550 Words A Day Challenge (I) Beer Voyages

(I've decided as a writing exercise to write 550 words everyday for two weeks and see what I come up with. The subject matter and narrative will not be limited to anything, and I will only be allowed to edit what I write once)


Part I ---Beer Voyages


          I admit that, and to many of you that know me this comes as no surprise, I am a bit of a beer snob. My philosophy when it comes to beer is: life is simply too short to suffer through something that tastes like somebody urinated it into a bottle.
          Now, I do not subscribe to what I would like to call "Beer Classism", wherein beer is judged by price alone. Perhaps by law of averages, cheaper beers lack a quality that more expensive beers possess, but I can name countless exceptions to this theory ('Gosser' immediately comes to mind.)
         Back to my snobbery. When I first began drinking beer I gave it little thought and didn't discriminate much. All I learned was that you could get a 24 for under 30 bucks and that Laker was disgusting, unfortunately in that order. Moosehead and Keiths were luxuries to young, underage me, Heineken was what kings drank, and the two types of beer I knew were yellow and yellower.
         Then, something changed. I'm not exactly sure when or how or why: it could've been I tried an amazing beer and realized there was more out there, it could've been one too many Labatt Honeys one night, or it could've been Divine Hop-tervention. Whatever it was, I marched right to the bridge of the starship Enterprise to seek out new life and new civilizations.
         As I boldly went where many have gone before, I discovered some things. One, how certain beers taste better/worse on tap in different places. Creemore is an example of this, as I disliked it for years and years thinking it was supposed to taste skunky and flat. Second, the worse a beer tasted to me, the worse the hangover. Take this at what you will, since there is a big difference between drinking two Canadians and seven Tankhouses, but beers that agreed with me initially also seem to agree with me the next day. Third, there doesn't seem to be such a thing as a bad German beer. I'm sure there is, but I've never come across one. Fourth, not to judge a book by its cover (or a beer by its label.)
         I suppose what I'm attempting to say is trying different things gave me a new perspective on beer and how it could taste. It's not that now I dislike Keiths or Moosehead more than I did before, it's that I've found other beers that I personally enjoy more. If you're someone who's perfectly fine drinking Canadian or Labatt or (shudder) Laker, hey knock yourself out. I won't judge you for it. (I will however, judge the beer by thinking how glad I am by not drinking it.)
        So keep an open mind to try something new once in a while, and maybe you'll find it vile or maybe you'll find it delicious.

         BONUS!!!! Liam's Rules of Beer And Beer Drinking

          1.   Never look a gift beer in the mouth. Never.
          2.   Not all American beer is crap. Odds are if you've heard of it before though, it is.
          3.   Good wheat beers are delicious in any season.
          4.   Hoppy beers are dangerous, regardless of percentage.
          5.   There are no bad beers, only bad... erm... yeah there are bad beers.