I was discussing this with my brother (who's a Euroswiller, but appreciates that there are differences in beers, even if he still prefers yellow and fizzy).
I was telling him that the concept of beer as an artisan product is lost on most people.
It’s fizzy, savoury adult softdrink with a little alcohol to make one happy, and burp. Mass produced like coke.
Getting most people - beer drinkers or not to understand that it has many forms and varieties, a wide range of ingredients and requires talent to produce well, is like asking a smoker to pick up nuances between the aromas of a number of single origin malt whiskies. That sense has been long killed, either way by mass produced products.
Getting worked up about it, is pointless - people have been marketed to and conditioned to accept/do something, and for the most part, they ain't budging.
Ironically, there’s more ingredients in beer than wine, more varieties of those ingredients and it’s a more complex drink in a lot of senses (though with grapes varying wildly from season to season, maybe not always).
But wine is “sophisticated” to the masses (again branding), so no one gets that beer isn’t “beer”, is saison, alt, helles, ale, lager, pilsner....and so on.
Having said that, I got a Carlton drinker onto my APA, and he shifted his buying patterns to Fat Yak. That's a quantum shift for a Carlton drinker. He's also an avid consumer of my AIPA.
Other than him, more AIPA for me though - that I don't mind.
I'm more worried than usual about this at the moment, as I brewed a Belgian PA with T-58, which has thrown some excellent clovey phenols (high temp at start of ferment, quick drop into a lowish range). I'm thinking to myself "great beer, fits perfectly into BJCP and tastes great". But it's for a poker night, and my other thought is "is it too flavoursome for Pilsner drinkers".
I've an Irish Red on, not highly hopped, just to make sure that Euro drinkers (who happen to like standard pommie lagers and non-craft ales) aren't upset with the choice of beer.
Still keeping the AIPA for me though. :icon_drool2: :wub:
Goomba