I am not a beer snob. I am not a beer nerd. I am not going to write in this post anything about which beer is better or the trend of sour beers or if I am pro or con on pumpkin spice ale. I am a beer lover, and nothing more.
What is a beer lover? Is not just loving the taste, is having beer as a part of your life and your personality, and also loving the influence that beer has on different aspects of your life. Let’s mention some of them, for example:
Family memories:
Beer was my first alcoholic beverage. I will not mention at which age because some people are judgy and don’t focus on the real purpose of this post, I'll just say I was very young. My father introduced me to this beverage, just a little sip because I wanted to know how it tasted; instead of being disgusted by the bitterness, I was quite intrigued. Of course I was not allowed to drink beer at home, as a matter of fact I never had a beer in front of my mother, but anyways, I watched in fascination how this beer thing was the preferred cooling beverage on hot weekends, the perfect companion for barbeques, the only alcoholic beverage my mother will drink (just one, maybe once a year, and only if the day was extremely hot and the beer extremely cold), and the official drink to watch baseball as my father explained to me all the details of the game and why the NY Yankees were the best team in the world.
Social awkwardness:
If you are one of those openly social, people loving person that loves to talk and meet new humans, well, good for you; but, for your information, the rests of us get kind of anxious in new social situations. It may be not always possible, but whenever it is, the best ice breaker is having a beer together with the new people; new friends of a friend, new coworkers, new study group, the tension gets released in a nice bar with a few cold beers and some conversation. Yes, people use wine or vodka or any other drink for the same purpose, but the difference is that beer is more flexible and manageable; you can say “let’s go for a pint” and just have one pint and that’s it, or keep ordering pints until you can still handle it. You see, the normal, social, low ABV beer used in this situations (and before the craft beer boom) allows you to drink a few pints without getting drunk, because the point is breaking the ice and not start dancing on top of the table. Therefore, beer is the perfect social drink. The sexy scientific term is “social lubricant” because, well, beer makes things slide more smoothly.
Friendships:
Beer buddies. You know who they are, you know you can trust them. You develop a synergy with your beer buddies, you even synchronize together, you know when they are thirsty and they know when you are thirsty. You know which kind of beer they like. You know how much beer each one can consume without getting crazy. Everybody works like a team without the need of talking too much; no need to tell how much money each one has to put, or who pays the next round, or who carries the cooler in his car, or who goes for more ice. All these things happen because of a common interest, which is beer. But during the beer drinking sessions with your friends you talk about everything, you support each other, or just hang out for a while without worrying about anything, before going back to the real world. Beer friendships last a long time.
Food:
Wine snobs have strict pairing etiquette rules for pairing wine with food (just the wine snobs, because wine people just drink wine independently of which food they are consuming). Beer snobs, certainly, have their own rules for pairing beer with food; these rules have a reason because the beer universe consists of so many styles of beer with flavors so immensely different from each other (more than wine, really) that is impossible (and even disgusting) to pair certain beers with certain foods. But (again, I am using the word “but” a bit too much) for the beer lover that is not a problem. Beer lovers have their own personal favorite style of beer which is normally something quite drinkable and that beer will go well with everything: fish, meat, chips, cheeses, whatever. And even when it doesn’t taste so good, you don´t care! Because you love beer, that’s why. You know when you are drinking coca cola and then eat something sweet and then the coca cola doesn´t taste like anything anymore? Does that have ever stopped somebody from drinking coca cola? No. The same happens with beer. And since you love beer and always have beers available around the house, you start cooking with the beer (instead of wine); you will discover and develop you own recipes for beer cheese dip, chili with stout, beer chicken, beer barbeque sauce, beer marinated pork, and so on (I should start putting these recipes in this blog).
Finally, the most important aspect of my life that has been influenced by beer is LOVE. One day, I went on a tour in a craft brewery and met the brewer. A while later, I married that brewer; and we moved to Italy. Beer has been a part of our lives almost every day; since our first dates where we went out to drink beer and talk about everything, to the dinner dates where he will buy different craft beers and plan the meal around them, to visiting him frequently in the brewery, to arriving in Italy and start sampling Italian beers everywhere. And since he is a professional brewer with more than 12 years of experience, he doesn’t take beer lightly; this means I have learned a bit about using proper glasses for different types of beers and why, learned about the meaning of off-flavors in beers, about oxidation, about dry hopping, about a bit of everything. I have also learned about his love for Belgian beers, and saw how his face lights up when he talks about the breweries he has visited in Belgium and the process for making a saison or a lambic beer. I have seen him produce amazing craft beers by combining all the ingredients and his knowledge first in his head, and then like a mad scientists start mixing stuff and measuring things until by magic and the powers of the beer gods, a beer is born. I have also learned from all this experience with craft beer that you are actually drinking a living thing; the beer is alive (that’s why I said “a beer is born”) and it keeps changing and maturing inside the bottle. A beautiful thing really.
I have discovered that my favorite beer is the IPA (Indian Pale Ale) and I have this habit of always ordering first the IPA whenever we try a new beer brand, whether we are in a bar or a beer festival. I have learned by experience, that the IPA tastes really good combined with spicy food (asian, Indian, Mexican, your choice); and all this last experiences have not turned me into a beer nerd, or a beer snob. I am still a beer lover, and it doesn’t matter which beer I am drinking or how much it costs, what matters to me, is the moment I am living, and who I am sharing it with.
Cheers!
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