For too long craft beer drinkers have held the title of pretentious, presumptuous douches. They’ve been lumped into the category of snobs like fine wine connoisseurs or coffee aficionados. People too good to buy the box of chardonnay or drink a cup o’ Joe from Mickey D’s.
We’ve classed these microbrew drinkers in with the likes of the $30,000 millionaire or (possibly worse) hipster assholes. Perhaps this stereotype has its roots in pretense, or nonsense, but craft beer is now a little more mainstream than the Bud Lights or Miller High Lifes of yesterday. And, thank God because it’s great.
Microbrews have really taken off in the United States. Now here in North Texas we’re seeing the principle of supply and demand at work in a very real way. Whereas, once it was nigh impossible to walk into a dive bar in this town and find anything more exotic than Shiner Bock on tap. You really looked like a dick if you ordered something more obscure than a Red Stripe. The beer community has been upping its game with good advertising and accessible, affordable brewery tours with generous samplings. It’s been tough to contain the deliciousness as word spreads from bros to blue collar good ol’ boys and everyone in between.
The very real truth is that microbrews are damn good. There is no shame in enjoying what is right in front of you. Maybe that’s what the game-changer has been is that people aren’t partaking in an effort to maintain some ridiculous self-serving image, but because it’s widely available. In fact, it seems the snobbiest people (mostly youngsters) are choking down Pabst Blue Ribbon or Budweisers in an effort to get back to the brass tacks of American beer. I’m not sure who they’re fooling. Life is short, drink the good beer because you don’t need to feel weird about it.