Cultural Tensions between Taste Refinement and Middle-Class Masculinity: a Case Study of Craft Beer Aficionados (original) (raw)

Taste refinement, which refers to the development of complex systems of aesthetic evaluation, has long presented ambiguous meanings for American middle-class men. In the 18th and 19th centuries, this social stratum wanted to further distinguish itself from newly arrived immigrants and the working class, but viewed refinement in housing, clothing, and eating as effeminate and elitist. In the late 20th century, taste refinement remains contested even among well-educated, upper middle-class men, who favor moral and socioeconomic signals over taste in granting someone prestige. Nonetheless, much of the recent market growth of U.S. craft beer relies on taste refinement by middle-class men. This chapter zooms in on the context of craft beer to reveal how contemporary American middle-class men align culturally refined consumption with their class-inflected scripts of gender and morality. Viewing this phenomena through the theoretical lens of symbolic boundaries, I illuminate how these men refine their aesthetic sensibilities while upholding their senses of masculinity and rectitude.