Bourdain turned this easygoing attitude into fighting words in a recent interview with Thrillist, where he dismissed critics who have chided him for not making an effort to explore the craft beer scenes in places he visits. “The angriest critiques I get from people about shows are when I’m drinking whatever convenient cold beer is available in a particular place,” Bourdain says. “You know, I haven’t made the effort to walk down the street 10 blocks to the microbrewery where they’re making some fucking Mumford and Sons IPA. People get all bent about it. But look, I like cold beer. And I like to have a good time.”
He further makes the point with an anecdote about—where else?—San Francisco, where he went to a bar only to confront, to his horror, a bunch of guys sipping beer flights and taking notes. “This is not what a bar is about. A bar is to go to get a little bit buzzed, and pleasantly derange the senses, and have a good time, and interact with other people, or make bad decisions, or feel bad about your life. It’s not to sit there fucking analyzing beer,” he says.
Aside from the solid Mumford and Sons dis, Bourdain seems to be making the point that he thinks craft-beer aficionados are missing the point by turning beer into a competitive game of rare bottles and IBU one-upmanship rather than a means of relaxing and getting drunk with your friends. And if taking notes about beer is how you have fun, well—enjoy paying that elevated bar tab to go with your elevated farmhouse saison, nerds.
[via First We Feast]
