A Matter of Taste – Consumer Appropriation of the Craft Beer Taste Regime in Finland

Abstract

The consumption of craft beer is becoming increasingly popular in Finland. This is evinced by the rapid rise in the number of microbreweries and their market share. Consequently, also the way beer is consumed takes different forms that are culturally dictated.

This study focuses on the construct that orchestrates these practices – taste regime. It is a discursively mediated system that orchestrates the aesthetic practice of taste. The concept of taste regime relies on practice theory that sees practice being the overarching and essential dimension of social life. This is also the theoretical framework of this study.

Consumer identity is another focal concept in the study. While the historic roots of consumer identity lie in the rather one-sided view of consumption as a means of displaying economic aptitude and therefore status, its theorizations have evolved to understand the consumer as a socially and culturally driven being. In this respect, it has become a central stream of cultural research.

This study taps into the research gap that lies in connecting the practice-driven exercise of taste and the consumer’s need of individual sense-making and a more or less coherent identity. Its purpose is understand how hegemonic taste regimes influence the way consumers negotiate different identities. The research problem is divided into three subquestions: 1. How is taste practiced within the taste regime? 2. How are these practices shaped by the consumer’s identity? 3. How does this appropriation affect the configuration of practice?

Due to its explorative nature, the study takes a qualitative approach, often employed in cultural research. The research paradigm is constructivism, evoking a socially constructed view of the world. The study’s epistemological approach is subjectivist, focusing on a interpretative outlook on the production of knowledge. The circuit of practice – a practice-theoretical concept that structures practice as a triad between objects, doings, and meanings – is used as the analytical framework. Data for the study has been gathered in semi-structured interviews, through the ethnographic methods of participant observation and introspection, and in the form of complementing online data.

In line with previous research on the craft beer taste regime in US, the study’s findings present the craft beer taste regime as a consumption context that problematizes mass-production, ritualizes particular sequences of tasting, and instrumentalizes objects and doings to achieve a sense of exploration, pleasure, and quality. Consumers are found to appropriate the taste regime based on their subjective sense-making by embracing particular meanings and reconfiguring the objects and doings accordingly.