Ultracrepidarian

Noting or pertaining to a person who criticizes, judges, or gives advice outside their area of his or her expertise.

2016 was a big year for discovery, discovering how many people out there who are self professed know-it-alls even when, to be honest, they don't know their turnip from their swede. It's a common mistake but I think it also makes a quite funny joke.

I don't know much about politics so try and steer clear of any kind of political debate. I don't know that much about religion apart from what I was taught as school so I try not to get involved in debates about religion. There are lots of things that I have no idea about so I don't bother getting bogged down in a pointless argument about when I don't have any feet to stand on. The problem is, some people do. 

When I ran a pub, I eavesdropped on all sorts of conversations, more frequently than I ever thought possible was when people were talking about something they actually didn't know anything about. It was almost like they were getting heated in argument for the sake of it rather than sharing knowledge or differing views on something they know about. If I knew what they were talking about I'd leave it as long as I could, if it was really inaccurate or just completely wrong I'd have to interject or in some cases that I'm not proud of, rudely interrupt. 

Being a beer blog, it seems only fitting that I mention beer. There have been a lot of inaccuracies, maybe even far too many than there should be. If you claim to call yourself a 'self professed' 'beer writer' then a good place to start if you don't know absolutely everything about the subject would be to do some research. Even a small amount doesn't hurt. 
I'm not calling myself an 'expert' or anything but after about two years as a commercial brewer, a decade on or off homebrewing and extensive reading into the sciences behind various processes, I know enough to get by. I've not had any education in brewing but have had the luxury of putting my reading and research into practise, sometimes on full scale brews. I don't know the chemical compositions of various esters or phenols, nor do I know all of the alpha and beta acids so I'm not going to get involved in any serious discussion about them, without doing any research beforehand. 

There are beer writers or bloggers out there that have honest opinions and do not necessarily know everything that they are writing about but don't get into enough detail to be so wrong that it verges on being silly. Then there are those that get so into it and do such thorough and extensive research that it really pays off. Pete Brown is one of the latter. I've not read any of his books but a lot of my friends have, one particular had only good things to say about his book 'Hops And Glory'. The idea that this guy (Pete) wants to know uncover the truth about the mythical IPA, so much that he journeys from Burton to India carrying a barrel of an original recipe IPA. That is a true love of beer and history, fact and fiction, anything and everything that one should put themselves through to create something truly magical. He went to such great lengths so that we the readers can have a most enjoyable experience possible. Sharing what he learned along the way with all of us. Be it a little extreme, it's that kind of thing (on a somewhat smaller scale) that we should all be doing before we chose to try and enlighten others about something we don't fully know ourselves.

The moral of this story is; if you are going to write about and have strong opinions about something, at least have the courtesy to do little research before.

There is a lot more I have to learn about beer and brewing, that it why I'm still reading, watching and listening to as much as I can, putting some to practise. There is always more to learn than what you might think, therefore there is more work for me to do. I just bought a copy Hops and Glory, that's a start.