The Session, a.k.a. Beer Blogging Friday, is an opportunity once a month for beer bloggers from around the world to get together and write from their own unique perspective on a single topic. Each month, a different beer blogger hosts the Session, chooses a topic and creates a round-up listing all of the participants, along with a short pithy critique of each entry. Sean Inman, of Beer Search Party, hosted the 110th session which involved lots of beer and lots of Twitter. You should check it out!
It’s been over two years since I hosted the Session, and I’ve been admittedly spotty in my participation when other people host. But I’m back!
This time with something a little less…odd…than last time.
Full disclosure: I don’t work in the beer industry. OK, yes, sometimes I get paid to write about beer, but that money does not my livelihood make. Despite pouring myself into brewing and beer culture for the last 6 years, I remain little more than an overly involved consumer.
I think that’s true about a lot of bloggers and beer writers. Some may work directly for breweries or distributors or behind the till in a beer store, but a lot of us toil in vocational worlds apart, spending our free time and free dollars on what can only (by definition) be called a “hobby.”
Recently, I’ve found my interest in said hobby waning. The brilliant luster of new beers and new breweries looks now, a few pounds heavier and a bunch of dollars lighter, more like dull aluminum oxide.
The thing I have embraced so fully and spent so much time getting to know and love, suddenly seems generally, unequivocally: meh. It’s like I’ve been living a lie, and everything I’ve done is for not. I’m having a beer mid-life crisis, yo.
Maybe it’s the politics of purchasing or selling. Maybe the subculture has peaked. Maybe this is the natural progression of a hobby that has no real tie to the industry behind it.
Maybe I’m way off the mark, and this whole thing is just a figment of my imagination.
But I’m willing to bet it’s not. All that talk of beer bubbles might prove true, but instead of a dramatic *pop* we’ll might see a slow deflation followed by a farting noise as some of the air leaks out and the hobbyist move on the spend their time and dollars elsewhere. It’s impossible to see the future, but if my fall from rabid beer fanboy to dude-who-drinks-beer-and-sort-of-wants-to-be-left-alone is indicative of a trend, I’ve got some signs to make a doomsaying to do.
What say you?
Do you find it hard to muster the same zeal for beer as you did a few years ago? Are you suffering through a beer-life crisis like I am? If so, how do you deal with it?
If not, put me in my place!
Post your responses in the comments of this post on Friday, May 6th, or tweet them to @OliverJGray. I’ll do a round up on the 16th so if you’re a little less than punctual, no worries.
I’m really looking forward to hearing everyone’s perspective. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me in the comments, on Twitter, or at literatureandlibation at-sign google mail dot com.
Literature and Libation 
I feel this way among many hobbies, including beer. I moved to Austin around four years ago, and it was a mecca of craft brews. Still is, and the brewery scene keeps growing amazingly, but I’ve found myself the same way you’ve been feeling. For me, I feel like it’s a trend I have with hobbies in general. I used to love sewing. I had my own sewing room/area and would make pillows, curtains, you name it. I loved it. But then we moved, and even though I had room to set up another sewing area, I all of a sudden, just didn’t feel it anymore. It started to feel more like a hassle. Maybe this happens with all hobbies? Maybe one has to take a break from it, and come up with reasons why they fell in love with it in the first place? I dunno. I’m still working on it too. Good luck!
Sometimes an extended break is in order — it’s the old saw of needing to fall in love again. I’m just getting back into writing fiction after stepping away for several months, but I reached a point where I was just not enjoying any aspect of it. I know you’re a man of many interests, so my two cents is to take up another one… the brew will likely come calling back at some point and you’ll be ready for it.
Believe it or not, the feelings say more about you than an industry, and having moved in and out of craft beer fandom a few times I can tell you that for certain. I’m in my 40’s and was drinking craft beer back in the 90’s when only the cool kids did it. I was a trend setting fan, but as life moved forward other things make in and took that passion and devotion. About 6 years ago I started homebrewing and I found that old love rekindled. I have returned to my old love of craft beer and found it has changed into a vibrant, endlessly interesting, and very diverse culture. But it still kept on even though I waxed in my interest.
Don’t worry man. Your life will change and evolve, but the lifestyle of craft beer has lasted for over 30. It will change and survive as the folks that love it change and evolve do too.
I was an “early adopter” of homebrewing, beginning about 1971. Anchor was available then in my neighborhood and we loved it. I never transitioned to all grain brewing and was left behind with my OK stouts. I went to homebrew club meetings in the 80’s where 6 or seven people sat around a table at the local bar. Now the homebrew club meets at a brewery and has a hundred members. I was lost there and couldn’t identify the president. I now drink an everyday beer — growlers of Blue Point Pale Ale. I’m again left behind, with Blue Point becoming an ABInbev product. I still get the Blue Point though, and drink it regularly, because I like it. I enjoy their Pale Ale more than anythe high alcohol IPAs I taste. I’m no longer in the vanguard. I’m an old fuddy duddy. I don’t fit into the beer revolution either.
I don’t feel the way you indicate. And I’ve been following beer since the mid-1970s.
I think it may come down to a very in-depth appreciation of the beer palate, I mean at its best. That is a continual search, it doesn’t end with the next 100 craft breweries to come to your attention, or the last 500. It goes on because you enjoy the great experiences when they occur and the unpredictability of the search.
My suggestion is, focus on what you really like. One needn’t try everything, or be up on every new brewery. You have probably tried more than enough by now to scope the beer palate. While I am interested in all styles of beer especially from a historical point of view, I don’t usually drink more than a small number of styles. Rarely sour beers, for example. Rarely smoked ones unless I find one particularly good, e.g., Roog BraufactuM, a smoked dark wheat beer from Radeberger (Germany).
Also, there are many side-streets in the beer world. There is a huge amount to learn about beer history, for example. About malt. About hops, or yeast (characteristics, history, flavours).
It never really ends, there is always more to learn. But there is nothing wrong with not being committed, that’s okay of course. If it’s run its course with you, that’s fine, but it is not (I believe) any harbinger of what is in store for the industry. I predict its continued growth and the continued availability of better beer.
Hi Oliver:
Here is my formal contribution, thanks for helping to keep the Session going.
http://www.beeretseq.com/the-session-no-111-may-6-2016-posting-one-day-ahead/
Best regards.
Gary Gillman, Toronto.
My humble contribution. Thanks for hosting.
http://thebittenbullet.blogspot.de/2016/05/the-session-111-beer-midlife-crisis.html
Thanks for hosting and interesting topic. Here’s my post:
http://beer-runner.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-session-111-surviving-beer-midlife.html
Cheers!
Here is mine:
http://dsmiley.co/beer-life-crisis/
Hey Oliver — Thanks for catching me up this morning. Here’s my contribution!
http://goodbeerhunting.com/blog/2016/5/6/surviving-a-beer-midlife-crisis-the-session-111
Hi Oliver,
Here ya go!
https://ithinkaboutbeer.com/2016/05/06/of-niches-and-novelties-the-session-111-surviving-a-beer-midlife-crisis/
Thanks for hosting Oliver! My answer is “through it all, your spirit’s alive” Oh, wait that’s what you ‘ve written! Here: Enjoy the beer; forget the hype.
Oliver, interesting topic. Definitely made me question where I am in my love of craft beer, which led to this post: http://draftmag.com/the-session-life-cycle-of-a-beer-geek/
Better late than never, right?: http://www.annarborbeer.com/2016/05/craft-beer-culture-has-it-jumped-shark.html
Here’s my a-little-less-than-punctual entry: http://theaposition.com/tombedell/golf/lifestyle/6667/the-session-111-surviving-a-beer-midlife-crisis
Quite likely the latest one ever, but I needed to participate. Thanks for the timely topic: http://growlerfills.beer/2016/05/the-session-no-111-a-beer-midlife-crisis/
I’m definitely feeling the generational shift in my beer drinking. I feel like I’ve seen a few fads come and go, and “just don’t get it” anymore. I’ve had so many bad American faux-Belgian and saison beers that I’ve grown skeptical and afraid to try new ones, and even current trendy IPAs are tropical (mosaic) bombs that I really don’t care for. It seems that some of the breweries that I once liked for experimenting with new styles are now just shooting darts at ingredients lists. (no I don’t want more fruit in my beer, please.)
as I grow older I find myself wanting to find refinement within existing definitions, and find rebirths and rediscoveries of older styles rather than pushing the bounds. I feel like the boundary pushers (with few exceptions) haven’t sufficiently locked-down the base styles they are trying to extend, and it’s hard to create the future without sufficient understanding of the past.
I would say get off my lawn, but if you’d like to share some beer (even a fruit-flavored mosaic-hopped barrel-aged brett- and lacto-fermented saison/gose/cascadiandark), you’re always welcome on my porch. 🙂