Geek vs. Snob

We were out one evening at a pizza parlor with some friends and their friends, and one person in the party was the son of a winemaker. One of the women, who wanted to drink some wine, asked him which wine he recommended. None of them, he said. Period. He didn’t even offer up a suggested beer or cocktail, and this woman either had to drink nothing, or ignore his advice. What a snob.

And yet, my husband Burtle and I find ourselves in similar situations. Burtle wants to be a beer geek, but he says the line is sometimes blurry between that and being a snob. Both really know what they are talking about, and both can be picky. It just feels like being a geek is someone who says, “Oh man, I was really hoping for something better, but I’ll take what you have, happily.” A snob won’t make that compromise, or they will drink it unhappily.

I fight the battle with cider myself. There are a lot of times that I’m at a brew pub, and they only have one cider, and I think it is an inferior cider, but I still drink it. Though, admittedly, there are a few that are starting to creep into my view as not really drinkable, so I might skip it and drink nothing. I guess that is pushing me into being a snob. But there are other times where I’m with people and they ask my opinion on what cider to get, and I’ll encourage them to try those same ciders I don’t care for because I think they need to start developing their taste somewhere, and those ciders are easier to find. I can warn them that I don’t care for them, but maybe their taste is different, so they might like it. Maybe that pulls me back to geek level?