Growing Up Into Beer

Over the course of about two years, I went from being a beer hater to a beer aficionado.  Well, I never hated the idea of beer, just the taste.

Before, I would cooperatively try a sip of wine or beer, only to recoil in disgust.  It tasted like how rubbing alcohol smelled, which I now know is an unreasonable conclusion, but I missed out on alcohol abuse as a youth, which is what I needed to get over that hump.  And so it was for years!  I couldn’t get through more than two sips of wine or even the neck of a beer.  When I went out with friends, and I would ask what a stout beer tasted like, people would say ‘like oatmeal’ or ‘chocolate’ or ‘malty,’ all of which I liked.  Then I would order one and be sorely disappointed.

I didn’t give up, though!  Maybe that’s not a good thing, but I’m glad I kept trying.  I found that the lighter beers were easier.  They tasted like crap, but I found that I liked PBR okay.  So I sipped a lot of PBR until I could finish one.  Then I tried a variety of ciders, like Strongbow or Woodchuck, because I could finish those and I liked the taste…and at some point, I liked beer!  However, at that point, all varieties still tasted the same–like beer.

After I moved down to Texas and met some friends who are beer snobs, that began to change.  They could point out to me some differences in what it should taste like and why.  I participated in a home-brewing process.  I kept trying new stuff, and then all of the sudden, I could identify the differences!  I could smell the ingredients.  I could appreciate the differences between labels of the same type.  I discovered that I like hops (the more the better), and that I have a weakness for the BIG beers (high alcohol per volume).  But now I know what I like for different occasions, even though I might not know what is appropriate.  (I still have some civilizing to undergo.)

The question I had for the longest time was ‘why should I try to acquire a taste for something I don’t like and for something that is badly abused by lots of people?’  I still don’t really know the answer, but then, I waited a long time to figure it out.  I suppose it’s one of those things about growing up:  trying new and different things, associating experiences and memories and people.  As we all get older and change, there are things that we wouldn’t have expected to be good or bad, but there it is.

Diversity is good!