What Does Beer-Flavored Beer Taste Like?

I am winding down toward a few days’ staycation in which I will attempt to sleep as many of the 90 hours between tonight and Sunday morning as possible. As such, this is the final post of the week, and a bit of a bloggy version of an open thread. To prime the pump, I offer you two quotes and a query. Quote one, from multi award-winning writer Dave Infante, from his VinePair piece last week:

Known as “core beer” or “traditional beer” in industry circles, “beer-flavored beer” is what it sounds like — a fermented beverage that hews closely to a familiar, traditional style. Lager, for example, is beer-flavored beer, and a wonderful example at that. But the phrase has also become something approaching a rallying cry for the many craft brewers who yearn for the days when drinkers came to them thirsting for the stuff they wanted to brew.

Quote two, from Stan Hieronymus on Monday, during which time he took issue with the phrase at the center of Dave’s piece:

I confess to typing beer-flavored beer in the past, and perhaps speaking the words out loud…. I was wrong to use the term. It can be used to exclude, wielded as a weapon by drinkers who imply they know something others do not. “I can appreciate beer-flavored beer, the complex flavors that result from the interaction of malt and yeast in a simple helles. You are not worthy.”

Stan continues at some length, so click through for the whole argument.

The query, of course, is where you land on this “beer-flavored beer” question: a harmless reference to more traditional beer-making or a casual slight to those who like beers outside the mainstream?

In the historical context, beer-flavored beer doesn’t make a lot of sense. Fermented grain beverages have been made of just about everything we could imagine, and all you have to do is travel back two hundred years to find none of the world’s beer tasting like pale lager. A thousand years ago? Wild, wild stuff. But that’s really not where I want to take this today.

My answer, upon further reflection, is to note an irony in the discussion. Stan points out that “beer-flavored beer” is today often used as a weapon—Stan’s characterization—by beer nerds against the hoi polloi. I don’t think he’s wrong, but his point only applies to a particular context. The first time I heard the term used, it was wielded against beer nerds by tin-can beer drinkers who didn’t like things like IPAs or stouts—or helleses and schwarzbiers. They thought “craft beer” was something only hipsters liked, and they weren’t interested.

This is one of those situations where context is everything, and meaning a slippery, mutable substance. We might imagine cases where the phrase becomes a barb to puncture either beer nerds or light beer drinkers, or just a phrase meant to add some color to a conversation without a critique. Language is like that—it is rarely fixed, and we often have to code-switch as we use it.

So my position in the matter is less a judge than an etiquette coach and I will step in as Mr Manners, offering a few examples of proper and improper uses of “beer-flavored beer.”

✔️ Brewer offering pilsner to another brewer.

✖️ Beer nerd slagging off hazy IPAs and their fans.

✔️ Uncle despairing that he can’t find anything like Michelob Ultra in your fridge.

✖️ Blowhard bro mocking someone for their sparkly raspberry glitter ale.*

Consider the comments open to discussing this or any of the pressing beer-related issues that have been weighing on your mind.

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* Before you think I’m doing any slagging off, check the archives for my spirited defense of raspberry (or any) glitter beer.