You will have to excuse me as I choke on my 300-year-old bourbon barrel aged beer. See, while we fans of good beer have seen nerd, geek, weirdo, snob and (my favorite) dipso, this slur was new for me:
These days, a brew doesn't impress the beer snobs unless it's aged in 300-year-old bourbon barrels or is bitter enough to shred your palate. On that basis, Original 16 Canadian Pale Ale likely won't impress the elitists -but it's a smooth, refreshing beer for the rest of us.
You have to remember that this is the Calgary Herald talking and, especially during a Federal election, Albertan fear of "elites"is legendary - not to mention that other fear of the bizarre, grotesque or offensive. As the word "elite" means nothing really at all, you can fill it with pretty much anything. But beer nerds as an elite? Sad solitary souls without a friends in the world perhaps but hardly a secret society behind the banks, governments and academia. Such an elite that the only TV program in recent years on the subject ends and all we can discuss are the fine points of "cancelled" versus "not renewed." Oh dear - gone is gone.
Are you part of an "elite"... or does that slight "high school chess club" embarrassment when bringing up your hobby sort of negate that?
Comments
Jeff Alworth - April 4, 2011 1:08 AM
Elite? I've been called worse.
John Heylin - April 4, 2011 1:15 AM
We actually have a secret society here in the Bay Area. We have members in politics, military, police and media. We call ourselves the 'Drink Nothings.' If people ask us about it we tell them we drink nothing.
Mark - April 4, 2011 3:04 PM
As a Saskatchewan beer ENTHUSIAST, I was quite excited to try Original 16 pale ale. It is described by the brewery as a pale ale, made from 100% barley malt, with a citrus hop aroma. Sounds promising doesn't it?
So I tried some, and it tasted like creamed corn, with a metallic/blood note in the finish. I gave a can to my dad, who is hardly an ENTHUSIAST, and he said, "for a 20-year anniversary beer, this is nothing special at all, it just tastes like their other beers." Even he could tell this beer was nothing but a marketing gimmick. Does this now make him a beer ELITIST?
Alan - April 4, 2011 4:46 PM
You two apparently form an elitista cabal.
Martyn Cornell - April 4, 2011 6:10 PM
I want to be called a nattering nabob of negativity.
Craig - April 4, 2011 10:04 PM
I'm drinking Genny Bock – Take that Calgary Herald!
Oh and Martyn, since Mr. Safire is busy, how's this for a alternative "an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals."
Hey wait a minute! Was Agnew talking about beer fans?
olllllo - April 5, 2011 8:14 PM
Safire is busy?
William Saffire
Unoccupied: December 17, 1929
Busy: September 27, 2009
Craig - April 6, 2011 8:34 PM
Yeah, he's busy attending to the business of being dead.