What's right with: Beer

Beer. It is one of the most popular beverages in the world. It is enjoyed by millions of men and women every day. Beer is special, as it is enjoyed by all types, from frat boys, hipsters, yuppies, and even nerds. I have been enjoying beer since I was legally able to enjoy it. I am far from an expert on the subject and I am probably not even that knowledgeable about the beverage but that won’t stop me from telling you why beer is brilliant.

What’s Right:

It pairs well:

For ages wine has been the drink of choice when enjoying a fine meal. However there is a lot to know when it comes to picking the right wine. When to go with a white and when to go with a red is fairly easy to understand, but choosing among the varieties of red and white wine can get difficult. Also what happens when you are eating something that doesn’t exactly constitute fine dining? What wine do you pair with Hamburger Helper with a side of microwave broccoli? That was a trick question, you don’t drink wine with hamburger helper, you drink kool-aid, or beer. Simply put beer works well with just about any food you can find, and to make matters even simpler I find that a plain old lager works well with everything. Sure you can get complicated and figure out what foods work well with a stout or pale ale, but it is reassuring to know that for the most part it is hard to pair your food and beer wrong.

Beer is Simple:

I have an appreciation for wine, and scotch however I usually feel more satisfaction drinking a beer. I have found that when someone drinks wine they usually drink it with a smug look on their face as they try to understand and comprehend the flavors. When I drink a single malt scotch I like to smell the drink, observe the drink and try to enjoy the subtle notes the scotch provides. Simply put you drink beer with a smile on your face. It is not difficult to understand beer, and it is very easy to enjoy a beer. Also the differences between different types of beer can be very discernable. Telling a Budweiser from a Guinness from a Yuengling is an easy task. Although I may be over simplifying, I believe it is much easier to understand the taste of beer over any other drink.

Beer is the drink of the people:

Go outside any gas station convenience store on a Friday evening and you will find a fascinating phenomenon: working men buying beer. Having a can of beer and sitting around with buddies just feels right, it’s not complicated or pretentious at all. No matter where you sit on the social class structure if you put a beer in your hand you will feel like an average Joe, which has an alluring mystique to it. Beer snobs do exist however, those who turn their nose at anything that isn’t made in a microbrewery, but those snobs are easy to ignore.

What’s Wrong:

The image of a beer drinker:

Many of the points I made about beer also work against it. Walking out of a grocery store with a case of cheap beer presents a negative image to onlookers. The beer you buy honestly says a lot about the person who buys it. Picking up a case of Busch Light shows that you are a man on a mission, and the mission is to get shit faced. Buying some Natural Ice probably means that you need to fill the cups for the game of beer pong you and the brosefs will be playing later on. These are all stereotypes, but it goes without saying that the general image of beer drinkers can be less that flattering. The nice thing about these stereotypes is that most beer drinkers really don’t give a damn about them. And honestly if you are making judgments about someone by the beer they buy, you are probably a pretentious asshole.

The Verdict:

Not really much else I can say here. I have pretty much used the span of several paragraphs to tell you why a drink most people like is good. Hardly thought provoking stuff but it is still worth mentioning why you should enjoy beer.

On a side note. Why don’t black women like beer? Perhaps it may be a regional thing, but of all of the black women I know only 2 of them drink beer. Also all of the black women I have tried to get to try a beer end up hating beer even more. So tell me, why do black women dislike beer?