The Spirit World

Long ago, there was a time when I didn’t like beer. If anyone asked me about beer, I just wrinkled my nose and shook my head. Why? At the time, my only experience of beer was of a single style of beer called American Light Lager. If you ever had a beer, you’ve probably had American Light Lager. The major examples are Bud Lite and Miller Lite. So when I said I didn’t like beer, what I really meant was that I didn’t like the examples of a particular style of beer, American Light Lager, only one of the many styles of beer. If you aren’t a beer drinker, odds are you just might not care for that most popular style of beer. However, there may be some other style of beer that you do like, but just haven’t discovered yet.

My experience of the definition of beer changed and expanded one afternoon when a good friend of mine literally drug me into a pub and ordered a Guinness Stout for me and instructed me to taste it. That first sip for me was like sailing the Atlantic Ocean and discovering a new world: Beer World. I liked the Guinness so much that I drank a second pint. The next week I was back in what I was starting to think of as my local pub with another pint of Guinness Stout in front of me.

My friend was much more experienced with beer than I. He had voyaged to Beer World before and knew it’s geography well. This particular pub had something like 150 different bottled beers in addition to the twenty some odd draught beers. The pub had what they called The Around the World Beer Tour. Anyone could sign up. All you had to do was drink one beer from each of the countries in Beer World. My friend embarked on this grand tour of Beer World while I sat across from him nursing my two pints of Guinness Stout each week. Of course, my curiosity about the multitude of different beers my friend tried led me to start taking a few sips from his glass. Some of the beers tasted strange to me and so I thought I didn’t like them. Other beers I did like enough to order my own glass. I immediately took a liking to the ciders like Woodchuck and Strongbow. These crisp, tart apple flavored beers didn’t even taste like what I thought beer should taste like.

The range of beers that I liked slowly expanded. I was living in Lousiana at the time and there were beers from two local breweries on tap at my local pub: several offerings from Abita Brewing Company and two from a microbrewery in Jackson, Louisiana called Rikenjaks (they moved to Lake Charles, Louisiana in September 1998). One of the Rikenjaks brews was called an ESB. The notes in the menu told me that ESB stood for Extra Special Bitter. I thought that was an odd combination of words to abbreviate and promptly ordered one. I can’t say that I exactly liked Rikenjaks ESB. It might have been the best ESB in the world for all I knew at the time, but my taste buds weren’t ready for a brew that bitter yet. However, because Rikenjaks was just up the road from Baton Rouge I thought I should at least try to like it. So I ordered a second pint. On subsequent visits to my local pub I ordered more ESBs and tried Rikenjaks Scotch Ale. After a couple of months I was actually getting thirsty for the Rikenjaks ESB. My tastes were changing and developing.

As much as a year later there were still beers and beer styles that I didn’t like. I remember sitting in a pub with a group of friends doing my best to choke down a Sam Adams Boston Lager (a beer that I drink without complaint now and actually consider to be mild and quaffable). The reason I had trouble drinking the Sam Adams wasn’t the beer’s fault; Sam Adams is a good beer and an excellent example of its style. The problem was with me and my expectations of what beer should taste like and my attitudes about the various flavors found in beer.

Developing a taste for beer is a little like working out or getting into shape. You have to practice regularly and try new beers to experience their flavors and aromas. After a while your tongue and your nose will acquire an appreciation for the ranges of flavors and aromas that beer has to offer.