You know what always bugged me in the movies? When someone walks up to the bar and orders "a beer". Like, those are actually the words they use. "Give me a beer". Now, outside of certain parts of Pennsylvania where you can ask for a "lager" and get a Yuengling, this just doesn't work in real life. Or at least you'd think so.
Let's talk about the strength of a brand for a second. In niches where a brand is strong enough, you tend to run into The Kleenex Conundrum. That's a thing I just made up when the name of a product or brand is so associated with anything that even resembles it, that it pulls a Borg and assimilates all other comers. And since this is a blog about fluids of a kind, take Coca Cola as an example. In some parts of the country, this would be colloquially identified as "soda". In some other sillier, more wrong places, it might be referred to as "pop". But in a good swath of the south, it's "Coke". So is Pepsi. So is Diet Rite. So is grape soda probably. You can order a "Coke", and the waitress will then ask you "what kind". You then would say something like "one diet, and one lemon-lime for my cousin-date". But in short, you identify a brand, then a style.
Back to beer. It's a relatively common beer geek problem, but it's really easy to walk in to a bar where you know far more about beer than the person serving you. And that's not a knock, really... since craft beer really is still a single-digit percent, up-and-coming part of the market, most people are used to an older model. Budweiser is the name of a brewery, but you could also say "Budweiser" and get a very specific beer. But unless they only have one offering from a craft brewery, you can't exactly walk into a bar and order a "Clown Shoes". And yet...
Here's a problem I seem to run up against far too often. I walk in to a bar. I look at the tap handles. I see the generic, say, Jack's Abby tap handle. I ask the server "what's the Jack's Abby you've got on?", and I get a response like "oh, it's like a hoppy lager". I try not to sigh too audibly, then ask "do you know the name of the beer?". And even though I suspect it's Hoponius Union given the quadratic equation of hints without actual information presented to me in this example, we eventually decide that the server doesn't know. And since I'm a jerk that likes to know what he's drinking before he drinks it, I pick something else or (and this has happened at least once) just don't order a beer at all. Oh, and lest you think I'm a quite large jerk in that case, I was ordering a burger and they were trying to upsell me the beer. My new rule became if you can't tell me what you're upselling, I ain't up-buying it.
Being as that I'm the kind of guy that appreciates a good tap selection, these situations are the exception rather than the rule. Basically, my tastes self-select for the kinds of bars where the staff is quite knowledgeable about precisely they have on draft, complete with their own personal tasting notes. So, funny enough, I was out this past Friday and overheard the exact opposite problem of what I described above. The bartender, who had just got done actually recommending beers to me based on a conversation about styles I dig, waited on a gentleman who just came up and said "gimme a Slumbrew!". The bartender informed the well meaning, but self-betrayed newbie that they actually had three beers made by Slumbrew, and proceeded to name them. By their NAMES. After a bit of back and forth, the patron asked if one was an IPA. The server said: "Yes, the Flagraiser"... which is a name. The guy then ordered by saying "Ok. Give me the IPA.", as if he was allergic to naming the name of the dang beer. I'll have a Coke. What kind? Orange. You mean Sunkist? Yeah, Coke Orange.
Now, I recognize I'm a gentleman living so close to the stove, I don't understand that fire is hot. That is to say it seems so strange to me that people wouldn't want to differentiate all of these craft beer offerings, which are legion and then some, by such an easy and natural demarcation as what they are actually dang called. But then again, maybe I've answered my own criticism. There are countless names out there when you take all of the craft breweries and multiply them by all of the separate beers offered by each. Maybe it's easier to keep track of if you just think of them as brand and styles. Heck, when I first was learning about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, if you asked me my favorite, I would have answered "the red one!" early on. It was only later that I would know that it was Raphael, and that I had blasphemed.
I'd like to do a deeper dive on this at some point, but for now, I find myself at an odd junction where although I can see the other side, a little too much knowledge can lead to much frustration and gnashing of teeth, while not nearly enough beerly imbibing.
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