Not wanting to be a "beer poser"

Something that I have noticed when some of my "normal" friends come to an event that is flush with my "wine geek" friends is that they normally try to bring an impressive bottle of wine. Sometimes this works out well, but often, we look down our nose with the snobbery we say that we eschew, and think "oh, that's cute" in regards to the bottle they bring. Hey, at least I'm admitting it. Wine folks are a funny crowd. They ALL say that they aren't snobs. They ALL say that they don't want to be pretentious. However, I dare you to roll into a meeting of Saint Louis Wine Therapy with a bottle of Yellow Tail, Beringer Stone Cellars, or Rombauer (gasp!!!) and see what happens. They will be cordial, but nobody will touch the damn stuff. It's not the person who brought it's fault- they just didn't know.

I found myself potentially on the other side of this situation not too long ago, regarding beer. Being in this industry, I have quite a few friends that are into beer (check out my buddy Mike's blog www.stlhops.com), and that get together to play cards/trivia/rockband every once in a while. Another guy that I know gave me a bottle of beer that I knew nothing about. I didn't know if it was a "nice" beer or a "oh, that's cute" beer in the eyes of my beer geek friends. I literally worried about showing up with what I thought was a nice bottle, and have them view me as a beer poser. Therefore, I did what I suggest to my friends regarding wine- I drank it with some friends that know less about beer than I do. This way I wouldn't be tempted to show off the next time the beer guys got together, and I saved myself from being "that guy".

Last night, I talked to Mike about the beer in question. He undoubtedly knows more about beer than anyone else I know. However, he had never heard of it. I told him about my dilemma, and the solution. He agreed- that sometimes the best thing you can do is drink the bottle with some people that will truly enjoy it, and not over-analyze it.

Cheers!