Edited by Sofia Rüdiger and Susanne Mühleisen
[IMPACT: Studies in Language, Culture and Society 47] 2020
► pp. 99–122
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.