Everybody knows what beer is, and how popular it’s been around the world for millennia. But the modern beer industry has spawned some accessories that are not quite as popular in general, but have such ardent fans and collectors that there are now English words to describe them. Take, for example, labeorphiles. These are people whose hobby is collecting the labels from beer bottles. The word might come from “label,” which entered English around the 1500s and is based on a Germanic word “lappa”, which meant “rag.” “Phile”, of course, is used in any number of compound words meaning an enthusiast of something, and comes from the Greek word “philos” (dear or beloved). “Labeorphile” might also be a somewhat whimsical combination of “label,” “beer,” and “-phile.” It’s the sort of word that might be coined after a few beers.
Some labeorphiles — possibly the ones with a more academic or methodical mindset — take their collecting to the next level and engage in the systematic study of their labels. There are enough of these folks (somehow) to warrant a label of their own: meadophily, the study of beer bottle labels. It’s unclear where meadophile came from; it appears to include the word “mead,” which is from Old English “mede”, meaning the drink made from fermented honey. But why studying beer bottle labels should have anything to do with a completely different alcoholic beverage — if that’s even where the word came from — is a mystery.
Some collectors eschew the labels on the bottles and are more interested in what the bottles are placed upon, particularly in restaurants and bars. Beer bottles are placed on cardboard coasters, and those coasters are often — maybe even “usually” — provided for free by the beer company or other companies as promotional items. And the people who collect the coasters? They’re tegetologists. Where did that word come from? Can’t find a single clue. The “-ologist” part, though, is the same suffix you see in “geology”, “archeology”, and any number of other topical specialties. It comes from the Greek “logia” (to speak) and indicates you have the expertise to speak about a given subject. (Perhaps you’ve noticed that some people skip the expertise part…but I digress.)
All of this suggests that there ought to be a word describing people who simply like beer. Wine lovers are called oenophiles, after all. That word is from the Greek word for wine: “oinos.” The Greek word for beer is “zythos”, but you won’t find “zythophile” in any dictionary. In fact, there doesn’t seem to be any descriptive word for “beer lover.” The Latin word for beer is “cerevisa,” and although “cerevisaphile” does appear here and there, it clearly hasn’t caught on. You’re apparently most likely to encounter it if you play the computer game Assassin’s Creed and your character samples every London beer provided in the game — you then earn the Cerevisaphile Achievement, which is worth ten points. I don’t know how valuable ten points are in the game; that detail wasn’t listed on the label, and I can’t find an Assassin’s Creed user manual anywhere to check the fine print.
