May 10, 2006
Travels with Poolie

A bad beer dude.  When it comes to beer, this kid’s a bust.  Even in college, academia being a place where copious consumption of the frothy barley, malt and hops refreshment was seemingly as much a requirement as Chemistry 101, this kid was a drop out. 

For moi, beer rejection has nothing to do with moral choices when it comes to avoiding can, bottle or keg; it’s a physical shortcoming.  When push comes to “chug-a-lug, chug-a-lug” my personal brewski gauge reaches “Full” after one. 

It’s certainly not a genetic thing.  Clan Maynard is populated with daughters and son-in-laws capable of consuming more beer in the first quarter of Rams versus Buffs than I quaff in a year.  And the offspring and their mates are most cost efficient beer consumers.  No micro-brews for them.  It’s Coors, Bud, Miller or WOS (whatever’s on sale).  I too am a big WOS fan.  Why go for the more expensive brew when, in a blind taste test, it’s impossible to differentiate a Silver Bullet from a Fat Tire or Anchor Steam.  My taste buds are, at best, beerfully illiterate. 

Thinking back on decades of “one and done” consumption with lagers, pilsners and hefeweizens, it becomes clear what I look for in a favorite brew, scarcity. 

Decades ago, wandering the campus of Iowa State, the rage for anyone under twenty-five was Coors in the 7 ounce can.  The “Banquet” brew from Golden wasn’t available east of Colorado in those way distant days, making Coors the beer one just had to have on the Ames campus. Coors may have been the beer we wanted to drink, Blatz, at seventy-five cents a six-pack is what we could afford.  When Coors began distribution of their “Colorado Kool Aid” throughout the Mid-West and any Iowan could pick up a six-pack by just wandering in the neighborhood Kum ‘n Go, beer featuring Rocky Mountain spring water did not seem nearly so exotic or desirable.   

The next brew on my gotta have list?  Olympia.  Brewed only in Tumwater, Washington.  Then Hamm’s purchased Olympia.  Remember Hamm’s and their cute bear?  Great commercials, bad beer.  Guilt by association caused Olympia to be 86’d from the cool beer list. 

The search for a beer with a truly unique cachet made a quick stop at the Oregon brew, Henry Weinhard.   But Henry was no more than discovered when he appeared on shelves here in “Happy Valley”.  So I moved on to Fat Tire.  It was only available around Ft. Collins.  Today Fat Tire is even for sale in Nebraska.  Talk about a beer losing its sex appeal. 

On my cross-country bicycle trip, a stop in Missoula provided the discovery of Moose Drool, a beer sold only in Montana, Washington and Wyoming.  ‘Til last month.  Driving past a suburban Denver liquor store, it was impossible to miss the Moose Drool neon blinking in the front window. 

So now the brand of choice is Shiner Bock.  Brewed somewhere around San Antonio, Shiner Bock doesn’t strike my palette as being much different from any other brew.  But how cool it is to offer a frothy beverage to a houseguest by swinging open the refrigerator door and inquiring, “Shiner Bock or Negro Modelo dark?”