"They're just trying to kill you with hops"- Neal Stephenson

There are times in a beer geek's life when they do just what their stereotype designates: they geek-out about beer.

For me, I geek out when I find craft beer culture leaked into mainstream mediums. And, I also geek out when my other geeky interests display a bit of beer knowledge.

This is my second time reading a Neal Stephenson book and the second time I've been thrown into fits of delight by a subtle tipping of the hat to the relevance of beer in the future.

Legendary Sci-fi writer Mr. Neal Stephenson might not be a home brewer or, even have much love for hops-

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but he does go out of his way to make gentle suggestions that good beer is part of the world around him.

"...she squeezed a wedge of lemon into her wheat beer and took a sip."
"The only thing I believe at the moment is that my legs are wet, this stout is good, and I like your perfume."

-experts from Diamond Age

Diamond Age was written in 1995 while Mr. Stephenson was living in Seattle, Washington so things like stormy weather stouts and hefeweizen with a lemon in it were likely a normal aspect of his daily life.

There have been suggestions on beer collaborations with the author, but nothing seems to have some it as of yet. Which shows that I am not the only one mixing my nerdy infatuations.



"Like my current pet peeve is—and here we're definitely talking about First-World problems—over-hopping of craft beer. Hops are a very aromatic, bitter compound and I suspect that they're being used by incompetent brewers to cover up defects in the taste of their produce. I've been trying this experiment lately: If you go into a microbrewery type of place and ask them for their "least-hopped" beer, they either can't even answer the question or they seem pretty seriously taken aback. They're just trying to kill you with hops."

Bookish interview Feb. 2013

Rather or not death by unpalatably hoppy beer is in the future of man kind's beer adventures, one thing is for sure, Neal Stephenson is a beer geek (who gets quoted saying beer snobbish things).

Beer will be in our future as surely as it has been in our past.

XOXO