Ahh…. beer, the drink of the century. To some it’s known as “poison”. To others, its one hell of a good time! So which is it? Is beer a wolf in sheep’s clothing? Or is it wolf daring the sheep to keg stand? In this review, we’ll point out the ups, downs, and room spinning aspects of this ever criticized drink, Beer.

Inebriation at it’s best

So whats wrong with beer? Many would say it causes car accidents, abuse and other forms of poor decision making. Although beer may be associated with these things from time to time, you have to know that the drink itself is not entirely up for blame. Does every college drinker drive drunk? Or does every dad with a beer have anger issues? No. It’s hard for people to accept that people have issues, so they blame their source of abuse! The point being that these problems are cause by the user abusing the drink, and not vice versa.

With that out of the way, there are problems with beer. I know, I know, for some this seems impossible. Beer does impair your normal decision making abilities.  Hell, if you were drunk, you couldn’t comprehend what I’m saying! So how do we avoid the issues caused by this? KNOW WHAT YOUR GETTING INTO BEFORE YOU DRINK.

Don’t get down just yet, Beer isn’t the devil

Listen closely friends, you may never get an explanation like this again. Beer is like football. Yeah, thats right, I just compared beer to football. You see, if you step out on the field with no idea of what to do, your just going to get trampled on, and its going to suck. But if you step out with a game plan, your going to have one hell of a damn good time! Play it right, and you’ll have fun without the cuts and bruises (except when your buddies think stair skiing sounds like fun. No guarantees there.)

Wait, Beer isn’t evil?
Thats right. Beer is just a drink. How you drink it is up to you. If you drink to much soda, you’ll get kidney stones. If you eat too much ice cream, you’ll become over weight. You see, the only reason beer can be judged as evil is because the results are more visual than other harmful foods and drinks. You don’t see that fast food clogging your arteries, but it is.

Beer has the natural ability to make you relax. It’s like a spa in a bottle. This combined with friends and family can cause happiness. It’s effect to relieve stress isn’t anything to worry about. But like everything else, too much can cause dangerous side effects. It’s not only beer that does this!

Image via Wikipedia

So in the end, beer is a drink! You are in control of what you do with it. Whether it’s a sport drink for beer pong, or just something to help you relax, it’s yours to enjoy. Have fun, live life, and feel free to pop one open from time to time!

Oh, and don’t be a douche and order a slice of lemon or orange in it.  Enjoy the beer.

If she brings you a beer too well then you win the day.

For beer lovers it is second nature to walk in and order that cold, bubbling, yellow concoction that slides down the gullet like so much water to a man in the desert. That parched throat is suddenly an oasis of flavor and chilled taste buds. Makes you want one right now, doesn’t it?

So have one, put your feet up, and learn a little about how that favorite brew is available to you in six packs…bottles or cans…or your favorite draft, of course.

Unfortunately, there are no mountain streams, complete with bubbling, frothing rapids, zipping down naturally from those Coors mountains, or anywhere else. There were no cavemen sucking back a brew after a hard day of hunting and gathering. Nope. It’s called a brew, obviously, because it has to be brewed.

Ever wonder what brilliant, insightful man, probably not a married one, figured out if you put a bunch of this plant, and that plant, and maybe a wee bit of this together it’ll really taste good with roasted mammoth? Seriously, this stuff dates back to 6000 BC. I bet the brewing water was really clean back then, and Coors had nothing on those guys.

Ancient Egyptians had a goddess named Ninkasi. I’m sure she was a babe, and I am not kidding, she was the goddess of beer. They even sang a song to her.

It wasn’t entirely altruistic though because, and again, I am not kidding, it helped them remember the recipe for their beer. Don’t you love the old traditions and rituals?

This may come as shock to the average beer drinker at the bar, but beer was spread through Europe as far back as 3000 BC by Germanic and Celtic tribes. Aren’t those the original Germans and Irish? Who woulda thunk?

Seriously this may surprise you. The earliest chemical evidence of beer was found in the Zagros Mountains…get this…in western Iran. Don’t tell me those people can’t party. They’ve just become a people gone bad, don’t you think?

Did you know beer was made in Monasteries at one point, and it became sold on a domestic scale before the Industrial revolution? See once they started getting beer out there, people became quite inventive. Of course once the industrial revolution took place, they started making it on an industrial scale and the home breweries started taking a serious hit.

I find that scandalous and shameful even if it did get beer out on a major scale. I think you should support your local businesses.

For those of you that don’t have a home brewery, and might actually be interested in how this quaff of the bar gods is made…here goes. Take a sip…I’ll wait.

Another if you would like.

Okay…that’s enough for now. It’s not gonna get warm before I finish. I promise.

Most of you know it’s got hops, and barley, and all that stuff they show you in the commercials, but there’s a bit more to it. I think it’s important every beer drinker have an insight to this process.

Not really but it sounds good, and it gives me something to write about…BEER!

The first real breweries were, as you might imagine, pretty simple devices. It turned simple starches into a substance called wort. They added yeast, and fermented it into beer. Pretty simple, huh? Not really, actually. Even then it was complicated, and now it is more complicated.

Making wort came from mixing what was normally malted barley, with hot water. Of course you had to malt the barley. That wasn’t done at some old drug store ice cream bar and didn’t involve straws and their favorite girl. That was termed mashing.

You might also find it interesting that the hot water used was called liquor. I call that stuff bath water and it goes great with a cold beer…in my hand.

You might not think it (but that’s what you have me for…to educate and elucidate…so you can drink beer), but barley is pretty sweet, in that it is a carbohydrate and contains sugars. The “grist” (remember the term grist mill from school? That’s used to crush barley and other grains) is turned into a product called “mash tun” and is added to the “liquor” and left to do its duty for about one to two hours to get there.

In that time, the starch – “grist” or crushed barley- is left to convert starches to sugars for the foundation of the beer, then the “wort” is drained off. Like any good chef, or chefs, they then wash the stuff and that’s called “sparging”

Maybe that’s where Sparta and the Spartans came from. They just slurred and no one knew.

Anyway, it starts really getting down to business then. This substance was filtered and wort separation took place. Believe it or not, this was called “lautering” and they used the actual grain bed as the filter. Clever, don’t you think? (Go back to Cheers, and Cliff’s buffalo theory…beer itself had to be responsible –if you don’t know this reference you aren’t a real beer drinker and need tutoring).

Here’s where it got stupid though. They would do second and third washing, weakening the beer. At least they realized it was stupid and named beer with several “runnings” as “parti gyle” brewing. Kinda says a lot, doesn’t it. Party gal with a slur.

After this, they boiled it down. This eliminated most of the water, and this, my friends, is where the miracle begins, in essence, making full use of the starches. They add hops during this process, and that extracts bitterness and flavor from the hops, overcoming the sweetness of the sugars (starches), and deciding the flavor of the beer.

The liquid was cooled at this point, and nowadays, it may be passed back through more hops to add back flavor lost in the boiling process, and once again adds another filter. Now for the good part – the fermenter.

Once it’s cooled, yeast is added, and it sits while all the itty bitty parts settle to the bottom (they call it “particulate matter” but that reminds me of something they want during a physical). Finally they allow for primary and secondary fermentation. The first takes place in the vat, and the second takes place in a new container, and allows for clarity and a broader, fuller taste. Secondary fermentation only is used when the beer requires long storage, deeper taste, and clarity is a real issue.

Now, don’t you feel like a lead buffalo?

With that being said, if anyone can find out the beer most consumed on Super Bowl Sunday, that would be a fun and interesting fact to learn, but until then, let’s talk about beer.  Fizzy, yellow beer that comes in a can and is only tasty when chugged at ice cold temperatures.

Since I grew up in Pennsylvania, in a considerably rural area, I did the majority of my partying in cabins, woods, and  open fields.  I drank in cars, tents, and crude wooden structures built mainly for hunting.  More specifically, when I was sixteen, I attended parties with a handful of skateboarders and social misfits in the family owned and built hunting cabin of my friend Dave.  His father and grandfather designed the place around two activites: hunting and drinking, and the place had a great deal of charm suitable for such activities.  Dave undoubtedly inherited his sense of humor from his father’s side, indicative of the real live stuffed deer ass hanging on the wall, and the collection of obscure novelty beer cans dating all the way back to the sixties, which lined a shelf built around the inner perimeter of the cabin.  Many of these beer cans were collector’s editions of the annually released Old Frothingslosh, the self-proclaimed “original stale pale ale,” featuring Old Frothingslosh’s famous 300 pound pin-up model Fatima Yechburgh.

I don’t recall if I ever actually drank ye Old Frothingslosh, but a moderate amount of internet digging has revealed that it was a joke version of holiday beer put out once a year by Iron City Beer.  Ah, good ol’ Iron City.  Otherwise known as I.C. or I.C. Light.  And probably the first beer I ever drank.  My friend Jenny’s dad had a kegerator in his basement with a single tap sticking out, which dispensed nothing other than I.C. Light at all times.  Our dads would send us marching down to the stairs, empty mugs in hand, to refill their delicious frothy beverages, which we did willingly, because it allowed us ample opportunity to kneel down, cram our heads under the tap, and chug foaming beer straight from the tap.  It was on one of these occasions when I remember developing a taste for beer for the very first time.  It was summer, and all I remember is thinking: I would love nothing more than to drink a cold beer right now.  I should have known my future wasn’t so bright.

But back to the cabin, where the beer of choice was usually one or a combination of the following: Miluakee’s Best (Light or Iced), otherwise known as “The Beast;” National Bohemian, or “Natty Bo;”  Natural Ice, or “Natty Ice;” or Red Dog.  These were usually consumed with a combination of Jack Daniels, Jim Beam, Southern Comfort, Peach Schnapps, any flavor of MD 20/20, (affectionately and more commonly known as “Mad Dog”), or Cisco chugged straight from the bottle.  Now, it’s not like we didn’t know this beer was shitty.  In fact, that was kind of the point.  But it is quite amusing to think back to that time, when if we would’ve been slugging Rolling Rock, we would have felt like high rollers.

That brings me to the college days.  For some reason, it was Schaefer’s that became the staple keg party pounder, and to tell you the truth, I’m not even sure if Yuengling made it onto the campus scene, but I will say, as far as cheap, blue collar beer goes, I used to give Yuengling mad props.  But one must also understand that Yuengling tastes completely different when imbibed up north, than it does when brewed in Tampa, with Florida’s delectable sulphur-y swamp water.

As of right now, I’ll admit that if I’m sweating away at an August BBQ, I’m happy to pop open a Miller Light, or a High Life even better, because I’m of the persuasian that Miller Light at least has some amount of flavor, albeit, not much.  But it fares much more impressive to my palate than Bud Light or Rolling Rock.  And I must say, when Schlitz came back on the scene in 2007, I was thrilled to snap open a can of this nostalgic libation, complete with that appealing seventies labeling, but then the cans suddenly disappeared and Schlitz started only coming in bottles.  I don’t know about you, but something about getting rid of that can just killed the nostalgia for me, putting Schlitz too closely on par with its big American counterparts.  (What are you trying to be, Schlitz?  Just be the crappy beer in a can you’re so good at being!  Quit trying to fancy it up with a glass shell–we know what’s really in there.)

Of course, no blue collar beer article would be complete without mentioning PBR. I get it, I get it.  Scenesters, punk rockers, and construction workers alike can unite under this classic favorite of  cheap, crappy suds.  But I won’t touch the stuff.  Three days at a music festival serving nothing other than PBR would do this to you too.  By the end of the trip, it was all headache and no buzz, and I found myself running full speed to the nearest liquor bar for a shot of anything strong to rid my mouth of PBR’s metallic, pissy aftertaste.  Fie on you, PBR. Take your skinny jeans, tattoos, and ironic facial hair, get back on your fixed gear, and pedal your wimp ass outta here.

Last but not least, I must pay tribute to Busch. NOT Busch light, mind you.  Just good ol’ Busch. Our fridge is bursting with Busch cans whenever my boyfriend’s dad comes to visit, and I’ve been guilty of grabbing one for lack of a better beverage.  Much to my surprise, I found the beer quite enjoyable, not that bad at all.  Busch? I thought to myself.  Not bad. Not GOOD.  Oh no, no.  Don’t get me wrong.  But not totally undrinkable.  And claiming all natural ingredients as well.  I will still take it over Budweiser anyday.  Sorry, Budweiser.  It’s a principle thing.

So that about covers my tribute to blue collar beer.  I would love to hear what you guys grew up drinking in high school and college, and how your perception of “good beer” has changed.  If anyone has one of those great photos of dad, grandpa, or hell, even grandma holding an incriminatingly bad beer indicative of an unrefined palate and a thin wallet, you should post them on here and share them with the rest of us! Don’t be shy. We all have our guilty pleasures.

Nothing could annoy me more, or send a sharper sting shooting up my spine.  But I’m a professional, so most of the time I don’t say anything and I simply walk away.  Even though I know I probably have more business pouring a beer than 95% of my patrons.  This fact is especially true when it comes to hefeweizens, whitbeirs, or any type of Belgian-style ales.  There is a method to my madness, and yes, you need a glass with that.

Now, I chose specifically to talk about Tucher because that just happens to be the only hefeweizen we sling at my job, although I have tried other, tastier versions of this popular German wheat ale.  For starters, I would like to say that there is a stigma surrounding people, especially guys (sorry guys!) that drink Tucher.  For those in the know, Tucher has been popular ’round these parts for the better part of ten years, so when a rather new-on-the-scene beer drinker saunters up to my bar and orders a “Tucker,” or worse yet, when a young woman flips her hair in my direction, points her nose in the air, and orders a “Tooshier,” it takes every ounce of my will-power just to smile and say, “Tucher. Would you like an orange in that?” (Of course you would.)  When what I would really like to say is, “Hey. Stupid. Tucher’s overrated.  Why don’t you try something new?”

To be clear, (pun intended,) Tucher is not a bad beer.  It’s just that it’s so tired, so popular, and so trendy that it simply doesn’t have the chops to hold its own against the hype.  This brings me to another issue: Tucher is not the same as Blue Moon, and Blue Moon is not a good beer either and I’ll tell you why.  There is a very easy mantra which can be put in place here, and it goes like this: All white ales are wheat ales, but not all wheat ales are white ales.  Now I know it can be tricky at first, but this is simply a tool which can be used to remember that there is indeed a difference between these types of beers, albeit not a huge one.

Hefeweizens like Tucher are German in origin and require at least a 50% wheat to barley malt ratio.  Whitbiers are Belgian in origin and, while also brewed with wheat and barley, are always flavored with some combination of orange peel, bitter orange, and coriander.  Both beers were referred to as white ales back in the day, because they were historically lighter than other  beers.  But since a hefeweizen must have the 50% wheat ratio, and are not flavored traditionally with the same spices as whitbiers, they remain separate but equal.  Both beers, because of the use of wheat and the presence of suspended yeast, appear cloudy in color and are thick in body style, (which is achieved through the top-fermentation process of ales.)  Now do you get that pun from before?

Anyway, if you really want to know more about the technicalities of hefeweizens vs. whitbiers,  a quick trip to Wikipedia will fill you in, (I even took a quick refresher course before I wrote this–just in case.) But there is a bigger point to be made outside the realm of brew process, and that is, to simply know what you are talking about–at least on a basic level. I’m not gonna school you in front of your girl, whom, by the way, has far more acceptable reasons to order that extra orange with her beer, since being female somehow makes it okay for chicks to like all things sweet and fruity.  As a bro, not so much.  And it’s not in my better interest to make you look foolish.  I just wish more people knew what they were saying before they immediately lump beers like Tucher and Blue Moon together.  Which, brings me to my beef with Blue Moon.

Bad: Blue Moon is made by Coors.  Worse: Coors calls Blue Moon a Belgian white ale.  Worst: Blue Moon is neither Belgian, nor a good representation of a Belgian-style white ale.  It is far too fruity, too floral, and too sweet.  But that doesn’t mean you can’t like it.  Cuz you can, and I’ll live with that, but first.  Please.  Just know what a true Belgian white ale tastes like.  Think Hoegaarden.  Think Whitterkerke.  Try those first and at least understand what a  true white ale is supposed to be, and then, by all means, you can go on loving Blue Moon all the livelong day.  Just don’t get me started on Shock Top.

I have one more gripe, and then you can resume drinking that delicious beer I know you’re holding in your hand, in the proper glassware no doubt.  Betcha can’t guess what that last gripe is.  Yep, you got it: Glassware!   When one is imbibing a delightfully thick and frothy libation like a hefeweizen, one benefits from the tool of the glass, because releasing the beer’s natural flavor and maximizing its potential is what glassware is all about.  (Alright, you caught me–it also makes the beer look pretty.)  All that thick, foamy yeast sticks to the bottom of the bottle, which is why you see bartenders either roll the bottle on the side before it is opened, or twist the bottle around while it is being poured.  The more CO-2 gets swished into that bottle, the more it helps break up that delectable yeast and build a nice, frothy head, which should always be about 1 1/2 to 2 inches thick.  Adding a squeeze of orange is mainly an American thing, derived from the practice of squeezing a lemon, which not only enhances flavor, but adds a healthy dose of citric acid to break up the density of the hefeweizen body style.  I don’t recommend it, but, at least you’ll get your daily dose of vitamin C.

Now that all of this soap-boxing has cut into your precious, precious drinking time, I would like to end by saying that I am not trying to condescend here.  Knowing and recommending beer is simply my job, and i have nothing else going for me, dammit.  So, I gotta take what I can get and run with it.  I also am not as big of a snob as I might first appear, since I enjoy my fair share of domestic guilty pleasures, and I’ll prove it to you by writing about some of my favorites in my next piece.  There are miles of memory lane to cover when it comes to fizzy canned brew designed to be slugged twelve at a time, so I invite you to join me in my stroll.  And don’t forget to bring a couple cold ones along for the trip.