I love the "jump the shark" idea but only because I was a pre-teen when Happy Days and the Fonze was on TV. It combines my love of taking a adolescent view of things with my habit of taking a adolescent view of things. So it was with interest that I read this from Joe Stange this morning:
It's all a bit... much. It's enough to make a yank want to duck into a cheap dive and quietly suck down shakers of Sierra Nevada. Because frankly I would be content to do so.
My first reaction? If you have lost the overriding desire to duck into a cheap dive and quietly suck down shakers from time to time, well, I think you have lost something or never had it. For example, while I have a wee bit of curiosity about the experience of blind tastings, I seriously doubt its greater defining value. I do like Andy's view that it might be a perfectly acceptable parlour game. Same sometimes even goes for unblinded (sighted?) tasting and, certainly, swanky grog and grub nights, knees uncomfortably lodged beneath linen. Aren't they just variations on the theme of "trend"? The need to justify, to characterize so as to allow oneself the core experience? Are they that much different from the giggle right had at the expense of Stella Black? From the PR spin of the consultant's quack science or the justifying thrill of your hobby now coming to cable TV?
Don't get me wrong. Good beer is good. Very good. But for me there is no better time than mustering gangs of good bottles and interested interesting folk and just pouring - even if only in the company of mere men. Heck, I just love giving away good beer to pals and workmates in order hear their reaction a few days later. The rest is fluff to one degree or another - the sideshow - the consultant's angle and hope of reward.
Comments
Jennifer - June 30, 2010 9:27 AM
It sounds to me like the thirsty pilgrim thinks we already have. It also sounds like a backlash against American craft beer might be brewing (sorry, pun not initially intended). Maybe those who have been in the beer trenches longer think differently, but I think your ordinary drinker (who is just now used to seeing Sierra Nevada on tap at their local bar) is delighted with all the choices.
Alan - June 30, 2010 11:36 AM
I don't know if it is a backlash against the beer but against how it is presented. I have been bored by expensive beer and the justifications of those who profit from it for years. I think the recession has gone a long way in curing us of that.
But Joe and I have been in the trenches for years, too... just that we are the consumers - you know the other side of the "marketplace." Maybe we are tired of the lack of identification of that fact.
Jennifer - July 1, 2010 5:11 PM
I heartily agree with you in regards to price. If it didn't sound like whining, I'd say that expense has been a barrier to me learning more about different styles of beer. When you're freaking out about vet bills or whatnot, it's really hard to plunk down top cash for "just" beer, as some of my friends might say. (The fact that I apparently live in a craft-beer dead zone might have something to do with it as well, but that's not the point of this post...)
Are you tired of the lack of identification as having been in the trenches? Or as being consumers?
Alan - July 1, 2010 6:27 PM
Oh, definitely being consumers. I go on and on all the time about the North American marketplace lacking a consumer focused beer advocacy presence. I am pretty much convinced we are bing played as patsies.
Joe Stange - July 1, 2010 7:38 PM
Jumped the shark. Yep, that's the phrase I was looking for yesterday.
It might have happened. Certain beer dinners and uppity joints are getting a little silly these days. But I don't see why there should be a backlash, unless it becomes hard to find good local craft beer at a reasonable price. Anyway even the silly stuff is all in good fun, right?
Stay tuned for more on this topic. I think the shark has legs.
Alan - July 1, 2010 7:52 PM
The shark has legs? My only response can be "the pigeon sings at midnight."
Jeff Alworth - July 2, 2010 1:14 PM
This is along the lines of thinking I was doing recently, too, about the simple pleasure of drinking. We've sort of gotten caught up in the hype, and I see lots of people talking past the experience of enjoying beer--as if they're looking around the corner for the next magic trick. The act of drinking beer should be about pleasure. If novelty is a part of that pleasure, well and good, but it needn't be the focus. I regularly stop in to places for a shaker of very familiar pale (often SN). Just think; thirty-one years ago, such an idea was revolutionary.
It's still pretty nice.
Jennifer - July 3, 2010 7:31 PM
In my continuing quest to expose my beer ignorance, may I ask: what's a shaker?
I've heard of plenty of different kinds of glasses (I'm assuming a shaker's a kind of glass), but not a shaker...
Alan - July 3, 2010 8:26 PM
I thought it was a hold over from the Shaker religious sect but apparently it is the glass that looks like the glass half of a martini shaker set.
Dan Sullivan - July 6, 2010 6:03 PM
Beer won't Jump the Shark, even if Stella just did. Uncontrollably, added the slow-motion from Pete's post to the Fonz, leather jacket and all, literally jumping the shark (impossibly drinking a Stella Black in mid-air).
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I am happy every time I wrap my fingers around a cold glass, or occasionally bottle. Definitely some more than others, but they're (almost) all enjoyable. Without a blindfold.