Beer As a Social Marker

Not directly applicable to people of the age of the average Patheos reader but probably generally true of them (us) as well: According to a study by a market research company, “Amongst the 25-34 age group, representing the segment’s heaviest users, 70% say that the brand of beer says a lot about you and 66% say the style does the same.”

But what does it say about you? That your taste in beer is more sophisticated than that of people who drink the insipid lagers produced by the major beer countries in America, yes, and good for you. As a revelation of your character, of the “you” that really matters, though, it doesn’t say anything.

We tend to read these social markers, I think, as signs of superiority and not in a narrow area but generally. We don’t need to explain to ourselves why whatever superiority we’ve claimed makes us generally superior. The feeling is enough, especially as it’s reinforced by others who share our tastes, and even more when the taste is authorized by cultural arbiters, as it is in the cases of good cheese, obscure rock bands, authentic folk music, locally grown produce, and craft beer. My good life is better than your good life, therefore I’m a better person, is the way the feeling goes.

In fact, all a taste for craft beer really says is that you have in one small area of life a capacity for greater enjoyment than do other people. You should take this, we should take this, not as a sign of superiority but as a blessing for which to be grateful.