re: Don't wait in line for rare beer

This article is hilariously full of shite.

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They are to the craft beer-drinking public what the Tea Party is to the GOP.

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The tea party formed in response to a bloated and all-powerful federal government. The analogous opposition here would be BMC industry and their shills in local government that inhibit competition, not Joe Six Pack.

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They're turning craft beer into something it never was and never should be: unrelatable, unaffordable, and unwelcoming. Beer is inclusive by nature, but lines only exist to exclude. With each line stood and each trophy beer captured, they threaten the community's fundamentally democratic nature.

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I guess I missed where people are forced or not allowed to similarly participate in whale hunting. Pretty sure anyone who so wishes can also stand in line or otherwise seek out rare beers as they see fit.

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The point is, there’s a lot of craft beer out there, and a lot of it is very good. Whatever bottle you're waiting for simply can’t be that much better than the one you can buy on the shelf.

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Love how this guy is attempting to dictate degrees of personal taste.

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Waiting in line for beer is a divisive force in our community. It rarifies craft beer. It stratifies us into drinking castes. It values the scarcity of a beer over the enjoyment derived from it. Craft culture is separating into two classes, and one of them will only drink beer that's sufficiently scarce and properly cellared.

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Breweries, by producing rare sought-after beers in the first place, are responsible for the increased interest in and thus production of craft beer. By not incentivizing them to continue producing rare beers (by standing in line for them), you would see less high-quality offerings from breweries.

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But consider this: though it's growing at a fantastic rate these days, the entire craft community is still an enormous minority (just 11%!) in America's beer scene at large. That means more people than ever are poised to form their very first impression of our hoppy little world who don't know what you & I know. Namely, that there are a bajillion spectacular beers to try, so instead of scheming for a Pliny, they should go forth and enjoy a dozen very good, non-fetishized IPAs first.

There's a good chance that they’ll take one look at the lines (or one listen to the people who stand in 'em) and go somewhere else; into the inviting clutches of corporate "crafty" beers, or even back to the pale-yellow embrace of an adjunct lager. Beer-line mentality isn't just stupid, then -- it's intimidating, and maybe even toxic, to the continued diversity of the craft market.

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I'd be willing to bet that more people get into craft beer on the ground level by graduating from regular offerings to more select, less-known beers .. as opposed to non-beer drinkers who enter the market solely wanting to drink whales.

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The brewers! Don't forget about them. Talk to any craft brewer and they'll invariably tell you that their only goal is to make really good beer. (Craft brewers tend to be earnest to a fault.) Most of them do just that. But when craft beer's small, vocal, thought-leading minority spends all its time lining up for the next hyped-up limited release, it creates the perception throughout the marketplace that those beers are "better." This isn't necessarily true, of course, but it doesn't matter. Newcomers learn to venerate a handful of chosen breweries and ignore the rest. That sucks for them, and for the brewers. It sucks for all of us.

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Man he really likes to harp on this point. Yes, lines may turn off some people; but to think it would discourage them completely from even considering becoming a craft beer drinker in the first place is nonsense.

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So where do you go from here? Simple. Drink what you want; drink what your friends & bartenders recommend. Hell, drink a crafty beer, if that's what you like.

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Wow, thanks for the equivocation bro.

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Just, for God's sake, if you see a long-arse line, please don't get in it with the assumption that the beer at the end is any better than the one you've already got in your fridge.

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This misses the point that so many people line up for beers because they've already drank them in the past and they know already that they're waiting for a superior product than they can get elsewhere.