Shaming Can-Quaffers on Zoom

Love it or hate it, one of the novel aspects of the “drinking-at-home-now” conditions during lockdown is the ubiquitous Zoom video and audio conferencing platform that allows one to drink beers with multiple friends and acquaintances, virtually at least, via their computers, tablets or phones. If you’ve tippled or toasted with others at Zoom birthday parties, classes, curated tastings, festivals, happy hours, lectures, meetings, memorials, panel discussions, seminars or any occasion (and who hasn’t?), you know the experience.

It allows you to be a “social” drinker while still being not only socially distant, but self-isolated. And you can not only gather with friends you’d normally hang with, but also with those across town, or throughout the country and (subject to time zones) around the globe. And best of all, no one has to be concerned with driving home after the drinking session!

Just as “Zoom school,” or virtual learning, remains a part of K-12 education even as schools begin to reopen, it seems more than likely that virtual attendance at physical gatherings like beer festivals or concerts (once they are allowed) will continue to occur as a component of the whole event. Yes, technology can foster inclusivity.

So as tiresome and draining as back-to-back Zoom-athons can be and often are, count me as one of the fans of this social medium. It took a global pandemic to make Zoom, literally almost overnight, the indispensable app.

But, alas, all is not well in Zoom-ville when it comes to those who drink, love, understand, care about, and — yes — respect (Cheers, Alström Bros) beer. After a year’s worth of drinking-while-Zooming, I am extremely disillusioned to see, and feel that I must call out, what I consider the worst virtual party foul, or faux pas (well, not as bad as Jeffrey Toobin’s; Google him if you don’t know) for beer drinkers WHO KNOW BETTER!

I’m talking about Drinking. From. Cans. (Gasp!)

Catch your breath yet? We’re talking craft beer here, not soda or hard (or soft) seltzer, or even an industrial lager. And, without naming or shaming names, I can attest that these are professional brewery owners, brewers, beer writers, beer judges and beer teachers (in the US as well as the UK), some of them heading up guilds, and many of them award-winners. Not all of them do it. And not all of the time. But, respectfully, WTF?

And these were all folks Zoom-drinking from desks or tables at home. They were not atop brewhouses or on boats, not out in nature or on beaches, not hiking or biking or Pelotoning or driving (god forbid) — situations where can-quaffing could be considered at least excusable, if not understandable.

I am not a craftier-than-thou beer snob, but I just don’t get it: Are there no clean glasses at home? Dishwasher full of all your dirty shaker pints? I’m not talking about “appropriate” glassware for the beer style, just any drinking vessel — a Mason jar or a coffee mug or a plastic cup even. Something that will let the beer “breathe” and the aroma “open up” as the foam forms when poured.

But don’t just take my word for it. “Beer is a fussy beverage,” writes noted beer author, teacher and public speaker Randy Mosher in his book Tasting Beer (Storey Publishing). “It cares about the size, shape and cleanliness of the glass it is served in and really responds to a great pour… Sure you can just grab a bottle [or can] and gulp it down — and there are beers made for this — but most beers need to be treated with a little more respect if you want them to reveal their inner souls.”

Kimmich Gimmick

Then again, John Kimmich, co-owner and brewmaster of Vermont’s The Alchemist Brewery, famous for its Heady Topper Double IPA (which supposedly launched the hazy IPA craze when it debuted over a decade ago), as well as its also-hazy little brother Focal Banger IPA, counter-intuitively espouses can-gulping. In fact, “Drink from the can!” is emblazoned on those aluminum containers themselves.

Why? As Kimmich explains, which is also printed on the cans: “Quite simply, to ensure a delightful hop experience. The act of pouring it into a glass smells nice, but it releases the essential hop aromas that we have worked so hard to retain.”

What? The release of “essential hop aromas” is what the whole beer-pouring, head-forming, and smelling experience is all about. I tried taking a first sip from the newly opened cans of Heady and Focal. Yes, the intense hop-burst is formidable, but like a condensed flavor that hasn’t had a chance to open up and reveal its true self yet. But because the can has been opened, oxygen has introduced itself and the second sip from the can is much more subdued in that intensity.

Maybe Kimmich prefers that we crack the can’s opening just a bit to insert a straw to quickly suck out that “delightful hop experience” before it becomes perverted by oxygen. At least that has a historical precedent: Ancient Sumerians, and others, drank beer through straws directly from the vessels in which it was fermented.

In a 2017 interview with Kimmich about his theory of can-drinking, the website HopCulture.com wrote: “This, the masses mused, was surely just an ingenious marketing stunt, launched as a way to keep The Alchemist Brewery’s primary vehicle of mystique — its oddly named, bizarrely logoed can — in the drinkers’ hands where everyone else could see it.” I’m more inclined to agree with the aforementioned masses.

To that point, in a conversation with a brewer in LA County last year about the increasing inventiveness of beer can art, and the equally proliferating popularity of that artwork with consumers, I was told that some brewery patrons buy beers in four-pack cans simply because they really like the artwork, without concern about what style the beer inside is. And that they like the can art so much, they drink the beer right from the can.

Wait a minute, isn’t that what Instagram is for?

As the SoCal weather gets warmer, as more and more beer drinkers become vaccinated, and as breweries and brewpubs might start allowing a limited amount of customers inside, it is my sincere hope that I do not observe anyone sipping from a can at any brewery I visit — indoors or outdoors. Or on Zoom either.

And finally, if any readers want to tell me to can it, and explain why, your rebuttals are welcome.

In Wishful Drinking, Tomm Carroll opines and editorializes on trends, issues and general perceptions of the local craft beer movement and industry, as well as beer history. Feel free to let him know what you think (and drink); send comments, criticisms, kudos and even questions to beerscribe@earthlink.net.