When people ask me why I got into craft beer, I usually admit that I was a “foodie” first.
In 2008, I started The Delighted Bite, my now-defunct food blog filled with terrible photos (mostly taken with my DSLR and a fisheye lens) and ramblings about everything from home cooking to restaurants. It was also the year I moved across the country on a whim with the guy I’d been dating for six months, who I’ve now been married to for nearly 11 years.
But despite my initial commitment to food blogging, beer culture called to me. Our arrival to the Capital of Craft just so happened to coincide with the onset of San Diego’s explosive craft beer trajectory, which has scarcely slowed down since. I started drinking craft beer because it was new. Because it was interesting. Because yes, it was fun!
Also, it turns out making friends as an adult is really, really hard, especially when you move across the country with no job, no apartment, no connections, and no money. For nearly a year, we ate off a hand-me-down plastic picnic table inside, slept on an inflatable mattress (did I mention my husband is 6’5”?), and biked nearly everywhere because we couldn’t afford gas for our cars. Drinking craft beer wasn’t really an option from a cost perspective, but neither was not meeting anyone.
Becoming a “craft beer snob” soon became a personality trait for me. It’s not that I lacked other interests, but this interest was culturally fresh, and I was smack in the middle of it. Plus, I’d be lying if the male-dominated aspect of it didn’t appeal to me—it struck me as a challenge to unapologetically participate in shotgunning contests and dive bar drink-offs. It was exciting. It was, again, fun.
So why hasn’t it felt that way for such a long time?
Part of it is inevitability. Who sticks with the same hobby forever? It seems unnatural—and frankly boring—to limit oneself to a single pursuit in work and play.
Another reason is more personal. I’ve been a parent for five years, and despite some acceptance of a more Eurocentric approach to kids in breweries, the challenges parents face as beer consumers and employees remain pervasive. There’s also the recent revelation that, shocking to some, craft beer isn’t quite the friendly, safe, inclusive place it promised. Finally, it’s health: Try as I might, my body simply isn’t what it was when I was in my 20s. Shotgunning a beer is far more likely to end in disaster today than it was 15 years ago.
The pandemic didn’t help, either. Sometimes I drank less, sometimes I drank more, depending on the day’s shade of despondency. I went from a relatively social creature to a reluctant (at best) woman about town. Increased anxiety about everything from masks to making conversation gave me an out from participating in society for a couple of years, but now that the world is largely getting back to business, I’m running out of excuses to go back to the way things were. Nor should I. I realize now that I’ve simply outgrown beer as my defining personality. And that’s not a bad thing.
Lately, I’ve been drinking a lot more cider than beer, sparked by the fact I’m writing a book about the overlaps between beer and cider. Using my beer palate to explore a new beverage fills me with excitement—a feeling I thought I’d lost after looking around and realizing that it’s not beer that’s changed. It’s me.
I’m not sad about my evolution. I like to think of it as a graduation rather than a funeral. Beer isn’t dead to me (yet). But there’s so much more out there to discover, learn, and enjoy beyond beer’s cultural limitations and relative stagnation. I’m rather looking forward to it.
