Most Dubs are familiar with ‘heinomite’ as a term of endearment for Heineken. Local bartenders will tell you that many Dubs order pints of ‘probably’ when they’re looking for a Carlsberg, but as craft beer styles have become more par for the course across the city, so has the slang. Enter terms like “gushers” (a can that erupts when you open it) and “freshies” (just-released brews). Whole subcultures have emerged too—“hazebros” (obsessive IPA fans) and “tickers” (beer hunters collecting rare releases) populate the scene. There’s “creamy boi”, a code of Guinness, which has also polymorphed into “creamy beamy” as Beamish gained more traction nationwide.
Gone are the days when you’d simply choose between a lager and an IPA. Now, you’re debating whether to go for a high-density, hop-charged IPA with Thiolized yeast or a side-pull Czech-style pilsner served in a mlíko pour that’s basically all foam. It’s not just beer that’s evolving—it’s the whole damn culture. From the way beer is brewed and marketed to the growing diversity of voices in the industry, the scene is getting a major refresh. And naturally, the language has to keep up.
A quick flick through Mark Dredge’s book Beer Flavour Wheel—a kind of beer-tasting Rosetta Stone—reveals that beer’s vocabulary actually has its roots in the wine world. Back in the late ’70s and ’80s, when homebrewing was blowing up across America and craft beer was born, people needed words to describe this new wave of beers. The American Homebrewers Association was founded in 1978, and competitions soon followed, demanding some kind of structure to categorise all the different styles. Michael Jackson (no, not that one) wrote The World Guide to Beer in 1984, and suddenly, drinkers had a framework to talk about styles. Fast forward to Dublin today, and breweries are offering beer-style courses to whoever wants to understand the definitions.
At first, people borrowed heavily from wine terms to describe beer. You could say it was “fruity,” or “dry,” and people got the gist. But the more esoteric wine jargon? Yeah, that didn’t fit. Beer is not wine. It has a different, more laid-back vibe. So, while beer drinkers might say “acidic,” they’re not throwing around words like “batonnage.” Beer’s always had that come-as-you-are energy.
Most of the OG craft beer styles—like porters, hefeweizens, and saisons—come from European (including Irish) traditions, and the language reflects that. Early on, terms like “biscuity,” “nutty,” and “citrusy” helped explain these old-school brews. But now, with new styles and craft brewers popping up all over the world, the vocabulary has to stretch. Today, you’ll hear terms like “agave sweetness” right alongside “honey sweetness,” as brewers pull from wider global influences. And where “hoppy” once cut it, that single word doesn’t even begin to describe the full range of hop flavours you’ll find in IPAs today.
If you look at the IPA category two decades ago, “hoppy” was shorthand for those bitter, piney West Coast IPAs that dominated the scene. Back then, if you said a beer was hoppy, people knew exactly what you meant. But today? IPAs have exploded in variety—think hazy New England IPAs, Belgian IPAs, even cold IPAs. “Hoppy” could now mean anything from juicy and tropical to subtly bitter, and the classic bitter bomb of a West Coast IPA is just one piece of the puzzle. In fact, if you call something “hoppy” now, it might mean the exact opposite of what it did ten years ago.
The slang, the rituals, and the subcultures that have turned every pint into its own universe. Is there any way to keep up? Probably not, but encountering the new and evolving vocabulary is fun – especially in Dublin, where we’re always putting weirdly poetic twists on language. From calling out a “boss pour” to hunting down ‘serious creamers’ or hunting “whales” (those rare, hyped-up beers), Dublin’s beer language is as dynamic as the drinks themselves.
Words: Shamim De Brún
