(SFChronicle) - It’s 2019, and the boundaries are blurring. I go into wine shops and have to squint to tell the difference between bottles of sparkling wine and bottles of cider on the shelves. At my local beer bar, at least a quarter of the draft pours have peaches or boysenberry or wine grapes in them. Things I was always trained to dislike in wine — like high concentrations of brettanomyces — I’m reconsidering as positive attributes if present in beer or cider.

“Clean,” which always seemed the most innocuous of fermented beverage descriptors, is suddenly a dirty word in some drinking circles. Funk is in. Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.