I have a taste for beer. It’s in the paper so it must be true!

This full-page article appeared recently in the Västerbottningen paper, rounding off a great summer for BeerSweden with articles in several regional newspapers and a breakfast interview on Sveriges Radio.

Although this coverage is admittedly very regional I’m getting a distinct sense that the media may ever so slowly be catching on to what all of us at this blog already know – that beer is grabbing many of the headlines in the drinks world these days.

Rather than spending countless column inches demonising beer and casting it as the root of all social misbehaviour (while praising wine with regular and almost religious fervour) we might, and I say just might, be at the turning in the road.

That’s not to say the journey to parity with wine in the media isn’t going to be a long one. To be honest we’ll probably never even get there what with the millions invested into the glossy magazines by the wine industry. I seriously doubt we’ll ever get equal share of ‘throat’ considering the limited means of many of this country’s relatively young microbreweries.

But that’s OK. We don’t actually need to fight with wine anyway. All we need to do is show people that the things they enjoy in their wines can actually be found in beer. We need to inform people that wine isn’t a ‘one size fits all’ drink and that there are many occasions where wine feels decidedly uncomfortable and yet where beer thrives. Rather than compete against wine we need to complement it and use wine’s proven ability to get people to experience new flavours and styles and use it to encourage them to channel their curiosity into beer once in a while.

I often talk and write about wine as though I have a huge grape on my shoulder. The truth is I don’t. Wine is a wonderful, beguiling and elegant drink that has been involved in many of the most sensational food and drink experiences of my life. I don’t want to pick a fight with it. I just want people to give beer the same chance as wine, to be as equally open and willing to appreciate it on its own merits.

If we can do that then we really don’t need to compete against wine. Beer would have already won.