Beer Is Not Wine and I Like It That Way

Here is the thing - I like beer.  I started my beer life by tolerating it.  It was an ends justify the means relationship.  I have since grown to appreciate the method, not just the madness that tends to follow.  I now enjoy different species of beer and I would say my palate has grown from "cheap and a lot" to "just a couple that taste good".

Here is what I don't like about beer lately.  It is becoming wine.  Not in the "cool trick that only Jesus can pull off" kind of way, but in a "I now want to shoot myself after the 15 minute diatribe on the hint of honeydew and raindrops in this amber bock" kind of way.

This is beer people.  Beer is a ballgame, wine is a cheese tasting.  Beer is hockey, wine is polo.  Beer is meant for the masses.  It is a salt of the earth beverage imbibed by people who bust their ass for a living.  Wine is pretentious.  Wine likes you to know how damn hard it was to become what you are drinking.  Beer just says "hey, take off your shoes, turn on the tube, and enjoy".  Just check out the names:  Bud, Sam, and Miller versus Ernest and Julio Gallo.  Beer has the Hamms' Bear or the Schmidt Fish on it.  Wine typically has a bridge or meadow on the bottle.  Lastly, wine never came in a can that you can smash on your forehead.

The funny thing is, beer and wine were both just fine in their roles.  Beer was happy with the blue collars and wine was just peachy among the aristocracy.  Then something happened along the way.  Be it the microbrew phenomenon (which I support) or just the hipster movement looking for something else to be a pseudo-expert on (which I fully denounce), beer conversations started sounding more like wine conversations.

Forgive me for going all Ron Swanson here, but waitress, don't tell me where my beer comes from or its back story.  Here is what I want to know.  1) Is it cold? 2) Is it good? 3) How much does it cost?  I need help with #1 and #3 - the rest I can handle on my own.

What I don't need is the chronicle of the harrowing journey of the hops and barley from field to bottle.  I don't need a limited edition, only tap it when the sun sets at 6:37pm every April beer.  And I really don't need an instruction guide on how to drink it and what to pair it with.  Here are my instructions for beer: Open, Drink, Recycle.  Here are my pairings for beer:  Meat, Wings, Pizza.

What I am trying to say is life is complicated enough.  Quit adding complexity and substance to something that works best with simplicity.  If you want to be an expert on your beer's origin, fine, you paid your money.  However, before you look down at the guy enjoying his Budweiser at the local watering hole, just remember, he was beer before beer was cool, and he doesn't give two shits about its origin.  He likes it,  and that is all he needs to know.

JB3