Beer Flavors in Human Speak, for People Who Drink Beer

"You come here and get a Lagunitas?"

A snob is a snob no matter where you are, but tonight I'm drinking in the epicenter of beer snobbery, The Jeffrey, on New York's Upper East Side, a place where you're more likely to hear a comment like the one above, than see someone order a Bud Light.

The Jeffrey is just one of the many freshly tapped temples to stouts and ales that have opened up from coast to coast in the wake of a boundless brew revolution. These bars with double-digit draught lists harvested from across the world attract an ever-growing audience of insatiable craft beer fanatics that guzzle glass after glass in search of that elusive "perfect" beer.

Whatever that even means.

They would call themselves zealots or admirers or merely beer lovers, but I'd use another word: snobs.

That's not to say that I resent these pretentious pint hoisters, for I (begrudgingly) admit that I am one of them. Over the past couple years I've drank my way through more small batch beers than I care to (or probably even could) remember, and I can certainly wax on about most of them, but that's where this stops for me. I don't belong to a home brewers association, I have never owned a personalized snifter glass, and I couldn't even begin to tell you the hop varietals that go into my favorite IPA. But I can damn well tell you what that beer tastes like.

Too many craft brew obsessives profess their love for the art of beer but then speak of it like some strict science. In my eyes, you can't convert people to craft beer by explaining it like some belligerent seventh grade science teacher, you do so by talking about it in terms we can all understand. For as subjective as it may be, taste is still the most important factor, really the only factor, during that crucial moment when a bartender looks up at you and asks, "What'll it be?"

So here I am, ready and willing to embrace my own pomposity head on while I sit at the bar and attempt to drink my way through an evening without sounding like a complete asshat.

With that, I order my first beer, opting to start slow with Money, a 7.3% ABV (alcohol by volume) IPA from Barrier, an Oceanside, New York-based brewery. Calling a 7.3% beer "slow" would normally be ridiculous, but considering that my next three beers are all roughly around 10%, this pour is relatively mellow. Up front, Money almost tastes like nothing. That first second is an inhale before falling off a waterfall, and then suddenly you're over the edge and the flavors rapidly cascade.

I find drinkable to be a horribly shallow word to describe a beer, so instead I'll say this is "breathy." I drink the majority of it very quickly, but after a while, that acidity catches up to me, and the last few gulps leave me feeling like I'm chewing on spaghetti that's been soaked in Sprite. Maybe my palate just wasn't ready, but nonetheless I'm happy when I switch over to beer number two, Gregorius from Stift Engelszell, a Trappist brewery in Austria.

After the thinness of the previous beer, Gregorius, a Belgian strong dark ale, is a welcomed wallop of density. The glass looks like a pot of ink and the spice-laden aroma is reminiscent of one of those triple digit Christmas candles. Beers like this embody an alcoholic cliché that you just have to embrace: It's fucking cold outside, let me drink something that's going to coat my stomach like I just inhaled a slab of meat. Gregorius goes one step further though—it actually tastes like meat.

The aftertaste evolves from woodsy to meatloaf in this weird but satisfying way. My mom only made meatloaf a couple times but I imagine it would taste like this. You feel loaded down, but in that warm and fuzzy way. No wonder Trappist monks are always depicted as being jolly and fat.

For beer number three, I shift back to an IPA, but decide to go one step beyond and order "Hopslam," an imperial (or double) IPA from Bell's, a much beloved Michigan-based brewery that just recently arrived in the city. Despite its beefy 10% rating, this beer is profoundly refreshing, like being slapped during sex. The orange tones, which do well to make me forget how downright strong this beer is, butt right up against acidic, but never cross into vitriolic territory. This beer is fecund: One sip is allspice, another is cinnamon, a third is waffles and syrup. This is one of the most intriguing beers I've ever consumed.

And finally, there's "Matt's Burning Rosids," a smoked saison from Stone Brewing Co. in Escondido, California. I had spotted this beer when first looking through the list because I thought it read "smoked salmon," which actually is not too far off from what it tasted like. This beer is a whole wheat bagel with Nova Lox at 10 AM. It tastes like I'm consuming a hangover cure while only adding to it.

Any airy notes that you'd traditionally find in a Saison have been blacked out by the smokiness. I'd dub it a stout in saison's clothing, yet it's not overpowering. There's a ton of smoldering salmony flavor here, but with minimal carbonation and a clean finish, it's actually a very delicate beer. Or at least as delicate as breakfast in a glass can be.

By now, I've drank enough that my thoughts are about as potent as a bottle of O'Douls, which means it's time for me to settle up and brace myself for tomorrow's inevitable hangover.