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Question For You

Am I holding a 22-ounce bomber or did my hand shrink?
by Eddie Glick

I like my beer like my women: pale, strong, full-bodied, and extremely bitter.
Contact Eddie»

This past weekend I got invited by mistake to a college football tailgate party (something like my uncle’s cousin’s wife’s son was putting it on and his girlfriend sent out a super mass e-mail but nobody told her not to include Slick Glick’s “weird recluse of a son”) which was an all-day affair (nine a.m. to at least six that night) and was 25 bucks for all you can eat and drink all day. Now, knowing my extended relatives and the people they marry and associate with, I had an accurate guess at what “all you can drink” meant (and I was right): kegs of the dreaded Blue Smoothie. So I, of course, grabbed some of my own beer on the way out the door to the party.

(Although not really integral to the story, it was a bomber of Fixed Gear by Lakefront Brewery. A very tasty, assertively hoppy red ale. I had been saving it to do a review, but the invite came at the last second, and I had to move fast before it was rescinded.)

So here I am at this tailgate party, squinting in the hot October sun, wishing I’d wore some sunscreen for the sake of my pasty skin, a giant bottle of beer in one hand and a plastic cup (I forgot to bring my lidded stein!) of “dark” beer in the other. Everyone else is clutching cups of vaguely yellow liquid topped with at least two inches of bright white foam. (This is not counting the people sucking down pure vodka Jello shots and pouring Busch Light into makeshift beer bongs that were, earlier in the morning, the kids’ plastic vuvuzelas.)

Everyone else is clutching cups of vaguely yellow liquid topped with at least two inches of bright white foam.

To everyone’s credit, nobody looked at me askance. A couple of people asked what I was drinking and/or where I got it, but other than that I didn’t get any weird looks. But what do you, dear reader, think of this? Was I acting the part of the incorrigible beer snob? Should I have just gotten off my high horse and drank the Busch Light with (seemingly) everyone else?

After you answer. Read on.

As it turns out, I wasn’t the only one who had brought his own beer. I bumped into a guy sliding his way through the crowd on his way back from the food tables, a plate of meatballs in one hand, a can cozy with—what else—a can of Bud Light in the other. I kept on eye on him as he went back to his chair, and I saw that he had brought his own cooler of the stuff.

So, anyone want to change their previous answer?