Hipsters don’t drink PBR to be ironic, they drink it because it’s cheap. If you don’t have money you’ll drink the cheapest beer at the bar: PBR, Schlitz, Natty Boh…
When Hipsters get money they drink craft beer.
From the film Roxanne:
*Oh, ho, ho, irony! Oh, no, no, we don’t get that here. See, uh, people ski topless here while smoking dope, so irony’s not really a, a high priority. We haven’t had any irony here since about, uh, '83, when I was the only practitioner of it. And I stopped because I was tired of being stared at. *
Mary Berry from Great British Bakeoff does not like hipsters
Serious question off of the decent joke.
Is it someone dislikes being part of the crowd that makes them a hipster (thus they no longer find things as appealing when everyone else likes it to), or someone desiring to broadcast that they are outside of the norm that does it?
There is a difference between the two.
For me, it is the deliberate advertising that they are “above” the common run which defines a hipster.
I actually do drink PBR because I like it, but I’m not really a hipster. I am gradually regressing into my childhood for reasons entirely unrelated to being cool. Swear.
In the 90s there was a group of dickheads commonly called “poseurs”. I tend to think of hipsters as the best poseurs mixed with the worst hippies.
They all wear little hats, scarves, shoes without socks, and dark rimmed glasses (sometimes without real lenses). They’re very carefully showing how much they don’t care.
It’s okay if they call themselves hipsters if they were doing it before hipsters were cool. Starting to call yourself a hipster now is just way behind the times.
If cheap were really the concern, hipsters wouldn’t be going out to bars to pay $5 per can of Pabst.
That’s fairly atypical, in my experience. PBR was usually the $2 can option vs the normally priced $5-$7 beers at the more youngster crowded bars I’ve been to. Sometimes it could come close, but if I’m in the mood for a macrolager, and it’s the $5 Miller High Life vs the $5 PBR (like on that menu), I’m picking the PBR, because it tastes better to me.
ETA: For example, here’s the menu for a pretty hipster bar called “Maria’s Packaged Goods” in Bridgeport. PBR is $3 a can. That’s more typical of the hipsterish bars around here, and I will drink PBR or Old Style or whatever when I feel like stretching my dollar or when I’m not in the mood for a microbrew.
ETA ^ So, actually, you’re right, it’s more than one concern. It’s price and quality for price. PBR is a reasonably tasty beer for what it is.
FWIW, the menu I linked to is pretty standard prices here in DC. I’m always surprised how much cheaper beer is in the rest of the country, but even still, if money were the prime factor (as opposed to the brand), the stinkin’ hipsters would buy a six-pack for $5 rather than a single can for half a sawbuck at a place that used to be cool before people knew about it.
That doesn’t necessarily follow. I pretty much only drink in bars, because I don’t enjoy drinking alone.
I actually thought those prices were on the cheaper side for DC. My father in law just came out from Arkansas and the prices almost made his head explode. Then we went to a game at Nats Park and I thought he was going to have a stroke.
It’s still the cheapest beer at that joint. I don’t know the place but it looks more yuppie than hipster. Hipsters go to the Red Derby, and get cheap cans for a buck at happy hour.
But yeah, five bucks for a PBR. Jesus.
It’s just a way of passing off something that would not be “hip” as “cool” For example, bowling shirts, which were worn “ironically” then of course Hipsters started bowling which meant…
They’re wearing the shirts sincerely but bowling ironically? 
The whole irony thing is really overblown. Most people, hipsters or whatever, do things because they like to do them. Sure a bit of irony is fun, but I’ll bet half of you do the same thing. Lot of MST3K fans on the dope, and what is MST3K but watching terrible movies ironically?
Nope. They drink it 'cause it has that retro working class vibe that some non-working class folk like. There are other beers that are the same price or cheaper.
16 oz cans of PBR run around $4 here.
And if there are, that’s what they’ll drink. The PBR thing is a cliche.