Founder Sam Calagione has taken on craft beer snobs.
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It's one thing for a columnist like myself to criticize a trend in the craft beer world. It's far more powerful when a leader in the industry makes the same point.
But that's what happened when Dogfish Head Brewing's founder Sam Calagione took on beer snobs last week, calling them out in a beerAdvocate.com thread.
As regular readers know, I have beaten—pounded, even—this drum for years (as has Sam, if you know him). I feel there is nothing more detrimental to any subculture, be it one about craft beer, indie music, or comic books, than snobs in those areas. Too often these know-it-alls turn their psychological insecurities into a cudgel with which to bludgeon outsiders and neophytes. While most people want to share and expand the influence of hobbies they cherish, these stiff necks act like they discovered craft beer and/or have some magical arcane knowledge handed down to them via a secret society.
While debates about which brews are the "best," (which, to me, means "favorite") etc., are fun and even necessary, calling the products of any one brewery "overrated" paints with too broad a stroke. And before anyone reminds me that I wrote a column about overrated beers last year, let me point out that: 1) In that column, I went to great pains to note that all the beers mentioned were great, but they simply couldn't live up to the hype surrounding them (usually created by beer snobs) and 2) I was talking about single beers, not the output of an entire brewery. It was also lighthearted and not insulting at all to any of the beers mentioned.
Anyway, I have read (or heard) far too often some wag saying that some industry leaders—including some of my favorites such as Dogfish Head, Stone, and Lagunitas—are "overrated" or "not that great." And my reply, if I can give one, is always, "Really?"
There are people (who I suspect are aliens from worlds far away) who don't like The Beatles. That's OK, it's a matter of taste. But as vaunted as they are, it's crazy to call them "overrated." Why? Because they simply were as good as advertised. The same holds true for most craft beer breweries. As I've said more than I care to mention: taste is subjective.
But who cares what I think? Certainly not a good number of craft beer "experts." so let me turn the floor over to Sam. Here is a segment of what he wrote on beeradvocate.com:
It's pretty depressing to frequently visit this site and see the most negative threads among the most popular. This didn’t happen much ten years ago when craft beer had something like a three percent market share. Flash forward to today, and true indie craft beer now has a still-tiny but growing market share of just over five percent. Yet so many folks that post here still spend their time knocking down breweries that dare to grow. It’s like that old joke: “Nobody eats at that restaurant anymore, it’s too crowded.”. . . It’s interesting how many posts that refer to Dogfish being overrated include a caveat like “except for Palo…except for Immort…etc.” We all have different palates which is why it’s a great thing that there are so many different beers. Knowing each of your palates is unique you will probably prefer one over the other. That doesn’t mean the one you didn’t prefer sucked. And the breweries you don’t prefer but are growing don’t suck either. Respect Beer.
I couldn't have said it better myself. Cheers to Sam, and cheers to all of you who fight beer snobbery. Drink what you like; like what you want.