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In:Talking about Food: The social and the global in eating communities
Edited by Sofia Rüdiger and Susanne Mühleisen
[IMPACT: Studies in Language, Culture and Society 47] 2020
► pp. 99–122

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Chapter 6
Craft beer and linguistic lifestyle emblematization

 | University of Greifswald
 | Leonore-Goldschmidt-Schule
Published online: 18 June 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/impact.47.06hey
Abstract
Craft beer is currently a highly popular form of conspicuous consumption in many Western societies, including Germany. As such, the craft beer movement is a prime example of ‘lifestyle emblematization’: to partake in it is to be involved in the performance of exclusive and informed identities, a prerequisite for claims to social distinction. This study is grounded in ethnographic data from Berlin’s craft beer bars and complimentary data from the Upper Franconia region, which constitutes a peripheral space in terms of social geography yet doubles as a widely acclaimed center of German brewing traditions. By drawing on comparative data from these two differing sites, we can gain insight on discursive processes of lifestyle emblematization, and the specific role of Anglophone resources therein.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theorizing craft beer: Beer talk and lifestyle emblematization
  • 3.Sites of analysis and data
    • 3.1Sites of analysis
    • 3.2Data collected
  • 4.Anglophone and German resources in discourses of global/local exclusivity
    • 4.1English and German in Berlin
      • 4.1.1Berliner Berg
      • 4.1.2The Pier
      • 4.1.3Vagabund Brauerei
    • 4.2German and English in Upper Franconia
  • 5.Talking craft beer into being: Discursivization processes
    • 5.1Talking about beer: Tasting terms and tasting notes
    • 5.2Metagraphematic awareness
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (20)
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