From an article on declining beer sales at Slate:
Millions of consumers have in recent years become connoisseurs (that is, insufferable snobs) when it comes to coffee, cheese, chocolate, you name it.
Demanding quality should never be something that gets one tarred with the epithet “snob.” Unless of course people are demanding quality only because everyone else is doing it, and passing themselves off as faux connoisseurs. But I suspect that, given the economy, people would be less likely to pay the extra bucks for quality beer, coffe, cheese, etc., just for the sake of appearances. I’m sure it happens but I wouldn’t think it would happen often enough to affect Anheuser-Busch’s bottom line.
Anyway, life is too short for bad beer, coffee or cheese, dammit. And I’m certainly no connoisseur. Shame on Slate for assuming that Americans are drinking less beer. They’re not. They’re just drinking less bad beer. And that’s cause for celebration. Why must the media always see the pint glass as half empty…rabble-rousing bastards.