Beer

I used to be a sophisticate; at 22 years of age, I only drank wine, sometimes at 8:00AM before work.

Now, though, my tastes in quaffables are more plebian; given a choice between a glass of fine claret or a bottle of beer, I’ll almost always take the latter.

I’m not sure why this is; among other realms of my life—say, bicycles, or wristwatches, or bread—my tastes have probably gotten more refined; at least, I usually spend more money on them than I did in the past.

But when it comes to what’s for dinner, or lunch, for that matter, or breakfast when I’m camping, gimme an icy-cold grain beverage, preferably one that comes in a green bottle, although I’m not really that picky.

Perhaps I just got burned out on fermented grapes; the year Jen and I spent in France that’s pretty much all we drank; or maybe my taste buds have aged in such a way that I no longer appreciate the finer things in life; or maybe my Pittsburgh roots are strangling the tender shoots of my more exalted feelings.

Or maybe there’s just something so delicious about a frosty cold one just plucked from the cooler with beads of sweat running down the bottle and hint of tiny ice chips in the frothy amber liquid.

If I were a real beer snob—the kind who only drinks microbrews and imported ales with unpronounceable names—then maybe I could claim that my predilections are as exalted as ever. But that ain’t the case; I’m happier quaffing a Rolling Rock or even a PRB or a Rainier than I am sucking down a Chimay—just so long, that is, as they’re chilled to about the temperature of Dick Cheney’s soul.

The only real downside to this is the havoc it plays with my girlish figure, but the solution is reasonably simple: all it takes is a twist of the cap and bottoms up.