10 Tips For Dating a Beer Geek

Fear not, brave soul. There are worse things to passionately “geek out” over. Just imagine how loyal a beer geek is if they’re committed this strongly to craft beer.

1. Don’t pretend to know or have more interest in craft beer than you do for our sake. We see right through that act. We’ll convert you soon enough, don’t you worry your pretty little wine drinking head about it. Besides, you’re much more attractive if you’re ordering a craft beer you’ve never had and will share a sip of rather than a fizzy, yellow, macrobrew.
2. Brewery shirts are always acceptable fashion staples. They help us identify other beer geeks, start conversations, and hopefully get better service avoiding the unwanted advice and elementary explanations of beer menus by bartenders and servers whom we are yet to know on a first name basis. Show up in a cool, obscure shirt for bonus points.
3. Bear with the obsession. When we visit an establishment with a craft beer menu, we’ll read, re-read, and obsess over every beer on the list for a good 5 minutes before ordering.
4. Deal with the documentation. We will photograph the beer we finally order and set up ideal photographic composition, lighting, coasters, and menus. This can take a while.
5. Deal with the distribution of said documentation. We share and check in all over social media, including Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Untappd… 2ND beer…
6. Don’t take us to dive bars. Just. Don’t. Do. It.
7. Don’t take us to beer festivals. Unless you don’t mind being left alone while we temporarily schmooze a brewer or brewster, pick their brains about their beers, and network every booth, making new beer friends. Also, we’ll be doing that thing were we photograph, take notes, and check in every beer sample we taste on the Untappd app.
8. Travel, regardless of the end goal (vacations, visiting Grandma, travel for work…) will revolve around stops to various renowned craft beer bars, bottle shops, and  breweries. Visiting great notable watering holes will likely involve selfies of us, me, and my beer(s). These sites are often in seedy industrial parks.
9. Expect to hear us complain about establishments that don’t use proper glassware. We will always have proper glassware. We have cabinets overflowing with proper glassware.
10. We will always have beer in the fridge and possibly even our own kegorator (keg fridge). Just, be careful. Don’t go opening things willy-nilly. We have a system. We hoard beers for special occasions, vertical tastings (multiple vintages of a particular beer), and for trade with folks in other parts of the country.