Beer backpedal

The “stupid people” tag on this post finally refers to myself for once. Well, all right, “for once” meaning that, for once, I’m finally willing to admit it.

My {squirrel’s fist-sized} fistful of loyal readers will probably remember a post of mine from a few months ago regarding so-called beer “snobs”. If not, click here and refresh yourself, pardon the pun.

Let me just say that I do still stand by the belief that there are SOME micro-brew slash craft-beer drinkers out there that do represent themselves as “snobs” by considering their standards or their tastes above those that prefer mass-produced beers such as Anheuser-Busch, Miller, or Coors products- the “Big Three”, as I call them. But I also recognize that most micro and craft drinkers simply look at “Big Three” drinkers more as “missing out” than anything else, if anything at all, and probably don’t really think about it at all and really don’t give a rip what someone else drinks. And believe it or not, I recognized that all along.

Let me also say that there are “Big Three” drinkers that represent themselves in a less-than-positive light as well- not as “snobs” but as blind loyalists. People unwilling to expand their horizons. Afraid of that which is different. Unable and/or unwilling to think- or in this case, to drink- outside of the proverbial box. And I was one of them.

I have long been a “Big Three” drinker. I stick to the “Big Three” brewers- my usual suds of choice being Bud Light, Miller Light, and Coors Light. I also have been known to regularly drink others in the “Big Three”’s families, such as Miller High Life and MGD, or Bud Select, Budweiser, and Michelob, for example. But typically, I usually either have Bud Light or Miller Lite on hand, and that’s usually what I’d order when dining out. For the record, I’m really disappointed that Anheuser-Busch sold themselves to InBev, but not so much so that I will stop drinking their beer (provided InBev doesn’t dick around with their flavors…). That’s not what this is about.

Last fall, my sister-in-law’s husband introduced me to Michelob Amber Bock. I was in quite the quandary. It is made by my preferred manufacturer, yet it was a dark(er) beer, much darker than what I was used to, and considered (at least in my head, if not by A-B) to be a “craft” beer. I was big-time hesitant to try it, because I didn’t want to become what I always perceived (out of ignorance, admittedly) as a beer “snob”. I honestly was one of those that automatically labeled craft-beer drinkers as hoidy-toidy, and as thinking they are more sophisticated than non-craft-beer drinkers. But, giving in to the “pressure”- and reassuring myself that since Amber Bock is made by A-B, it would be “okay” to drink it- I tried it and loved it and have drunk essentially nothing else since. Then I started looking at myself as “worldly” because now I drink a craft beer, and a dark(er) one at that. Oooooh, I have such high-fallutin’ taste buds now. What a dork.

Fast forward to earlier this summer. After one of my son’s baseball games, the Johanns went to dinner at BWW with my sister-in-law’s family. We ordered Amber Bocks and were told that they dropped it from their beer list. I thought, what the hell kind of backwoods unsophisticated bar doesn’t serve Michelob Amber Bock?! So, instead of falling back into the safety of a Bud Light, I rather hesitantly followed my brother-in-law’s lead and ordered a Fat Tire Amber Ale, made by New Belgium Brewing Co. in Fort Collins, CO, right here in the good ol’ U.S. of A. It was rather different than what I am used to with A-B products. And guess what- I loved it. At this very moment I have one Amber Bock in my fridge and ten Fat Tires. I have been given the suggestion by three people now to try 1554, the dark beer variety made by New Belgium. That is on my list.

Due to Dan’s recent outstanding customer service experience, I also vow to try Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, if for no other reason than because of said customer service. That goes a long, LONG way with me. Sight unseen- or taste untasted, as it were- I will try SNPA simply out of principle.

I will likely try at least a couple of the 477 Samuel Adams varieties out there. I think that might be part of what shies me away from some of “that type” of beer- so many different varieties, the subtleties and differences between which are lost on my simple tastes, that I get overwhelmed. To me, as long as beer tastes like what I feel beer “should” taste like, I’m fine. And in my way of thinking, with so many different varieties, how much like beer can Sam Adams really taste? But again, I may accidentally discover I actually like at least a couple of them.

I need to make myself try some of the “beers I’ve never heard of” when I go to BWW and similar places. That’s about the only way I can try different beers without having to buy an entire 6- or 12-pack and be stuck with it if I don’t like it. If only you could get “sampler” packs at liquor stores- 6-packs (or even 12-packs) that have different varieties of a particular brewer’s wares. I honestly think I’d be far more willing to buy them if I knew I didn’t have to commit myself to a whole mess of something I didn’t like. So I’m taking suggestions on beers that a craft-beer newbie ought to try.

I have no intention of giving up Michelob Amber Bock, or Bud Light, or Bud Select, or Miller Lite, or Coors Light, or any of the other mainstream corporate beers to which I have grown accustomed over my twenty-year-plus beer drinking career. However, I have also finally discovered that “craft beer” or “micro-brew” or simply “non-Big Three” doesn’t automatically mean bitter, or funky aftertaste, or instant hangover-quality headache. There are still some I have tried that I just can’t do- I think Guinness is hideous (tried it), I think whatever beer it is that my brother’s wife likes that smells like Fruity Pebbles is hideous (tried it), and there are some flavored beers I simply can never bring myself to try. Like pumpkin, for example. But, there are also “normal” (i.e. non-specialty) beers that I simply won’t touch ever again either, and that’s more out of respect for my taste buds than any form of snobbery or blind loyalty or anything like that. Your PBRs, your Stags, your Milwaukee’s Be(a)st, your Natural Lights, for example. Sorry, A-B faithful, but Natural Light sucks and sucks hard.

I have yet to find an {actual} import that I can finish, but I will continue the search. Purely from a research standpoint, of course.

At any rate, I have learned that since taste is relative and highly subjective, one cannot logically demean another for their beer preferences, nor their lack thereof. I have learned that, no matter how expansive my beer palate (or is it “palette”?) may become, I will never become a true beer connoisseur. I will never even become a beer “geek”, as my brother deems himself, because I am really just not that interested in the history of beer or the intricacies and subtle nuances of making it, or anything like that. For example, apparently beer somehow tastes better out of a glass than out of the glass bottle in which it comes, and that makes no sense to me whatsoever. Glass is glass, isn’t it? No, the A-B tour is about as “behind the scenes” as I feel I need to be. But I do have more respect for those that are that into beer, as they do truly have more knowledge off all things hops and barley (or wheat…) than I, no matter how subjective what constitutes a “good” beer may be. So while it truly was meant as a hyperbolic, mostly tongue-in-cheek post, I do humbly offer my apology to any and all beer drinkers whom I may have offended by that post. I do not consider myself suddenly sophisticated just because I have discovered a couple of non-mainstream beers, but I also no longer believe that drinking non-mainstream beers makes one a “snob”. Unless, of course, you ridicule mainstream beer drinkers. Even if they deserve it.

Besides, everyone knows that wine drinkers are the real snobs.