Backpacker Buzz

Backpacker sophistication doesn’t come from knowing your hostel etiquette (don’t snore, don’t borrow other people’s soap, don’t fall asleep on the dorm room floor, ect). It doesn’t even come from chatting with three different people in three different languages at one time. That’s merely child’s play.

Achieving backpacker prominence really comes down to one thing: know your beer.

Backpacker Sophistication 101

Beer knowledge comes in handy in various kinds of situations, the most important situation being, of course, the pickup line. Impress your object of affection with your worldly knowledge of beer. Use big words like hops, top-fermenting yeasts, and viscosity.

Wait a minute. Don’t have worldly knowledge? Don’t panic. Here’s a cheat sheet.

The first thing you need to know about beer, besides the fact that it’s good, is that there are ales and then there are lagers. Pretty simple? Keep going.

Ales ferment at warmer temperatures than lagers, and so form layers of top-fermenting yeast. That doesn’t sound so appetizing, but think of it this way, what’s more appetizing than a nice cold layer of foam at the top of your beer glass? Yeah.

Lagers, on the other hand, ferment at lower temperatures and use a complex sugar compound to create bottom-fermenting yeast. Uh yeah, that was the boring part.

Your beer knowledge becomes impressive when you learn how to evaluate a beer based on its characteristics. It’s like learning how to separate the wheat from the shaft (pun intended). Here are some key words to learn: colour, aroma, flavour, mouthfeel, & strength.

A dark colour signifies bitter flavour. That’s because bittering agents like hops, roasted barely, and herbs were used in the production process. Light coloured beer is sweet in flavour, simply because of the higher sugar content. The strength of the beer is due to the length of fermentation. And the quality used to describe the smoothness of a beer is referred to as the mouthfeel. Kinda sexy.

Now that you’re an expert, test out your sexy, sophisticated beer knowledge at some of the world’s best beer festivals in Europe.

The Peterborough Beer Festival, Peterborough, England, August 24th – 28th

The Haguenau Beer Festival, in Alsace, France, August 17th -22nd.

Graduate from backpacker sophistication 101. Know your beer. Know it even when you’re half-asleep, and unsure of your time-zone.