rant - elitests

[calicojack]

so last night was our monthly brewing club meeting. I didn't have anything to take, but i showed up anyways. Low and behold, there's another mead maker there. apparently this guy is a "senior member" but hasn't attended the three meetings i've been to.

Anyways. This guy had a 2 year old blueberry mead. I don't know his exact recipe but i know that he used a champagne yeast and put his blueberries in the secondary. it was around 16%. It tasted like it. don't get me wrong it was a good warming all the way down, but it lacked in flavor.

anyways. I told him that i too had made a blueberry mead, and that it was a big hit last month. Eventually it came out that i "cheated" (his term) and used ocean spray blueberry cocktail.

for the rest of the night i was getting snide comments about how i "cheated" and that he would "never stoop to using a commercial product to make his mead."

I really can't stand folks like that. Mead isn't rocket science. To me, home brewing is fun because you get to experiment and find out what works for YOU.

Apparently a couple of the members caught the attitude he was slinging around and came up to me later in the evening and said that mine was better tasting. and it was. i knew it. i guess that was what was ticking me off about his attitude.

 

[commonsenseman]

Sorry to hear that.

Clearly he was jealous of your mead.

Haters be hatin'.

 

[ZwolfUpir]

I got something similar at my LBS. He's a nice guy and all, don't get me wrong, but he prides himself on knowing all things brewing and fermenting. He has contradicted so many things i have learned on here and through my meager experience, I just kinda smile an nod to him at this point. He's very knowledgeable about beer and wine and all, but he's telling me I need to boil my must and rack off several times till it's clear. Oh, and absolutely nothing will ever be drinkable for at least 3 years. Come X-mas I plan to bring him down some of my JAOv D-47 I made for X-mas presents and see what he thinks after that.

...I expect him to say it's to strong and needs to age out... But, I know better and so do my friends.

 

[fatbloke]

I notice that all hobbies tend to attract fools like the one described. Particularly when those hobbies are put into the semi-formal setting of a club emvironment.

Personally, I just say bollocks to them! If you're happy with your results, that's all that matters. Plus GM members are more friendly and probably more knowledgeable, as we're "proper" mead people.

Plus, apart from the Polish government rules, theres no standard, so its impossible to "cheat".

 

[schlapppy]

No seriously, I've had a similar experience. I went to a mead maker's meeting.

I brought a bottle of JOA to the meeting, as I figured it'd be fairly well recognized by the brewers, and I may be able to root out anyone that's been a gotmead members.

The dude who ran this meeting bashed the recipe for like 5 minutes..

• it's like a practical joke, how unconventional!
• using bread yeast is like using a mut of a yeast
• who would every put all this crap in a carboy, how the hell are you supposed to get it out?
• it always turns out tasing like rubbush

He later admitted that my version of this was probably the best he's ever tried. But he's personally seen it fail with so many novice mead makers, that he warns everyone to stay away from it.

I tried a few of his meads.. he even brought out a 15 year old mead. But they were all so damn sweet, they tasted like syrup.

Anyway, you are not alone. Haters gonna hate.

 

[Loadnabox]

I might have another one of my experiments in the fridge right now, but I am SOOO looking forward to giving a serious go at a trad next.

All my meads so far have been very much on the sweet side and I fear they would be super sweet in a few years, so something drier that I can taste in a couple years fascinates me!

 

[YogiBearMead726]

Ignorance is bliss...

I will say, I've come close to getting upset with a few people like those described; a "know-it-all" that doesn't know it all. I tend to just nod and smile if I know I won't be able to get a word in edge-wise.

I've also been slightly guilty of it myself a few times, but I try not to say I know something for sure if I haven't ever tried it myself. It's those who close their minds to other opinions and points of view who are real stubborn jerks. Hopefully I won't ever get to that point!

What's the old phrase? Knowledge is thinking you know, and wisdom is realizing you're never done learning? I probably butchered that, but I think you get the point.

 

[Chevette Girl]

I met this guy at a party a few years ago who makes distilled spirits and sells then (yeah, hasn't been caught yet) try to tell me how to make mead "properly"... I mean, really. I suspect I've been making wines longer than he's been legal to drink them ;D He had one or two valid points that were just different from how I do things, but he was mostly irrelevant or downright wrong the rest of the time. I just smiled and nodded and pointed him to gotmead.com. I notice he's not signed up yet.

I've had some good discussions with the guys at two of my local brew supply places but we don't mesh so well, one place focuses on making kit wines and the other, they all do beer and kit wines, both of them are you-brew places and I make mostly fruit wines and meads, so they don't quite know what to do with me, I think I'm going to have some good resources when I eventually start making beers. I don't know what the protocol is for bringing in samples though...

The golden rule I follow: "There is no one way. My way is just how I do it, and I'll tell you all about it, but ultimately you're free to do it however you like." The only time I'll tell someone they're doing something WRONG is when they are doing something potentially dangerous, like priming bottle bombs.

 

[TheAlchemist]

God Bless the Laboratory!

 

[wildoates]

Yeah, I met up with a fella at Faire a year or so ago who proceeded to tell me that everything I've learned here is wrong. I didn't have any to share with him, but I did taste his (out of a communal crystal geyser water bottle) and it was young, sweet, and tasting faintly floral, basically your typical bring to Faire to get the ladies toasted around the campfire brew, adequate for its purpose. he is supposedly working to go pro, or so he said.

Pete and Wayne told me that those types are around, just ignore them and do what's best.

 

[Medsen Fey]

I told him that i too had made a blueberry mead, and that it was a big hit last month. Eventually it came out that i "cheated" (his term) and used ocean spray blueberry cocktail.

for the rest of the night i was getting snide comments about how i "cheated" and that he would "never stoop to using a commercial product to make his mead."

There are more ways to make great mead than there are people who make mead. Anyone that cannot appreciate a good mead because of its pedigree is missing out.

I've encountered a few wine snobs who wouldn't deign to drink a homemade wine/mead. I figure that's fine - more good mead for the rest of us.

 

[Soyala_Amaya]

I met a couple of SCA snobs not too long ago who, when they learned I made mead, sought me out at the event we were at (not SCA event). We talked pleasantly about brewing and such for a while till I said I had some bottles in my bag. I offered them choice of strawberry, blueberry, or orange, and their entire demeanor froze.

"Oh, we don't do...melomels. We only do traditionals." The way they sneered out traditionals you could tell they were saying 'real mead'.

I walked away and talked to other brewers and had fantastic reviews for the entire weekend. Their loss for never even taking a taste.

Jerks happen.

 

[Chevette Girl]

I've encountered a few wine snobs who wouldn't deign to drink a homemade wine/mead. I figure that's fine - more good mead for the rest of us.

My friend's mother is an avowed wine snob, to the point where she has been known to spit "undrinkables" across the room. She tried but didn't like and politely declined more than a sip of a sweet mead I shared, but she finished her glass of my strawberry wine So I've broadened the horizons of one wine snob. So far so good. And I know next time she's around to bring something dry.

 

[Loadnabox]

@CG:

My LHBS is pretty well focused around beer as well with one or two wine kits on the shelf for us strange people that waltz in.

It's also a vitamin/health juice bar like you would expect to find in SoCal

I brought in a sample of JOA for the owner and lead beer guy. They all loved it and wrote down the recipe :-D They didn't seem to mind in the slightest that I was bringing hooch into the shop

 

[ken_schramm]

So what does "homemade" mean?

"As for me, all I know is that I know nothing."
Socrates

If Socrates was that smart, I should just shut the &^% up, but alas, I can't.

If your mead is good, then your mead is good. Congratulations, kind sir. Nice work. I don't think that ends the discussion, though. The semantic question lies in whether you made it, or someone else did, or helped. The other semantic question is whether you're cheating if you aren't in a game with rules.

I have no objection to someone using all manner of commercial product in a mead, but there is a limit to how much credit you can take for it if someone else took care of the blend of fruits or the degree of sweetness that blend creates. Some competitions frown on that kind of behavior for exactly that reason (don't enter anywhere, and you're not cheating).

The same can be said for any other creative endeavor. It takes some developed knowledge to find sources of truly great bacon. It is another skill and knowledge level entirely to raise pigs and cure your own. You and the guy next to you say you have totally homemade BLT sandwiches. You both made the bread, and grew the lettuce and the tomatoes, but you bought your bacon, and he's a farmer who raised and ground the wheat, raised pigs and made his own bacon (I know people like this - they are "gods" to me). Who wins the truth in advertising comparison here? And for that matter, sitting next to a guy who busts his butt and gets his fingernails dirty in ways it's hard to imagine, it takes some serious hubris to call him a snob.

That level of acknowledgement and obligation to divulge extends to wine - you can't say it is from estate grow fruit if it is not, and you can't say it is estate bottled if it is not. But you can still call it wine. Maybe we need to address those naming delineations in the nascent world of mead.

So your mead has commercial ingredients. That doesn't give anyone license to be rude to you. It's a delicious mead. You just might not be able to enter it into some competitions.

The other thing I will say in defense of the so-called "elitists" is that someone does actually have to grow and harvest and juice the fruit, and create the flavor/acidity/sweetness/tannin blend that is so satisfying. In the wine-making world, there is great and deserved reverence of those people. Grow your own grapes and your hands are brown in the spring and summer, purple in the fall, and frost bitten from pruning in the winter. Equating a mead or wine made with commercial ingredients - and the effort it takes to make it - to one crafted from the ground up is a bit of a slap in their face. Walk a mile in their shoes before you jump to conclusions about who is being insensitive. If perspective is taken into account, and respect is granted on both sides of the table, then both sides can move forward with dignity.

It's like the BLT analogy - the farmer doesn't have license to be rude to you, and you don't have license to call your sandwich "totally homemade." As for me, I may have written a book and may make some decent mead, but I bow down before people like Kirk Jones and Mark Beran who make mead with honey from their own bees. Those guys are bad @$$ed in ways that I simply am not. I'm just another schlep who makes some decent mead with someone else's honey. And likes to write too much.

Ken

 

[ken_schramm]

I've encountered a few wine snobs who wouldn't deign to drink a homemade wine/mead.

There is great challenge for me in extending patience and courtesy to those who have never grown or fermented anything in their life, but who pass vitriolic judgment on those who have. But it must be done (extending courtesy), lest we sink ever closer to their level.

Am I as bad as they for feeling but not expressing it? Could well be.

KDS

 

[AToE]

I have to say I agree completely, nobody "up the food chain of awesomeness" should be being rude to someone less far up the chain - if someone sneered at me for not having my own bees, growing my own fruit, or cutting and aging and toasting my own oak (don't think anyone actually lives long enough to grow their own persay!) I would definitely lose major respect for them.

That said, if they simply pointed out that they did these things themselves I would be in awe of them and would rightfully consider them more advanced than myself - and I would not present my wares as the same kind of product as theirs.

I think the problem lies in the rudeness, not necessarily someone considering themselves "elite" - the fact of the matter is that in any craft there truely is such a thing as an elite, those who just do things more wholistically, more hands on. In recording music for example the common standard now is for people to replace (or layer) their naturally recorded drum sounds with samples that were recorded by the best engineers in the best rooms with the best mics on the best drums. This allows the hobbiest to create better sounding recordings - I personally no longer do this (hopefully... never know when I may make a mistake and have to lean on samples again) as I have finally learned the skills to "truely" create the sounds myself... but there's always the people above me who also craft their own instruments, microphones, preamps, and build their recording spaces with their own hands. (And if someone actually has the skill to create amazing sounds but choses to use samples for artistic/creative purposes then that's a whole nuther matter)

I expect those above me to be respectful to me, and I never ever belittle those less advanced than myself - but those using samples should openly point out that they themselves did not create those drum sounds, just as I openly admit that I use tools/ingredients made by those more advanced than myself.

So ending my own rant, I'm not in any way defending elitists who look down on those less wholistic in the craft than themselves - I just wanted to agree with Ken that there is also a degree of humbleness that should extend to those who have taken the craft further than ourselves (there's a reason I very much consider myself beginner/intermediate level in meadmaking!).

Also take into consideration the level of passion some people have for a craft, to me mead making is something I care a "fair bit" about, but not something I dedicate my life to, not something that gets me up in the morning - so different people will rightfully have different degrees to how seriously they take this.

At the end of the day, we all are making, distributing and consuming drugs, so we should at least laugh at that part of it!

 

[beeboy]

I took two bottles of mead into the local brewing store last year, one was made with (I bow my head in shame) Sam's Club honey while the second bottle was made with Cabbage Palm honey pulled from my hives. The favorite ended up being the mead from Sams Club, seems it had a lighter flavor and color. Go figure, I'm glad I didn't waste a bottle of Elderberry Mead on them.

 

[TheAlchemist]

I'm glad I didn't waste a bottle of Elderberry Mead on them.

Isn't Elderberry said to impart wisdom? In which case casting such pearls before such swine may pay off in the longer term...

 

[AToE]

There's never any accounting for taste.