SUIP!

Let’s face it: ask most waitrons or bottle store employees about the differences between their beers and you’ll get a blank look. Even in cafés proud of their beer lists, you’ll likely find a dearth of intimate knowledge about what they’re serving – well, other than saying, you know, they’re “real” beers.

But what makes a beer “real”? Even Black Label tastes of something. (Hint: watery cereals and banana.) It’s no longer good enough to say that one beer is better than another because of its provenance or price. Beer drinkers, expert or novice, should be beginning to expect at least cursory knowledge of what makes a great beer great, much in the same way that a sommelier can tell you why a great wine is great. Luckily, a new generation of beer professionals are working to raise the art and science of selecting and serving beer to the level of wine service - in the States for now, at least.

Not that we want beer culture to become like wine culture. Wine culture, in the worst excesses that I have experienced, can be pretentious, unwelcoming and insular, despite the depth of its tradition, knowledge and variety. The affordability and accessibility of beer is something we want to preserve - but we need a better flow of knowledge about it, not only from our producers, from which brilliance usually flows unhindered, but also from the sellers and servers of their products.

This article from Slate describes how beer sommeliers - or, as beer author and educator Ray Daniels has termed them, “cicerones” - are taking hold of and influencing the ways in which Americans find and enjoy new beers on the market, introducing customers to new brews they might like, and pairing them with food to create an experience on par with any food-and-wine or food-and-spirit combination.

Find it here. It’s a good read - maybe South African beer servers can begin to take note.