Craft Beer Elitism Is A Buzz Kill

I’ve been struggling with how to address this, ever since that notorious Anheuser- Busch commercial debuted during the third quarter of last season’s Super Bowl. Of course you remember the one that promoted their Macro Beer over products like a Pumpkin Peach Ale and portrayed craft beer fans as bearded academics fussing prissily over their beer.

The commercial elicited an immediate firestorm and social media exploded with understandable outrage. After all, Anheuser-Busch’s decision to run a commercial that was a tacit put-down of craft beer and its fans, while at the same time that actively buying up craft breweries like Elysian, was the height of hypocrisy and deserving of the considerable criticism their actions generated.

One of the things that pissed some people off, was the commercial’s quite specific visual presentation of craft beer snobbery in action. Craft beer fans were outraged as if people they portrayed don’t, or could never exist, in our community. 

But we all know that’s bullshit – because we’ve all seen craft beer elitism in action. And whether it shows up at your local bottle-share, in craft beer chatrooms, or in industry periodicals such as ourselves, it can be a major buzz kill… just sayin’.

The good news is that these people are largely not us. The craft beer community is generally incredibly welcoming and egalitarian.  But as with any art form there are people who either privately or publically deem themselves better equipped to be arbiters of taste…And that attitude alone runs so counter to the craft beer spirit as to make my skin crawl.

Craft beer’s most visible heads, people as accomplished as Stone’s Greg Koch, New Belgium’s Kim Jordan, Brooklyn Beer’s Steve Hindy or Dogfish Head’s Sam Calagione would never disparage another craftsman’s work publically – nor should they. These people know the mistakes they’ve made in the past and how long it took them to refine their art and become who they are.

Hey, we’ve all favorite beers and breweries that we advocate for… That’s part of the fun of exploring craft beer and we do it daily here at ACB.

But it’s how you do anything that matters …

After all, every “shit brewery” is just one beer away from greatness. And while we all celebrate opinions, in the end, that’s all they are, opinions – no matter your presumed level of expertise.

Sam Calagione once famously said that the “craft beer Industry is 99% asshole-free” – So let’s be on guard to not ever become that 1%.

Craft beer elitism is a buzz kill wherever and whenever it happens. Let’s try to keep Sam’s words top of mind and never give Big Beer another reason to dismiss us so easily.