Humans love a pecking order. It makes life so much simpler. If you want advice on your soggy soufflé, who are you going to ask: the pot washer or the chef in the fancy hat?

There’s a food channel on YouTube that pits cooks with differing levels of expertise against one another. “I’m a level two chef,” someone will chirp in the intro to each video, as if they were building a skill tree in Dungeons and Dragons.

This is an absurd claim to make. There is no Dungeon Master in the kitchen doling out XP for completion of culinary feats. Nor are there any universally agreed and enforced thresholds between the supposed levels.

But on the other hand, it’s completely natural. There’s no denying that some people are better at cooking than others. And people like it when their skills and experience are recognised. Which got me thinking: do we do the same with beer drinkers?

When you first start drinking beer, chances are it will be a supermarket lager. That’s just statistics. Picture yourself as the lowly Level 1 Beer Drinker, fresh character sheet in hand, and still unsure which one is the d4. You stand before an imposing wall of unfamiliar cans, wondering what to choose, hoping a kindly NPC will cough up a hint.

Perhaps beer is just something you drink to get drunk, or because your mates do. Or maybe you’re interested because it seems grownup. Basically a lot of beer’s allure will be down to things with which it is associated rather than the actual beer itself.

Its bitterness is an unfamiliar sensation, maybe one you’ve not yet learned to enjoy, but still… there’s something there. A faltering inner voice suggests maybe another can might be a good idea, because that last one wasn’t all bad. Not by a long shot, in fact.

By the time you’re a Level 2 Beer Drinker you’re moving on from quickie one-sheet drinking adventures to proper campaigns. Taprooms are your dungeons now. You’ve added another d8 to your hit dice and damnit, you want to use it.

This is the time when most drinkers grow curious about craft beer. They’ve accepted that they like beer in general, and want to move onto trying ‘the good stuff’, whatever that might be.

For many this means exploring hop flavours in pale ales and IPAs, after rolling initiative of course. As Level 2 Beer Drinkers expand their ideas of what beer can taste like, many feel the siren song of unfamiliar beers drawing them into ever deeper waters. Make a saving roll for dexterity to avoid drowning.

Sexy beers from across the seas appear over the horizon at this stage. Some Level 2 Beer Drinkers will ‘try a bit of Belgian’ and never go back. Others may uncover a love of German lager. Still more will have their heads turned by American beers muled over the Atlantic. Whichever path you take, they all lead swiftly on to Level 3.

Now it’s time to increase your constitution bonus and become proficient in either the Holding Your Booze or Hangover Resistance skills. If you’re lucky you might even learn a couple of cantrips as well, barroom tricks to keep your drinking buddies entertained.

You’ll have no time for surreptitious half-nerdery here in Level 3. No keeping one eye on preserving your status as a norm. Now is the time to embrace full-hearted geekdom. Take a dive down the beery rabbit hole, ideally with a well balanced party that includes at least one cleric for healing and one barbarian for clearing a path to the bar.

Level 3 drinkers, grown weary of clean brews, will often seek out wild and barrel-aged beers. They crave challenging beers with complex flavours. Stuff that would make more faint-hearted souls put down their glass and back away from the table.

If you’ve reached this stage of your beer drinking career, then you’re probably already visiting some dedicated websites in your spare time, and you may also have dipped your toes into the murky waters of online forums. Perhaps you’ve even subscribed to a specialist beer magazine. Nerd.

A progression like this might be familiar to many drinkers but it isn’t a rigid path down which all must travel. Nor does reaching the end grant anyone the right to look down on those still at the beginning.

If you learn anything at all while building your Beer Drinker skill tree you should learn this: the ‘right’ beer is the one which the drinker enjoys. If someone, after trying all the brewing world has to offer, still prefers to stick to Fosters…

Actually no, that’s taking things too far. But we must at least recognise that the Fosters drinkers won’t thank us for telling them how awful their taste in beer is. And liking one type of beer over another doesn’t make you a better person. Judgemental snobs are the worst.

So don’t focus on what other people drink during your quest to level up your own beer knowledge. Just focus on yourself. This is the zen of beer.

Article Source – Ferment Beer 52