It's good to have a hobby. They keep our minds sharp and give us something to talk about at parties. Some people are so good at their hobbies that they are able to monetize them and make their hobby a profession. But, just as often, people let their passions get the best of them. They go from talking about their hobbies with other like-minded individuals to spouting unsolicited facts at anyone in shouting range. There is a fine line between being geeky and being a snob, and you may not know you have crossed it until it is too late. One of the most snob-filled areas of expertise has got to be wine. Now, I am not opposed to discussing proper decanting methods or calculating degrees Brix with someone who knows what they are talking about, but few other hobbies can so quickly lead to snobbery than trying to become a wine expert. It is far too easy to turn your wine knowledge into a weapon. And a large part of the cult of wine snobs is fear. This is true of any cult, I suppose. Fear is a tool that is used to keep people in line. In the wine world, the fear comes from not wanting to seem uneducated. Wine is the drink of the elite, after all, and some people fear that they may be too pedestrian to drink it. Maybe their palate isn't refined enough, and if they say the wrong thing everyone around them will know the truth. And wine snobs feed on this uncertainty. It's this culture of fear that has allowed these bullshitters to thrive for so long. Now, that's not all I have to bitch about as far as wine snobs go, but I also want to address the other side of this shit-covered coin: beer snobs. Now, I am slightly more forgiving of beer snobs, if only because wine has been considered the drink of the elite for centuries, while beer was for the unwashed masses. This belief is not only untrue, but enduring. Even today, people think that wine is somehow special. Going to a fancy party? Better bring a bottle of wine. Going to a party for your buddy from high school who just got out of prison? Bring a case of beer. So, with that kind of double standard, I give the beer snobs a break because at least they're doing something to combat beer's reputation as an inferior choice of alcoholic beverage. But that's not to say that beer snobs aren't horrible people, too. They most definitely are, and they are more vocal than their wine-swilling counterparts. But does that make them worse? Or does the inherent superiority complex that goes with wine snobbery make them the greater of two evils? To get to the bottom of this, we must first examine in painful detail what makes these two groups so thoroughly indefensible. Really, the dividing line between a nerd and a snob is all in one's attitude and behavior. Whereas a nerd will get excited to share his knowledge with others, a snob will thrust his knowledge upon others, with no regard for whether or not the information is needed or even wanted. Knowledge is power, and snobs will use theirs to prove their own superiority to other, lesser beings. If you were to make the mistake of disagreeing with a snob, they would quickly inform you that you only disagree because you don't know enough about the complicated subject matter. If you knew what you were talking about, you would surely agree with them, for they are clearly more educated on the matter than you. Snobs love to make things seem harder to comprehend than they really are. Take, for example, glassware: That's an intimidating amount of containers to choose from. And you can rest assured that if you choose poorly, the snobs of the world will snicker and judge you before smugly informing you on the myriad of ways you were wrong. Now, does drinking a Pinot Noir from a Chardonnay glass dramatically alter the drinking experience? I mean, not really. Is there anything wrong with using a Stange glass to drink a Belgian Dubbel? No, of course there isn't. But that won't stop you from being violently shamed by snobs. Because this unnecessary amount of variety is a way to suss out the weaker, less invested individuals among us. These people are like chum in the water to snobs, who thrive on cutting others down to prove to the world that they are in some way special. To prove that, since they possess the secret knowledge of alcoholic drinks, they are superior. As far as wine snobs go, price also plays a vital role in their shenanigans. Because if a bottle of wine costs less than $50, it is barely drinkable; if it costs less than $30, it is deserving of derision and unfit for consumption; if it costs less than $15, it is nothing more than garbage juice made for garbage people. And God help you if the label of your bottle features a picture of a cute animal. This is all, of course, madness. A bottle of Hahn Pinot Noir retails for around $15, and it is delicious and complex. But it is also popular and widely-available, so it can't be openly enjoyed by a wine snob. For your average wine snob, price is a type of flavor descriptor, like "freshly-cut grass" or "cigar box". Expensive simply tastes better. Which leads me to another obnoxious wine snob habit: making up ludicrously elaborate flavor descriptors. Like "freshly cut grass" instead of simply "grassy", as if their olfactory sense is so tuned in they can differentiate between the two in a glass of wine. And, who knows, maybe they can, but most people either can't or realize that it's a waste of time to try to get to that point. For most people, "grassy" will more than suffice. But, hey, becoming a wine snob is all about distancing yourself from most people. Other terms that will make you want to slap the person who says them include "angular", "austere", "elegant", "flamboyant", "unctuous", "new plastic", "pencil lead", "sweaty socks", "wet dog"; sadly, the list goes on and on. If you have ever used any of these terms to describe how a wine smells or tastes, you should take a vow of silence to atone for your past misdeeds. Beer snobs, while similarly irritating, are very different animals than wine snobs. Part of that goes back to the misconception that beer is somehow inferior to wine, because beer snobs are a much less haughty type of snob. In the case of a beer snob, you could find yourself being talked down to by a grown man wearing basketball shorts and a backwards baseball cap. It can be a very confusing situation to find oneself in, to be sure. Your typical wine snob will have the common decency to at least appear intelligent. Beer snobs feel no such compulsion. Even the terminology of the beer snob is brash and impudent. These foul creatures will go on and on about whalez and shelf turds like the meanings of such terms are apparent. They talk about the drinkability and dankness of sessionable (or crushable, or quaffable) ales and lament their most recent drain pour. And they love acronyms, from beer terms such as ABV, IBU, and SRM, to truncated beer names like SNPA, BCBS, KBS, CBS, 3F, FFF (very different from 3F), PtE, DFH, BMC, etc. FFS, that's a lot of useless acronyms, and that list is not even close to comprehensive.
Beer snobs also pride themselves on obtaining rare beers. These are the previously mentioned "whalez", and for a beer snob, drinking these hard-to-find gems is secondary to telling people that you own them. Many beer snobs adopt the Pokémon "gotta catch 'em all" approach to beer. Enjoying the liquid in the bottle is far less important than the label on the bottle. Hype is a powerful aphrodisiac to a beer snob. And with beer's relatively low price, even someone with a middling income can become a collector of rare beer. They can wallow in hype until it becomes (to them, anyway) something of value. Unfortunately for the beer snobs of the world, hype is as meaningless as price when it comes to assessing taste. You can't taste hype, just like you can't smell price, no matter what fancy glassware you put the liquid in. It's something snobs will never understand. The good news is that snobs don't matter. It's their deep, dark secret; the thing they are rebelling against with their encyclopedic knowledge of terroir and hop varieties. Every snob who has scoffed at a person enjoying a white zinfandel or a Stag is nothing more than an ugly little creature pointing its own self-hatred outward. And I'm not even getting into the many studies debunking these so-called wine experts. If you like sweet wine and think dry reds are gross, then guess what: you're right! Think craft beer is for sissies who can't handle real beer? You nailed it! Personally, I like to drink my beer out of a coffee mug and my wine from a soda can (rinsed out or not). Not only are these perfectly acceptable receptacles, but they also lend a bit of stealth to my drinking, which, in certain situations, can be invaluable. My point is this: the sooner we all stop taking these things so seriously, the sooner the snobs' power will start to wane. There is a right way and a wrong way to do many things, but at the end of the day, personal preference wins out. And that's the way it should be, because this needlessly snobby behavior is largely responsible for turning people off to the idea of getting into craft beer, or getting into good wines. With such a (seemingly) steep learning curve, most people are going to stick to their Bud Lights and their Yellow Tails because they don't want to put in all that time and effort just to turn into one of these horrible people themselves. And the snobs want to keep their thing out of the mainstream. The more niche it is, the cooler they think they are. But this is booze we're talking about, and good booze is meant to be enjoyed by everyone. -Dustin
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