No, beer is the poor cousin

Some things are a matter of perspective.

At Wine Sediments, Andrew Barrow asks “Why do newspapers treat wine like poor cousin?

He’s talking about wine coverage in the UK. On the other hand, during a recent visit to London, Peter Haydon of Meantime Brewing talked about how little coverage beer receives in newspapers despite the fact that it accounts for 80% of alcohol sales in England.

“There’s a huge amount of snobbery against beer,” said. “If you open the Sunday paper it’s wine, wine, wine.”

Gooden apparently isn’t lamenting how much is written, but what.

Why is it that these magazines seem fine to review a restaurant with the final bill coming in at £60+ (US$110) per head, but the wine column on the same page is suggesting £3.99 or £4.99 (sub US$10) wines?

He’s not talking just about restaurants. He points to a story that “recommends a beauty cream that retails for £56 a tub and an eye-shadow at £15 (US$27)” while noting that wine writers mostly stick to suggesting lower prices wines.

Then he asks a more complicated question:

Restaurant reviews are often “bad.” [To summarize, wine reviews seldom are.]

In fact I don’t think I have ever read a poor wine review. They are always positive. Perhaps the limited copy space for the humble wine writer restricts them to writing up the good stuff.

Why are wine and wine critics dealt with so differently from other critics in newspapers?

Good question, and probably one that should be asked about beer as well.