to a coffee snob friend who then said that I was like the beer drinkers who prefer Bud. That put me in my place. I have learned to appreciate the third wave beans on occasion but would still rather grind up my super dark and oily Peets beans in the morning and feel myself wake up.
I'm a year younger than you, and in 2003 even small packies in MA typically had at least a cooler door of Sam, Sierra, and whatever the local micros were. I do remember that having double-digit varieties of beer on draft was pretty rare around that time, though.
Was the extra 3 hours a day that the MA packies could open relative to CT that significant?
Not that this refutes from the overall point, just the timing (maybe another 10-15 years back? There was a microbrewery/brewpub craze in the mid 90s that imploded around 2000).
I vaguely agree with you, even to the extent that I try to be an annoying connoisseur of all things, but I also worry that this precise urge is what makes the market-salt-lick so tasty and delicious. It tastes good, but I'm still getting milked.
This was a good take, but if I may digress... given the references to Boris, Big|Brave, and Baroness in different posts, I believe I'd subscribe just for the music takes. I'll give Bell Witch a shot, because I have no idea how "doom metal without a guitar" is supposed to work.
Oh, this was fun. I am such a coffee snob that I complain about the coffee in New York City. My local barista and roaster, who inspects each bean by hand before roasting, cannot be beat. I like people and their obsessions. I do not like beer but I love my friend’s endless craft beer posts on Instagram. I love my wine snob friends. Due to their company I’m now just a little bit of a wine snob.
I wanna put in a plug here for one of the virtues of midwestern culture: it seems like here in the midwest, we're better at getting enthusiastic about stuff without turning into insufferable snobs. So for instance, here in Cleveland, beer culture is pretty huge, with tons of very popular local breweries all over the place. But everyone at these breweries is, pretty much universally, helpful and excited to show people new beers they might like (and are happy helping beer newbies get started). And yeah, I'm sure there are snobs floating around, but most of the beer guys I know are perfectly happy to drink a PBR or even a white claw if that's what's available.
So my hot take, I guess, is that snobbery doesn't necessarily have to be correlated with enthusiasm and knowledge. I think snobbery is really it's own distinct cultural phenomenon that infects whatever it touches. Beer or coffee enthusiasm doesn't turn people into snobs, but snobby people are happy to weaponize whatever interests are available to grab on to.
Great article! But as a hardcore dumbass (I’m literally wearing a youth of today t-shirt right now), I mostly wanted to say: very good straight edge joke up top!
As a Michigander who was college age a few years later than you, I admit I have taken for granted how nice it is to have Bell's, Founders, Short's, and a bunch of other local options available pretty much anywhere I'd like except for dive bars and party bars (and even in some of those, occasionally). And I wouldn't have discovered my longstanding love for extreme and unorthodox metal if I hadn't stumbled across people gushing about Opeth's Blackwater Park and Isis' Panopticon on nerdy forums as a high school student in '04. So, here's to the nerds and snobs.
Is this an ode to neoliberalism?
sapporo is great delete this
I'm going to put in a plug here for Jimmy Carter, who legalized home brewing of beer and helped launch the craftbrew trend. In this particular case it wasn't just the internet.
James Fallows published an overstated take on this in the Atlantic, but since he had to walk it back slightly I'll link to the correction and not the original:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/08/jimmy-carter-not-the-king-of-beers-updated/61599/
I read this with Skallas's essays on refinement culture in the back of my mind (https://paulskallas.substack.com/p/refinement-culture). Seems like we could say refinement happens in two directions: flattening certain things (basketball, graphic design) and fracturing others (beer, coffee). Is that fair to say? Other thoughts on how these analyses interact?
I guess for me the amusing part has been being overtaken by a whole new generation of coffee snobs leaving me totally bewildered. When I grew up we considered ourselves lucky to live in the land of Peets Coffee and it was indeed so much better than what you could buy at the supermarket -- so that's how I learned to love coffee -- strong and rich and a little burnt tasting. So when third wave coffee came along with all kinds of new descriptive terms I was completely confused -- I would find myself in pour over coffee temples reading descriptions and they would sound good until I would get to the word citrus or something like that and think what do I want with citrus notes in my coffee -- which one is like Peet's Italian Roast? I mentioned this to a coffee snob friend who then said that I was like the beer drinkers who prefer Bud. That put me in my place. I have learned to appreciate the third wave beans on occasion but would still rather grind up my super dark and oily Peets beans in the morning and feel myself wake up.
As a professional coffee snob, I highly recommend Ruby Coffee Roasters in Wisconsin!
“to drink a different good beer of a different variety every night. (Well, a six pack every weekend, these days. Things change, when you get older.)“
Impressed that you’ve gone from 7 beers/week to 6. =)
Great piece, like always.
I'm a year younger than you, and in 2003 even small packies in MA typically had at least a cooler door of Sam, Sierra, and whatever the local micros were. I do remember that having double-digit varieties of beer on draft was pretty rare around that time, though.
Was the extra 3 hours a day that the MA packies could open relative to CT that significant?
Not that this refutes from the overall point, just the timing (maybe another 10-15 years back? There was a microbrewery/brewpub craze in the mid 90s that imploded around 2000).
I vaguely agree with you, even to the extent that I try to be an annoying connoisseur of all things, but I also worry that this precise urge is what makes the market-salt-lick so tasty and delicious. It tastes good, but I'm still getting milked.
Beer expert holds court in a local bar, takes one glass after another, guessing the brand while blindfolded.
Finally, a guy can’t take it any more, hands him a glass:
- *choke THAT’S PISS!
- Yes. But whose?
As someone else who hit 21 in 2002, I can 100% confirm this. Zoomers will never understand the Xennial struggle.
This was a good take, but if I may digress... given the references to Boris, Big|Brave, and Baroness in different posts, I believe I'd subscribe just for the music takes. I'll give Bell Witch a shot, because I have no idea how "doom metal without a guitar" is supposed to work.