Craft Beer: Snapshot for the Uninitiated

​CRAFT BEER

You see people drinking it.
You hear people talking about it.
And you may ask yourself:  What is all this fuss? Why are people so into this shit?
You may even have tried a few and found them repugnant or disappointing.
Or perhaps you’ve just discovered craft beer and need a little orientation.
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This writeup should answer just enough of your questions to leave you informationally satisfied. It will either send you on your merry way confidently embracing craft beer, or give you perfectly good reasons to dismiss it altogether.

To begin with, even as a craft beer lover myself I’ll openly admit, in 2020 craft beer is a fashion statement. It’s very grammable. The beers have crazy names and graphics to go with them, and are deliberately extreme and trendy. This ain’t your grandpappy’s bland beer! Hell, this ain’t no big corporate shit! This is small-batch, locally-sourced, hand-crafted, one-of-a-kind, super-tasty-epic-espialidociousness!! Every batch is so incredibly unique and mind-blowing that you simply MUST try it! Everyone who doesn’t will have just missed one of the most transformative, orgasmic life experiences to be had by the mouth (that’s what I usually tell my potential sex partners).

Sardonic remarks aside, the reality is that craft beer today is about image as much as it is about flavour. There are craft beer communities the world over, although craft beer is biggest in North America. The typical craft beer enthusiast is a pretentious fuck, or beerded douche; but that is changing. Equally pretentious women are ever-present, and their numbers are growing. New drinkers also get in on the fun, typically out of curiosity. Craft beer is something different. It easily presents as counterculture and non-mainstream. If you’re all tatted up with whatever nonsense it is you think covers up your insecurities, then you better damn well know a thing or two about craft beer!

There’s also the experience beyond the beer. Many craft breweries have taprooms that allow you to sit and sample their beers, while chatting with other enthusiasts. You get to explore new towns, neighbourhoods, foods, and live music. There are brewery tours, though most of these are not proper "tours". You get a quick glance at the brewing equipment then sit down and try some beer. The fun tours are the ones where someone drives you around to multiple breweries in one day.

What happens behind the scenes in a craft brewery is usually not exciting at all. The bulk of the work is cleaning, kegging, and canning. And deliveries. You’ll have more fun watching your friend bake a cake. The reality is, most craft brewing isn’t that complicated and it’s not worth getting into details here. In fact, you don’t even need to brew beer to be a craft brewer. Just give a contract brewing operation your favourite beer recipes and they’ll do the work. You just take care of the marketing – hooray! That said, most craft brewers are passionate about their brews and will not have marketing as top priority. But even then they’ll have limited capacity and if they want to sell beer to more than just a handful of their neighbours, they’ll need to contract out.
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Let’s briefly discuss brewing. After all, to be a proper pretentious fuck you’ll need to do a little homebrewing. Here’s how you do it: go find a youtube video and they’ll explain. The primary piece of equipment required is a camping cooler. You boil grains, but you’re not making porridge… Throw some shit in the cooler and let nature do her thing. Whatever. I could explain the science behind it all, but it really doesn’t matter. Craft brewing is an art. Sure, the pretentious fucks will throw around some scientific jargon now and then, usually tripping up on it because they don’t know what they’re talking about. The craft brewer with a background in biochemistry or molecular biology is relatively uncommon; and usually is not a pretentious fuck.

Now on to the fun stuff, with a quick note on something to keep in mind when trying ANY beer:
There are no bad beers. There are beers you like, there are beers that are not to your liking, and there are beers that have spoiled. Even some beers that did not turn out as intended actually are tasty surprises (“that’s my sex” they said). Of course, pretentious fucks will readily call beers “bad”, so beware when asking them what they think of a particular brew.​

In 2020, as for several years now, extreme beers dominate. Presently, heavily hopped, hazy IPAs, and tangy, tart (or super-sour) beers are all the rage. Just make the beer memorable like a Fizz candy. It sells, and there’s more room for error because extreme flavours mask off flavours. The focus is not on quality, balance, or consistency. And to be honest that’s not all bad, as craft brewing is an art after all.

But it wasn’t always like this. In the earlier days of craft brewing – when you’d call it a microbrewery and not a craft brewery – the beers were made to have more flavour and true character than the commonplace big brew offerings. You’d buy a craft/micro beer for the care and quality of ingredients that went into it. For example, an Irish Red would have rich malt flavour from actual malt and not caramelized sugar. You could count on a micro beer to have been made with proper ingredients, and not adjuncts (ex. rice in place of barley because rice is cheaper). As well, the vast majority of these beers wouldn’t punch you inside your mouth like today’s extreme beers.

So what of these IPAs and sours?

IPAs – India Pale Ales. Lotsa hops. Hops usually make a beer bitter. Traditionally, IPAs were a reddish-brown colour because they had lotsa malt to balance the lotsa hops. The extra malt adds sweetness that softens the bitterness. There’s also more alcohol because yeast eat some of that extra sugar and release more alcohol. Altogether, these extra concentrations make for a fun, taste-tastic beer. But things have gotten out of hand as brewers work to out-do each other in hopiness. And in the process, all different kinds of new hop varieties have been developed. In recent years, brewers started making extremely hoppy beers that – get this – aren’t bitter at all. So you can drink a hoppy beer that isn’t bitter.

Enter the New England IPA. This beer is “hazy” – it’s cloudy and looks like someone shot a hot load into your beer (Did you?? she said). NEIPAs are similar to “juicy” IPAs, and beers in these styles tend to be yellowish and taste like sweet orange and tropical fruit. So if you’ve had an IPA that tasted like grapefruit and pine and didn’t like it, you may actually end up enjoying a juicy or hazy IPA. As for “dank” IPAs, these taste like marijuana and are more earthy and bitter than a typical juicy IPA. In case you haven’t already heard, hops and weed are tight - like family.

Now what about sours? The best are Belgian. But every now and then there are some outstanding ones that are locally brewed in North America. Sour beers are more popular than I would have expected, and some people who don’t normally drink beer, or typically drink bland lagers, actually love sours. Just keep in mind that some sours are acetic (like vinegar) while others are tart (like lemon). If you like Kombucha, then you have a taste for the acetic. If you like sour candy that makes you pucker, then you’re a masochist. Look at the description of the “sour” beer to get an idea of whether or not you’ll like it. Many sours are barrel aged and have fruit added, but these usually are much more sour than sweet. If you easily get heartburn, it’s best to avoid sours or limit yourself to tasting small quantities at a time.

In case you’re wondering, what’s the difference between a lager and an ale? It really doesn’t matter much anymore. You can find heavily hopped lagers that taste just like ales, and lagered ales that taste just like lagers. Unless you’re drinking traditional beers, go by the descriptors and not whether it’s a lager or an ale.

These current trends of hazy, juicy IPAs and tart sours won't last forever. So what's on the horizon? Light, crisp lagers and low alcohol beers are what. These have been increasing in popularity over the past couple years, and there are some big developments already in terms of offerings by craft brewers. This is partly due to pretentious fucks getting concerned about developing into fat fucks, and younger drinkers not being keen on getting drunk. Personally I've been moving to lighter and dealcoholized beers for a few years now, mostly because I love beer and don't want to be a drunk. I call myself an organoleptic*. It's also pretty nice to be able to drive while sipping on a (dealcoholized) beer. And if you're on medication that doesn't go well with alcohol, or are in a depressive funk, you can still enjoy beer. Just readjust your standards a little... Alcohol acts synergistically with other components of beer to enhance flavour. So without alcohol some beers taste bland or like tea (or teabagging depending on who you ask). However, I'm sure new technology will solve this problem sooner than later.

Now go have some fun (drink)! Do some research and learn a little history. Buy a few beers that interest you, taste them and make mental notes on how you perceive them. What's the style of beer you're drinking? What's unique about it? Don't rush this process. I usually read up on a beer I like only because I want to know what makes it so likeable to me. If I can't find this specific beer again, can I find another similar to it? You'll learn more about what you like. And don't forget to enjoy your beer. The primary reason to drink beer is enjoyment, and socializing.

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*Organoleptism: Addiction to sensory stimulation, particularly in relation to beer.
Ex. He's a sad organoleptic. His organoleptism drives him to sample beers to the detriment of social interaction with peers.
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