Why Do I Drink “shitty” Beer
I love the wide variety of beers, but if you open my fridge you will mostly find these cold cans of Coors Light. Why? Because it’s just great. That’s right, I said that.
I’m not sure when this happened, but at one point, grabbing six packs of beer for the mass consumer turned into a kind of social oversight. “Why are you drinking this?” I get asked when I throw a house party or when I sit down with my almost clear pint of beer at a bar. Obviously it’s a crime not to order a milk stout, IPA, or craft beer brewed with pumpkin spice or whatever. To be honest, I hate this highly developed hipster beer culture. It’s like you’re not cool if you haven’t tried a new weirdness from such and such a brewery. It seems that people are wearing their “beer credit” on their sleeves, as if they are above us, the plebeians crunching with a silver bullet. I love that there are small craft breweries, I love, but when you drink beer, you are no better than other beer drinkers. You’re still just drinking one hell of a beer .
I get it – people basically want to know why I need a McDonald’s cheeseburger when I can get a thick steak burger with pineapple and teriyaki sauce and a bunch of other accessories. Because it’s simple, affordable and, frankly, convenient. For the same reason, I drink wine in a box – which is also great, thank you very much. Sometimes I don’t feel like expanding my flavor when I order a drink with friends or sip on something “that is both uplifting and challenging.” Sometimes I just want the mild taste of light beer and the high so I can forget about this awful place filled with awful people and laugh.
I mean, I know perfectly well that I’m not some college classmate and I can afford “good” beer, but I almost never really want it. Many of the “good” beers I recommend taste great, but feel heavy and overwhelming. This shit is cheap and tastes good enough. If mass market pilsners like Budweiser, Coors, and Miller didn’t have good taste, they wouldn’t have been around for so long. I also love making beer cocktails like Michelada or red beer, and shitty beers are a great base so I can still taste all the other beneficial substances in these drinks. Besides, I cook with beer quite often, and trashy food is fine for that too.
Finally, I can drink a lot and not feel bad, as guilty as “I spent too much money on drinks” and “I really woke up without a hangover.” The joke about a beer like Coors Light is that it’s diluted with water or mostly water, and yes! I stay hydrated enough, a little confusing, I can control my pace much more easily, and they have a lot fewer calories, so I don’t break my diet every time I want to relax. I have to drink my beer and drink it, so to speak. So laugh at me if you like, but I think everyone should have a favorite shitty beer they can always count on. What’s yours?