Beer

I had my first beer when I was a freshman in college, and therefore clearly older than 21.  Obviously. 

Of course, “had” is a bit of a misleading word in this case.  When one speaks of “having” a consumable item such as food or beverage, one typically means actually consuming said item, whereas I really mean “had” as the past tense of “possessed”.

A friend’s dad bought me an Alaskan Amber at a Mariners game.  I had one drink and decided that it was not for me.  It was strong and hoppy (not that I knew what hops really tasted like at the time) and kind of bitter, and just tasted weird.  My friend happily drank it instead, and I continued on my merry non-beer-drinking way.  (Honestly, to this day, Alaskan Amber is not my favorite, although that’s not a holdover from this incident.  There’s just a particular flavor to it that I can’t identify, but don’t really care for.  *shrugs*)

I had my second beer in the summer before my junior year in college, when I again was totally over 21.  This was my introduction to the idea of “pay for moving with beer and food”.  I helped some friends, including my future wife (although I didn’t know that at the time, obviously, plus she had a boyfriend at the time so I wasn’t there to help with her stuff, um, any more than others), move into their first off-campus apartment, which was on the top floor and had no elevator and some of the most narrow, twisty stairs imaginable.  (This was WAY worse than the infamous “Pivot!” scene.) 

And in return, my future mother-in-law bought us all Kidd Valley and Heinekens.  I sipped politely on the Heineken, mostly because I was thirsty and glasses hadn’t beern unpacked yet, but it was thin and sour and definitely not all that pleasant.  Actually, that’s a bit mild.  It was actively unpleasant.  I started to think that maybe I just wasn’t a beer drinker.  (I haven’t had Heineken since.)

My third beer was on St. Patrick’s Day of my (first) senior year, and was, wholly unsurprisingly, Guinness.  One of my roommates got us each one to celebrate.  I’m pretty sure I actually drank all of this one, but I didn’t particularly enjoy it.  It was incredibly thick and yet sort of watery-tasting at the same time.  At this point, I was just about ready to give up on beer. 

(Having had canned and bottled Guinness several times since, I’m going to blame the watery taste on that stupid foaming thing they put in.  Guinness off a tap is perfectly fine.  And “watery” isn’t quite right… it’s more like the flavor is just a façade, and there’s nothing to really back it up.  I’m not even sure I have the right words, but hopefully anyone else who’s experienced this knows what I mean.)

***

I didn’t grow up expecting to be a beer drinker.  In fact, I didn’t really grow up expecting to be much of a drinker at all.  Contrary to popular conceptions of Catholic families, my parents didn’t really drink much.  It’s not that they were tee-totalers; that’s just not really something they did.  To the point that when I was 12 or so, I was honestly concerned that they were becoming alcoholics when I thought they were on their second six-pack of wine coolers in two weeks.  Yeeeeaaah.  (Turned out they’d beern nursing the same six-pack along the whole time.  I’m honestly not sure which part of this story is most embarrassing.  There’s so much to choose from!)

My extended family wasn’t quite so bad; there were some wine drinkers, and all of my uncles drink (cheap) beer, so there’s that.  But social drinking was never really a thing in my family, and no one ever really over-imbibed, at least that I was aware of.  So as far as beer was concerned, my primary association with it was actually Mariners games, because of the smell.  Even now, the smell of cheap beer can sometimes bring with it the memories of futility, misery and cold concrete walls.  (Current Mariners fans at least get to trade the last for a nice ballpark.)

In high school, I was sort of intellectually aware that consumption of alcohol was probably going on amongst my fellow classmates (heck, I played sports, so the fact that I was only sort of aware it was probably happening just goes to show how clueless I was), but I never really had the opportunity, what with the minimal amount of alcohol in the house and all of my friends being band kids.  And even if I had had the opportunity, I doubt I would have taken advantage of it.

(Side story: During high school, when I came home at curfew from my girlfriend's house, my parents always made me come in to their room to say goodnight.  I always just assumed this was so that they knew that I'd come home and when.  Apparently, this was a sneaky way to see if I'd been drinking!  I had no idea.  And that really was something they did not have to worry about.)

So when I got to college, I didn't really imbibe at first there, either, despite the ample opportunities at band parties and the like.  (Even though it would have been perfectly safe, because band kids are awesome like that.)  I sampled a bit here and there, but didn't really start in earnest until partway through my sophomore year (after I turned 21, naturally............)

***

The first beer I liked was, believe it or not, a Deschutes Obsidian Stout.  Yes indeed, my first experience enjoying beer was with one of the darkest, richest varieties which people normally have to work up to.  I kinda worked backwards on this whole learning-to-like-beer thing.  We were cleaning out the fridge at the end of my (first) senior year, and there was a bottle left.  The person it belonged to had already left, and so I figured I'd give it a try.

(To this day, Deschutes is still one of my favorite breweries.  I don't think they've made a single thing I don't like, although I haven't made it to one of their brewpubs to try the stuff they don't bottle for mass distribution.)

The second beer I liked was a Pilsner Urquell, which is just a bit different from a stout.  Around the time I was finishing up my collegiate career, some band folks came up with the idea of a volunteer 21-and-over pep band to play for tailgaters after the game.  We called it "sixth quarter", since "fifth quarter" was the universally despised mega-pep band that had to go play for the rich folks at their post-game function.  After finishing up your 8+ hour game day, who wants to go do yet another pep band in full uniform?

Sixth quarter was different, though.  First of all, you got to change out of your uniform.  And second, because it was informal, volunteer and 21+, we took whatever food and beverages were offered to us in recompense for our efforts at entertainment.  Free food and beer!  Who wouldn't like that?  And at the first gig I went on, I got offered the beer, drank it, and never looked back.

***

There's still been a learning curve.  My hop tolerance certainly took a while to develop.  However, the turning point was when I was completely unable to taste the hops in the Tieton Cider Dry Hopped cider.  It's really sort of a surreal feeling to not be able to sense something that everyone else says is there.

And then, of course, there's the age-old question of whether or not to drink "craft beers" that are actually owned by the big macrobreweries.  For a while, it was simple decisions like not drinking Shock Top, which really wasn't that hard.  However, my absolute favorite pumpkin beer, Night Owl, is made by the recently-purchased-by-AB Inbev Elysian Brewery.  (This would be the same AB Inbev that ran a Super Bowl ad mocking craft beers (and specifically one made by Elysian) right after purchasing Elysian.)  I'm still undecided as to what I'm going to do about that.  (Okay, no, I'm not; I'm still going to drink Night Owl.  Because it's freakin' delicious.)

Ultimately, though, I'm just still surprised occasionally to find myself drinking and enjoying beer.  It's so unlike what I expected for myself I still get a little cognitive dissonance between old me and beer-drinking me.  But I suppose if that's the biggest difference I have with old me and now, I'm not doing too badly.