1: Overton Windows & Velvet Capes

Overton Windows

Recently, I learned a new term - Overton window.¹ An Overton window reflects the range of beliefs and behaviors acceptable at a given time. This term resonated with me because I was in the middle of (and still am, frankly) a period of feeling exhausted and frustrated with the beer industry. I often find myself astride the line of searching for the silver lining that will keep me going for one more day and wondering if I’m indulging in toxic positivity to avoid acknowledging that the industry has shown us what it is, time and again. 

I learned this term amidst also learning that another (another, another, another) friend in the industry was harassed and mistreated by a brewery.² A brewery with an extremely problematic marketing strategy that they either adopted and then backpedaled on when it was brought to light or that they didn’t agree with but yet didn’t take any actionable steps to remove from their operations.

The outrage and reactions from those who learned of this abuse at the same time I did were swift and vocal. Whether this moment remains in the minds of those who displayed the most pearl-clutching indignation that a brewery could be so wantonly sexist will unfold with time. In my experience, as soon as the combination of feigned righteousness and the prospect of losing any amount of money becomes slightly uncomfortable, the outrage will fade into justifications for why this situation and this interaction are different.

A few years ago, this type of behavior from a business would probably have elicited at most a few eye rolls and perhaps utterances along the lines of “Boys will be boys.” To be sure, there were plenty of those kinds of reactions. However, the Overton window for what is considered acceptable business behavior and strategy has moved. The Overton window has shifted enough that the importance of speaking up about the behavior was deemed greater than the personal risk. 

My personal Overton window has shifted drastically over the last few years and I think most people will agree theirs has, too. Progress is happening even though it feels unbearably slow at times. Surprise! People in positions of power and people whose lived experiences have always been the societal default (a very overlapping Venn diagram) are not keen to shift the status quo. They are not only actively trying to keep the Overton window from shifting but often also trying to move it backward. Don’t let them.

How do we do that? I don’t have all of the answers but I have a few suggestions. First, recognize that your voice matters. If you’re part of a privileged group (i.e. you are white or male or heterosexual, etc.), recognize that your voice often carries more weight in your peer groups than the voices of historically excluded groups. Also recognize that calling out behaviors that are unacceptable through your Overton window can look like an email, a text, a quick “Hey, that’s not cool.” It can look like whatever you’d like. 

There is no one right way to advocate for others. Just advocate. Let it be messy. Don’t worry that you’re not going to have a stunningly devastating response to someone who challenges you for standing up. Because if we allow our collective Overton window to remain fixed or worse - shift backwards - then we won’t be able to see through it to the silver linings some of us are trying so desperately to see.

Velvet Cape! Velvet Cape!

Award-winning shitpost Instagram account Shitty Wine Memes (@shittywinememes) has been nailing posts on pictures that describe sensorial perceptions. This one reminded me that I’ve had a sensory exercise on the back burner for several months now.

During a Certified Cicerone training a couple of years ago, a student asked me to articulate the difference between astringency and bitterness on the palate. What followed was a lot like “Welllllllll, uhhhhh, it’s kind of like…well, I guess you would feel…like bitterness is different…”

Astringency is a perception that I’ve always struggled to identify. Am I tasting astringency? Do I nod along when other people say a beer is astringent because the beer has roasted malt and I know roasted malt can cause astringency? Am I conflating two separate characteristics that usually appear together?

Logical errors like this present a great opportunity to train on individual attributes. So how to train on the difference between astringency and bitterness? As it turns out, it’s pretty easy and relatively inexpensive. All you need is some alum powder for astringency and caffeine pills for bitterness. You can find the alum powder and caffeine pills I used on the Astringency vs. Bitterness list on my Under the Jenfluence Amazon shop.³

Once I decided to finally do this sensory experiment, it was super easy. I filled two glasses with 200 mL of water (this was a quick and dirty experiment just for me, so I used filtered tap water. If I’m doing something like this for a group, I use distilled water). I measured 100 mg of each of alum powder and caffeine and dissolved them in their respective glasses of water. Then, I tasted each one. When I do this again, I may use slightly more caffeine because I found the perceived bitterness level to be a little lower than the perceived astringency level. However, bitterness is not the perception with which I struggle so I didn’t worry about it too much.

I definitely got the astringency from the alum powder but I wasn’t sure that I would be able to translate the experiment into practice. Boy was I wrong. Later that evening, I was drinking Sierra Nevada Narwhal (an imperial stout, if you weren’t sure) and felt the familiar drying effect on my tongue. Remembering the Shitty Wine Meme pictures, I excitedly turned to my husband and started saying “Velvet cape! Velvet cape! I taste velvet cape!” Seeing as how we were watching television at the time with nary a velvet cape in sight, he found this to be as confusing as I found it to be illuminating. A good reminder to myself and perhaps you that training your palate doesn’t have to be a complicated, multi-step process that takes hours and involves lots of focus and note-taking.

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And finally

Before we leave each other, here are a few more things that I am up to these days:

1. Presenting virtually at the Brewing Science Symposium on Thursday, November 10th at 3:45 pm EST on Foamation: The Science of Beer Foam. Registration is FREE but donations are accepted. I’d really love to see this symposium and others like it succeed, so definitely register and please donate if you can spare it.

2. Presenting virtually at the Beer Culture Summit on Friday, November 11th at 12:00 pm EST on Sensing Humor: The Impact of Humoral Theory on Beer and Brewing. All Day Virtual Event passes are $25.00 per day. The Chicago Brewseum continues to make this event better every year and it’s become one of my favorites.

3. Reading Passions and Tempers: A History of the Humours by Noga Arikha. Gotta stay one lesson ahead of the students. (Note this is a link to my Bookshop.org affiliate shop, so I may receive a commission on any books you purchase through my shop.)

4. Listening to Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgement by Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, and Cass R. Sunstein. Our brains are wild.

5. Thinking about starting to study for my upcoming BJCP tasting exam retake. I am currently one point away from becoming a Master BJCP judge, a reality from which I have taken a break for a year and a half.

1. Wordsmith’s A.Word.A.Day. is one of the very best email blasts out there. Do yourself and your vocab a favor and subscribe.

2. The friend in question reviewed everything written here and consented to me using this story. It’s important to ask for consent when sharing someone’s trauma for public consumption. Please make asking for consent a habit when reposting and/or sharing stories you see on personal social media accounts.

3. Things to note about my Amazon shop - if you purchase a product from my shop, I will earn a small commission on it. I don’t know how much. I created the shop as a way to create easy sensory shopping lists for anyone interested in using them for their own sensory journeys. All of this is to say don’t feel pressured to buy items through my shop.

Additionally, if you don’t like to support Amazon and prefer to purchase elsewhere, that’s cool, too. One hundred percent ethical consumption under capitalism is impossible and boycotting companies is a privilege. You don’t have to buy from businesses you don’t feel comfortable supporting but many people can’t afford to do the same. Amazon represents a place where I can collate ideas for the largest amount of people to have access.