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Friday, April 23, 2010

Beer

Beer is many things to different people. Last night while sitting around a camp fire I was talking about this with one of my friends. She said, “Beer is a vacation.” As vacations go beer is a relatively cheap one and you can go for the night or longer anytime of the year. For me my view of beer has changed throughout the years. In college beer was a cheap way to get drunk, not a very tasty way but pretty cheap none the less. Later on in college I would have one beer at the end of the night to offset all those juicy girly drinks I had consumed. When I met my husband beer was a drink I ordered on our first date because he did. We sat and talked for a couple of hours about sports, life and accounting. (We were both accounting interns.) It took me the whole two hours to drink the tall beer I had ordered but I didn’t mind. I have used beer as an escape before but try to not resort to it too often. I have used beer as a conversation starter. “Oh that looks good. I think I will try one too. Have you tried…?” I have used beer as a bit of a security blanket, one beer to hold on to all night so you don’t look too un-cool because you have to be the DD. Now beer is something totally different. Beer is a passion of mine.

I love beer. If you say this to some people they assume that you are an alcoholic and need help but that isn’t it at all. I love learning about beer. I love cooking with beer. I love making beer. Yes, I do love tasting beer. But what makes it all worthwhile is the fact that I get to go through all of this with my best friend. (Cheesy I know.) No matter what is going on in our lives we can stop and talk about something new we read about beer and we reconnect. We are currently planning a whole road trip around beer. While we haven't completely decided all the stops we will be making so far this is what we have. We will be departing Portland and heading to Dogfish Head in Delaware. Next we will head up to Flying Dog in Maryland. We are then going to go to Ommegang in New York and finish off in Vermont at Long Trail and Harpoon. We plan on sleeping in a couple hotels and a couple of camp grounds. We will also be stopping in at the Baseball Hall of Fame. At the end of summer we are planning on a Maine and northern Vermont or Montréal trip. Growing up my dad took us to Disneyworld over and over again. He loved Disney. I eventually got to see Paris and California too thanks to Mr. Disney. Beer is my Disney. (Ok Disney is my Disney too. I will always have a special place in my heart for Disney because of all those family trips.) What I mean is that because of beer I can go and see all different kinds of places. I know that I could just go to these places without tying it to beer but I love adventures and planning (I think it is the Virgo in me) and beer helps me with that.

Porter says I have gotten all philosophical (I think the word he actually used was retrospective) because I haven't been able to move around that much. It’s true. I haven’t been able to experience a lot of new things lately so I have gone into my head a bit and started thinking about more and more things. It is nice though to have something to use the internet for other than gaming. (I have been addicted to escape games lately. Do you think there is a connection between not being able to move around a lot and escape games?) With beer I have something to research, a community to be part of. I know lately I haven’t had a lot to say but it has been a nice source of entertainment. So I guess for me, Beer is a catalyst, a catalyst for many things. What is beer to you?