{"id":160390,"date":"2025-03-27T20:58:08","date_gmt":"2025-03-27T20:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/recipes\/category-a-b\/beer\/the-session-145-critique-not-criticism-in-beer\/"},"modified":"2025-03-27T20:58:08","modified_gmt":"2025-03-27T20:58:08","slug":"the-session-145-critique-not-criticism-in-beer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=160390","title":{"rendered":"The Session 145: Critique not criticism in beer"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

When Matthew Curtis first announced the subject of this month\u2019s Session<\/a> he was at great pains to point out that he wasn\u2019t asking for tirades, rather he was seeking some deeper, more reflective writing. I sympathize with Matt\u2019s position, and I\u2019m happy to attempt to oblige, but since most of my own beer writing exists strictly for my own sanity and catharsis where I moan (largely to myself), this isn\u2019t so easy for me!<\/p>\n

Having said that, a decent amount of my writing does include more serious thought, and I should state plainly that I am 100% on Matt\u2019s side. He\u2019s asking for a more mature perspective, and perhaps a little more introspection as it relates to beer writing. I think that\u2019s potentially a good idea, but I also think there are some fundamental issues in beer that are significant obstacles to such work. In short, I just don\u2019t think that beer is quite there yet.<\/p>\n

Although the last 20 \u2013 30 years have seen huge cultural changes surrounding the position of beer in society, I\u2019m not sure that we are in a place where a critical mass of people care enough about more serious writing. I mean, I<\/em> do, Matt clearly does, and it may be that nearly all of the people taking part in this month\u2019s Session do as well, but that\u2019s a pretty small cadre. Even though I take beer ferociously seriously, many others don\u2019t. As long as that\u2019s the case, considered, even academic or intellectual writing surrounding beer, will too often fall upon deaf ears.<\/p>\n

When I say \u2018many others\u2019 this includes people that work for breweries, bars, distributors, and retailers, all of whom make their living from the product. I\u2019m absolutely staggered when countless numbers of people in those groups appear to have infinitely less knowledge and understanding than I do, a bloke who has never been paid a single red cent for any of my involvement in beer despite being immersed for what basically adds up to four decades. Routinely, I know more, and care more<\/em>, than virtually all of them do. It\u2019s as rare as hen\u2019s teeth for me to mention a book about beer that I have in my own library, and expect people working in beer to be able to engage in even the lowest level of conversation surrounding it and its contents.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s odd that such a lack of care or interest exists. This extends across so many areas; bars and their staff misrepresenting styles, inexplicable typos on beer menus, menus being hopelessly out of date or not existing at all, dirty glassware, distributors and retailers not knowing what they are selling or knowing anything about bottling and best before dates, the list of transgressions goes on and on and on and exists across every element from production to consumption<\/p>\n

Another issue surrounds the beer itself, which in turn reflects the consumer base. In wine \u2013 an inevitable if somewhat reluctant comparison \u2013\u00a0 there hasn\u2019t been a huge clamor for new things, rather the established still rules (mostly). Beer appears to feel the need for constant (failed) attempts at re-invention. Like the colossal number of \u201cbeers\u201d that literally don\u2019t taste like beer. It seems like beer doesn\u2019t want to be taken seriously, at least not by a sufficient number of people.<\/p>\n

Prior to #MeToo, the juvenile, sexual innuendo that accompanied so many beer names and labels was quite prevalent (remember the Clown Shoes debacle<\/a> of almost 15 years ago?) Decried at the time as exhibiting a lack of maturity, those names have mostly passed, but they have been replaced by the gaudy, cartoonish, fantasy\/sci fi\/horror-like artwork, that again appears to be aimed squarely at a much younger audience. The beer consumer it appears remains immature.<\/p>\n

Thus month\u2019s Session should make for some interesting reading. I\u2019m certainly not saying that Matt is wrong to ask for critique over criticism, but I would say that people that agree with him and care (me included) shouldn\u2019t be surprised when most of the beer industry isn\u2019t remotely interested in such a pursuit. I\u2019m 100% \u2018in\u2019 when it comes to more serious, deeper thinking surrounding beer and beer writing, but there\u2019s going to be a really small audience for that. Serious beer writing does<\/em> exist in the person(s) of folk like Adrian Tierney-Jones, Pete Brown, Ron Pattinson et al, and there are Beer Writers Guilds on both sides of the Atlantic, but what the masses<\/em> still want is the \u201cwriting\u201d associated with beer-bro, untappd ticking, dick-waving \u201cpastry stouts\u201d, \u201ccrispy bois\u201d, fake \u201cpuckering sours\u201d, and \u201cdank juice\u201d. I fear that beer still hasn\u2019t grown up sufficiently to respond to what Matt calls for. We\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Matthew Curtis first announced the subject of this month\u2019s Session he was at great pains to point out that he wasn\u2019t asking for tirades, rather he was seeking some deeper, more reflective writing. I sympathize with Matt\u2019s position, and I\u2019m happy to attempt to oblige, but since most of my own beer writing exists […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":160391,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137],"tags":[3171,22233,37758,14050,34847],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-160390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beer","tag-beer","tag-criticism","tag-critique","tag-session","tag-the-session"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Session 145: Critique not criticism in beer - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=160390\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Session 145: Critique not criticism in beer - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When Matthew Curtis first announced the subject of this month\u2019s Session he was at great pains to point out that he wasn\u2019t asking for tirades, rather he was seeking some deeper, more reflective writing. 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