Moving

  
     This blog, she is a-moving!  Please check out the spankin' new version of my stuff, now called "On My Beerbox" (I stole the name from myself!  Yay!) over at The Beeratorium.  And I'll still be posting every Wednesday, so keep checking back there.  Also, like The Beeratorium on Facebook!  See you guys on the other side.

Girlfriends, Beer and a Whirlwind of Contradiction

     When I got to thinking about the confluence of Valentine's Day and craft beer, two ideas sprang to mind.  One was a fairly derivative idea to write something about beers with a Valentine's/general "love" theme.  The other made me kind of afraid, so I decided to go with that... because unless it's bees, I'll always kind of gravitate towards the thing that makes me a little a-scared.  The idea?  A takedown of the old beer forum chestnut: "How do I get my girlfriend/wife in to craft beer?"  The fear comes in because this very question is going to force me to take a long, hard bath with myself, as I must ask... have I engaged in the very behavior that I'm about to deride?

     First disclosure... I really believe that there's a beer out there that any given person would like, because beer is not a singular entity of taste.  Even in individual styles of beer, there's so much variation that the names are almost meaningless.  But I think saying "I don't like beer" is almost like saying "I don't like food".  It may be very true that the person in question may not like 90-95% of beers, but when you look at everything there is out there, all beers only share but on quality that I can think of.  They're all liquid.  Beyond that?  Anything goes.

      That said, there's always been something kind of... icky to me about the idea of forcing beer on someone and hoping they'll come around to your way of thinking, and you'll have a significant other and a drinking buddy all wrapped up in one.  It ain't going to go down like that, Billy.  If someone expresses an interest, that's fine.  But it never sat well with me, the implication that something about a person needs to be fixed, and you can "get" them to like craft beer.  Especially because I've never seen these threads directed at men.  It's always women.  Part of that is because the people posing the question are self-selected as people in a relationship with someone that doesn't like beer.  There are plenty of beer drinking couples out there, and there are many, many women that love and make craft beer.  So it almost feels like this question, to the extent that it's asked so often, betrays yet more beer-world misogyny... or at least a willful blindness.  If having a girlfriend that likes craft beer is so dang important to you, break up with your "broken" current, go to more craft beer events and try to (respectfully) get to know some of the women that will surely be there.  But before you do that, please hit yourself in the head with a baseball bat.

     Now on to the problem of... well, myself.  I'm a sharer.  There's nothing I like better than sharing a good beer with someone, and that goes especially for a situation where I have something I think they'll like, but they've never had.  I don't think it's problematic at all to say that it's just a great feeling to turn someone on to something that they end up loving.  This kind of process may require a bunch of duds, too.  But where's the line?  Some failures are fine when the other party is willing and able to try much of what you put before them.  But is it still ok when that person is your girlfriend, and a girlfriend who has mandated she doesn't "like beer"?  Is it made better when, in fact she's had many beers that she actually did like in the past, and you're trying to find something new for her that she feels the same about?  It gets pretty fuzzy somewhere in there if you ask me.

    The above was pretty much the exact situation in my last relationship.  I was with someone that reminded my silly, too-willing to share self that she didn't like beer on numerous occasions.  In my mind, without saying this is justified or not, there were beers she did like.  Some she had even bought on her own in the past.  And true, these are beers that fall outside of the malts/hops Venn Diagram that represents most of what's out there.  We're talking, of course, about the beers that usually answer the ""How do I get my girlfriend/wife in to craft beer?" thread.  Lambics and fruit beers.  So it would come about that every time I had something that didn't really "taste like beer", I'd offer her a sip.  And 99% of the time I'd strike out, followed by the reminder that she didn't like beer.  There were a few moderate successes, but it probably doesn't excuse the insistence.

     What's tough for me is examining my motivations.  I don't think I ever believed I would make her a full convert.  I also would like to think that it's possible I was just trying to share something I loved with someone I loved, even if it was a small corner of that thing.  But that answer makes me look too good and somewhat blameless, so I'm apt to reject that one outright.  Maybe it's my sharer nature.  Maybe she happened to be the person I was around the most when I had beer.  But most probably, and this would fit in with the fact that I occasionally would pick up a single bottle of something because I thought she'd like it (always with the declaration: "try it, and if you don't like it, I'll drink it.")... it's probably that I was seeking credit or approval.  Credit for finding something someone else likes, and the approval of someone who just doesn't understand my love of beer that there are exceptions out there.  At this point, I think I have to declare myself part of the problem.

     While I'm not as bad as some of commenters out there, I don't think that means I'm "good" by way of comparison.  Heck, if "I'm better than the internet" is your metric, you, me and everyone we know are living saints.  In truth, the fact that I can take step back now and note that I would probably do things differently is a big, red flashing indicator.  And yeah, while I would like to have a girlfriend that at least liked craft beer, to say that would be anything other than icing is a slippery slope (see what I did there?).  Am I also going to require that she loves video games?  Because that's another sexist internet can or worms.  How about anime?  Etymology?  Puns?  Polar Seltzer?  If you so long for someone to share something you love, where you do draw the line?  The simple answer would be to reject the idea of drawing a line at all, because you don't get to draw it.  They did that for you long before you even met them.

     Here's some advice you're probably not asking for (ironic, I know).  Share what people are willing to take.  If you love beer so much, and your partner is interested in trying some here and there, fine.  If they don't want to try it, that's fine too.  If they enjoy the stories behind beer, maybe you get to tell one of those once in a while and share your passion in that way.  If they're bored by it. that's fine too.  What I'm saying is that people are different, and that doesn't make them something that you need to fix.  Maybe you can just recognize that they enjoy that you have a hobby that gives you joy.  If that's not enough, I would suggest a counselor, because you're really missing what makes a relationship special.

     But seriously, if I have to read one more forum comment that says women have different taste buds than men...

What's in a Name?

     You know what always bugged me in the movies?  When someone walks up to the bar and orders "a beer".  Like, those are actually the words they use.  "Give me a beer".  Now, outside of certain parts of Pennsylvania where you can ask for a "lager" and get a Yuengling, this just doesn't work in real life.  Or at least you'd think so.

     Let's talk about the strength of a brand for a second.  In niches where a brand is strong enough, you tend to run into The Kleenex Conundrum.  That's a thing I just made up when the name of a product or brand is so associated with anything that even resembles it, that it pulls a Borg and assimilates all other comers.  And since this is a blog about fluids of a kind, take Coca Cola as an example.  In some parts of the country, this would be colloquially identified as "soda".  In some other sillier, more wrong places, it might be referred to as "pop".  But in a good swath of the south, it's "Coke".  So is Pepsi.  So is Diet Rite.  So is grape soda probably.  You can order a "Coke", and the waitress will then ask you "what kind".  You then would say something like "one diet, and one lemon-lime for my cousin-date".  But in short, you identify a brand, then a style.

     Back to beer.   It's a relatively common beer geek problem, but it's really easy to walk in to a bar where you know far more about beer than the person serving you.  And that's not a knock, really... since craft beer really is still a single-digit percent, up-and-coming part of the market, most people are used to an older model.  Budweiser is the name of a brewery, but you could also say "Budweiser" and get a very specific beer.  But unless they only have one offering from a craft brewery, you can't exactly walk into a bar and order a "Clown Shoes".  And yet...

    Here's a problem I seem to run up against far too often.  I walk in to a bar.  I look at the tap handles.  I see the generic, say, Jack's Abby tap handle.  I ask the server "what's the Jack's Abby you've got on?", and I get a response like "oh, it's like a hoppy lager".  I try not to sigh too audibly, then ask "do you know the name of the beer?".  And even though I suspect it's Hoponius Union given the quadratic equation of hints without actual information presented to me in this example, we eventually decide that the server doesn't know.  And since I'm a jerk that likes to know what he's drinking before he drinks it, I pick something else or (and this has happened at least once) just don't order a beer at all.  Oh, and lest you think I'm a quite large jerk in that case, I was ordering a burger and they were trying to upsell me the beer.  My new rule became if you can't tell me what you're upselling, I ain't up-buying it.

     Being as that I'm the kind of guy that appreciates a good tap selection, these situations are the exception rather than the rule.  Basically, my tastes self-select for the kinds of bars where the staff is quite knowledgeable about precisely they have on draft, complete with their own personal tasting notes.  So, funny enough, I was out this past Friday and overheard the exact opposite problem of what I described above.  The bartender, who had just got done actually recommending beers to me based on a conversation about styles I dig, waited on a gentleman who just came up and said "gimme a Slumbrew!".  The bartender informed the well meaning, but self-betrayed newbie that they actually had three beers made by Slumbrew, and proceeded to name them.  By their NAMES.  After a bit of back and forth, the patron asked if one was an IPA.  The server said:  "Yes, the Flagraiser"... which is a name.  The guy then ordered by saying "Ok.  Give me the IPA.", as if he was allergic to naming the name of the dang beer.  I'll have a Coke.  What kind?  Orange.  You mean Sunkist?  Yeah, Coke Orange.

    Now, I recognize I'm a gentleman living so close to the stove, I don't understand that fire is hot.  That is to say it seems so strange to me that people wouldn't want to differentiate all of these craft beer offerings, which are legion and then some, by such an easy and natural demarcation as what they are actually dang called.  But then again, maybe I've answered my own criticism.  There are countless names out there when you take all of the craft breweries and multiply them by all of the separate beers offered by each.  Maybe it's easier to keep track of if you just think of them as brand and styles.  Heck, when I first was learning about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, if you asked me my favorite, I would have answered "the red one!" early on.  It was only later that I would know that it was Raphael, and that I had blasphemed.

    I'd like to do a deeper dive on this at some point, but for now, I find myself at an odd junction where although I can see the other side, a little too much knowledge can lead to much frustration and gnashing of teeth, while not nearly enough beerly imbibing.