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I will attest, and my friends will attest first hand, that I am not a man of fine tastes. I do not like nice things, and I feel guilty when I receive nice things. I judge consumer products by value rather, quality, and as such, I regard Pabst Blue Ribbon as the best beer of my generation, and my personal salvation when journeying to Kroger looking for the best price for mediocre alcohol.
Some call P.B.R. the “hipster beer,” but I believe that such a label robs the product of its true essence. P.B.R. is not a hipster beer for me. I know it is a commodity among the hipster community, but P.B.R. is also beer for common people such as myself, people who scoff at the prices of craft beer and even nicer domestic beers. On Beeradvocate, P.B.R. has an almost average rating of 2.94/5 stars. P.B.R. has even been condescendingly ridiculed by South Park, being labeled by the show as a beer for white trash. Rob Walker, in Buying In: What We Buy and Who We Are, discussed the ’90s connotation of P.B.R. as “a crappy, cheap beer you only drank if you didn’t have the money to buy better beer.”
I will admit that at times, its taste is strikingly mediocre, tasting a little more like water than your average specimen. However, in assessing based on taste, we are judging by the wrong standards. I am not a frequenter of breweries. As much as I have…
