I am starting to see a trend in the influx of homebrewing blogs that is starting to get under my skin a little.
More people are starting to brew. For a lot of different reasons. And beer is so damn easy to make, I dont know why everyone dont make their own. But with that comes the eventual blogs we all are putting out. And as with all popular trends…
Enter, the Hipsters. Beer snobs from hell. Just regular beer snobs are bad enough, Hipster beer snobs are worse. You know the ones. The little crowds of craft brew drinkin dudes with just enough knowledge of beer to spew fancy terminology in a rant for this particular beer or against that particular brewery. All wrapped in a smug little veil of cynicism.
It is rather funny listening to most of the bable. Some of them are rather good at their craft of flash and persuasion. If you’re not careful, they can talk even the worst beer into a prize winning beer.
All of that is well and good, and easy to spot to avoid if nessessary. But now these annoying, but dangerously sneaky beard growing snarks are not only entering the homebrew scene, but posting the same style of far fetch-ed ness as their beer reviews.
Now I’m not against any one homebrewing (well maybe a few), but brewing for the sole sake of impressing one group of people or intentionally ruffling the feathers of another while purposely using false or misleading information is entirely a whole other story.
Us home brewers are always trying to get more people to brew. The more people who brew leads to many good things. More beer, more experienced information, more beer, better techniques, more beer….
But I do not see how one expects people to want to enter the homebrewing world, by making appear overly expensive, and as complicated as splicing DNA.
Now anyone reading this particular “blog” will know that none of this is true. For what you spend on a night out on the town you can be brewing far superior beer than what you had on that night out. And there really is almost nothing simpler to make.
There are 1000’s of sites out there now pertaining to homebrewing. 1000’s. A newcomer who doesnt know shit from shine-ola does not know what is right, wrong, truths, lies. And what usually happens in that situation? Thats right, the shiny object distracts them, or they notice a theme.
When all you see are sites claiming that the only way to brew decent beer is use $600 pots and $2000 conicals you get a little put off and walk away.
Today in fact I read a blog that aggressively reported that its only worth brewing if you spend over $500 in startup and only use extract. Using grain only makes bad beer with unpredictable results. And by going all grain you would be setting your self up for huge price jumps in equipment and cost per batch. I almost shit myself.
With this info you either dont even bother, or give up after a short stint, and then tell all your friends how bad it was.
I been brewing for close to 20 now, and I dont think I have half that amount into equipment all them years combined. And my beer dont suck. And going all grain? Sure it takes and hour or so longer,, but it uses basically the same equipment, and will drop your batch costs by 50% most of the time. (and it looks cool if you are into that)
So what can we do in this world of tight shirts and Buddy Holly glasses?
I say post your beers, post your photos, post your procedures. Post everything! Throw real info out there so its easy to find.
Beer is going to happen. How you choose to make it happen is entirely up to you.
In a jug? Fine. A homebrew store starter kit? awesome. a $3000 automated electric setup with no user interaction? No problem.
Like our club President says, “brewing is not rocket science, but it can be”
How ever you wanna do it is great,, but dont start with the highbrow beer snob “this is the only way, and if you dont it will fail” stuff. No matter how you choose, in the end everything happened the same way,, it just in a different covering.
Instead of scaring people off, get them in and get them brewing. Its hard to critique beers when there are no beers to critique.
May the force be with you.
9stripe Brewing 