On beer drinkers

That post last night got me excited again.  I enjoy blogging.  As it's 7:30 in the morning, this is not a beer review (and I'm guessing a good amount of the coming posts won't be), but a review/critique/whatever of the beer drinker him/herself.  Why?  Because beer is an equalizer. 
It's not often you see someone sipping on a Grey Goose martini next to someone throwing back shots of tequila or someone nursing a glass of 10 year old merlot talking to someone with a bottle of Mad Dog.  Yet a Coors light drinker next to a G'Night Imperial Red drinker doesn't really raise any eyebrows.  Beer is not too pricey (I rarely pay over $10 a bottle, even for the amazing stuff), it's readily available, and it's such an all encompassing genre of alcoholic beverage that pretty much anyone can enjoy one kind or another.

I'd hazard a guess that there are 4 kinds of beer drinkers:

1. The big beer drinker - sticks to the big brands, not a fan of micro/craft brews, doesn't usually drink for taste.  Usually pretty set with one brand (Bud, Coors, Miller, maybe PBR or Old Style), often drink a lot of them in one sitting.
2. The semi-adventurous - tries new stuff here and there, not afraid to experiment a bit, appreciates taste but doesn't go out of the way to find oddballs and new beers.  Typically sticks to the bigger craft breweries (Sam Adams, Sierra Nevada, New Belgium, etc.) and the tamer styles (Ambers, wheats, pales, etc.).
3. The beer snob/connoisseur - knows styles, knows breweries, understands what he/she likes, seeks out new stuff, enjoys talking beer.
4. The home or craft brewer - understand what goes into beer, really gets the process and art of brewing and thus can appreciate beers that he/she doesn't even like.  Loves to talk beer and is therefore usually the most annoying of the 4, unless he/she is giving you free beer at time time, in which case you deal with it.

I'm sure I could subdivide more, but I won't get too deep into it.  I think the vast majority of beer drinkers fall in the first two categories, though this region is by no means indicative of the distribution across the country.  I can get to about 15 breweries with less than an hour of driving, so the number of beer snobs out here is disproportionately high.  I blame the water, we have wonderful water that makes wonderful beer.  Anyway, getting off topic...

One of the things I've come to notice as of late is that a lot of the category 3 and 4 people come from the engineering and science fields.  It makes sense, the brewing process is complex and has a ton of knobs and switches to mess with to get exactly what you want out.  Anyone with a scientifically geared mind could definitely have some fun.

If you haven't noticed, there's a craft brew movement going on.  There are beer bars popping up all over, TV shows about brewing, magazines, books, stores, kits, etc.  There are over 1700 craft breweries in the country with more popping up daily.  It's a great time to be a beer drinker and a great time to recruit more into categories 2 and 3 so these breweries can keep making great beer.  Buy a friend a good beer and introduce them to better taste, they'll probably thank you.  They might barf on you, but that likely means you bought them something hardcore after they'd had like 9 beers, in which case you should plan better.  Go out of your way to support your local breweries too.  I know the $18 case of Miller Light is tempting, but think how much more you will enjoy the local stuff.  Light beer is boring (and in some cases evil), so free your taste buds and get adventurous.

Also, go see Beer Wars if you haven't, I'll probably have a post on it soon. Until then, bottoms up (I had to go look up what I ended older posts with because it's been so damn long since I last posted).