Abstract

After promotion for almost a decade, enthusiasts, local restaurants, and bars have created a unique craft beer culture in Hattiesburg, Mississippi in the United States. For over 13 months, from April 2014 to May 2015, I participated in numerous special activities and everyday events in places where craft beer enthusiasts in the city gathered. This article draws on interviews and fieldwork-notes from this project, exploring how tasting is done among local craft beer enthusiasts. I was interested in the relationship of taste, culture, and social contexts. Specifically, I investigated questions relating to the tasting of craft beer in a casual social context. How is tasting done in craft beer? How do enthusiasts communicate in these tastings in a larger social context? Following Sarah Pink’s theory on doing sensory ethnography, this research is based on current developments in the anthropology of the senses. By looking at taste in certain social contexts, this article contributes firsthand ethnographic materials as a contribution to the emerging field of sensory studies. Finally, I propose a particular kind of “anthropology of taste” as a potential direction for further research.