[jacket3ree]

My LinkedIn profile has a (not even international) man of mystery vibe about it. I pay as much attention to that as my Facebook profile, which is there only so my wife can stalk our children.

I have forgotten more of the beer or types of beer that I used to drink than I remember, but you always remember your first girl (St. Pauli) except that I can't remember where or when I had my first St. Pauli. Back then I'm sure I thought an IPA was some sort of retirement strategy.

I grew up 5 miles from the Coors Brewery and our next door neighbor, who financed a good chunk of my early teen spending through lawn mowing money, was a nice guy and in charge of their environmental compliance, yet Coors has never been my jam. Like ever. My dad drank Bud as a soft drink because crushing 3 or 4 Manhattans at a meal was nothing. Mom was an even heavier drinker. Just a few years ago when we went to her brother's service in LA, she had a suitcase full of vodka and bourbon and Scotch as "the evening's entertainment".  My parents are both pushing 90, so their form of "moderate" drinking worked for them. They had an unlocked cabinet full of liquor above the oven, but I really didn't start drinking much of anything until I started working 14 hours a day, 7 days a week out in the Wyoming desert the summer after graduating high school.

I drank because I was thirsty and it was beer or swill water mixed with some sort of oil out of the orange Gott bouncing around the back of the truck. The beer of choice was Whatever is in the Keg ™. To this day I don't know what it was. I was living on $6.99 per diem and figured out how to have a nice meal once every two weeks. (A lot of peanut butter and Hydrox cookies if you're wondering.)  Then the beer of choice was Mickey's Wide Mouth, or my 30-year-old train engine driving female mentor/bar hang friend Sandy was loaded with money and I drank whatever she sent my way out of pity or I made her laugh or whatever that was. Lot's of whiskey neat.  I was 17 at the time.

When I worked at Yellowstone we drank lots of Rainier and Oly, I supposed due to the relative proximity of Seattle compared to say Milwaukee. 

At school in ATL I was in a "Yankee frat" with people from everywhere, so we drank the beer of from where people originated. And lots of Stroh's because those were the cheapest kegs at Spring Street Liquor. I distinctly remember Dixie (one roommate from NOLA), Jax, White Label and Schaefer (aka 'Scraper') because another dude was from Brooklyn and a brobdingnagian fan of cheap, shitty beer. Another roommate was from Cleveland and to him it was PBR or nothin'. Someone St. Louis; another from Detroit who mainlined Busch and when someone suggested maybe that's a lot of beer man, switched to Busch Lite and then flunked out in his sixth year. Another guy was from York, PA so Yuengling of course. And Bill and Doug from Baltimore, so there's your Natty Bo. Lots of guys from Tennessee, so let's fight over Dickel vs. Jack. But So Co in the flasks we'd bring dates to hide to get through the gates at Grant Field. Some of us caught on to the stone cold fact that Rum with the Coke made for friendlier dates. Or Seagram and you could get Sprite instead of Coke inside. With that superior senior year knowledge, I managed to have two dates for Tech's big win over Clemson and Refrigerator Perry one glorious September day, but I think the second date wasn't as much for the unusual 7 and fake 7 as much as she wanted to get really wasted at the game and after, and I could drive her stick VW back to Emory later. Which I did. With her in the car and everything.

What about me? Five miles from Coors? Coors did have that goofy mystique east of the Rockies and was not available for purchase in Atlanta. I told everyone they were lucky. Garbage beer. Lucky for me I didn't have a car on campus until my senior year, when Dad left his Audio 4000 turbo out in a golf-ball sized hail storm. I certainly couldn't damage it any more so I drove it down and I think because Denver to Atlanta is mostly downhill and all the dimples gave it golf-ball like aerodynamic powers, managed 56 mpg. That car made it as far as Key West and yes, I did a Smokey and the Bandit run with a case of Coors getting warm and even more disgusting in the trunk just to show the chirping birds when I arrived at the house that Coors wasn't all that. Still, most people's favorite beer is Free and Cold, and Cold is optional.

Stanford was all about oil can Fosters opened carried right into football games, so no more dates, right? I think that's when I discovered Anchor Steam and I morphed into trying to drink "good beer," which my non-drinking girlfriend (now wife of 35 years) actually shopped for once, like that's what it would say on the label. 'What kind of beer do you like.' 'Good beer.'

I'm pretty much in the group Mick mentions. Non-drinker other than on occasion. It's not how many beers a month I have anymore, it is how many months pass between a beer.

[jacket3ree]

My LinkedIn profile has a (not even international) man of mystery vibe about it. I pay as much attention to that as my Facebook profile, which is there only so my wife can stalk our children.

I have forgotten more of the beer or types of beer that I used to drink than I remember, but you always remember your first girl (St. Pauli) except that I can't remember where or when I had my first St. Pauli. Back then I'm sure I thought an IPA was some sort of retirement strategy.

I grew up 5 miles from the Coors Brewery and our next door neighbor, who financed a good chunk of my early teen spending through lawn mowing money, was a nice guy and in charge of their environmental compliance, yet Coors has never been my jam. Like ever. My dad drank Bud as a soft drink because crushing 3 or 4 Manhattans at a meal was nothing. Mom was an even heavier drinker. Just a few years ago when we went to her brother's service in LA, she had a suitcase full of vodka and bourbon and Scotch as "the evening's entertainment".  My parents are both pushing 90, so their form of "moderate" drinking worked for them. They had an unlocked cabinet full of liquor above the oven, but I really didn't start drinking much of anything until I started working 14 hours a day, 7 days a week out in the Wyoming desert the summer after graduating high school.

I drank because I was thirsty and it was beer or swill water mixed with some sort of oil out of the orange Gott bouncing around the back of the truck. The beer of choice was Whatever is in the Keg ™. To this day I don't know what it was. I was living on $6.99 per diem and figured out how to have a nice meal once every two weeks. (A lot of peanut butter and Hydrox cookies if you're wondering.)  Then the beer of choice was Mickey's Wide Mouth, or my 30-year-old train engine driving female mentor/bar hang friend Sandy was loaded with money and I drank whatever she sent my way out of pity or I made her laugh or whatever that was. Lot's of whiskey neat.  I was 17 at the time.

When I worked at Yellowstone we drank lots of Rainier and Oly, I supposed due to the relative proximity of Seattle compared to say Milwaukee. 

At school in ATL I was in a "Yankee frat" with people from everywhere, so we drank the beer of from where people originated. And lots of Stroh's because those were the cheapest kegs at Spring Street Liquor. I distinctly remember Dixie (one roommate from NOLA), Jax, White Label and Schaefer (aka 'Scraper') because another dude was from Brooklyn and a brobdingnagian fan of cheap, shitty beer. Another roommate was from Cleveland and to him it was PBR or nothin'. Someone St. Louis; another from Detroit who mainlined Busch and when someone suggested maybe that's a lot of beer man, switched to Busch Lite and then flunked out in his sixth year. Another guy was from York, PA so Yuengling of course. And Bill and Doug from Baltimore, so there's your Natty Bo. Lots of guys from Tennessee, so let's fight over Dickel vs. Jack. But So Co in the flasks we'd bring dates to hide to get through the gates at Grant Field. Some of us caught on to the stone cold fact that Rum with the Coke made for friendlier dates. Or Seagram and you could get Sprite instead of Coke inside. With that superior senior year knowledge, I managed to have two dates for Tech's big win over Clemson and Refrigerator Perry one glorious September day, but I think the second date wasn't as much for the unusual 7 and fake 7 as much as she wanted to get really wasted at the game and after, and I could drive her stick VW back to Emory later. Which I did. With her in the car and everything.

What about me? Five miles from Coors? Coors did have that goofy mystique east of the Rockies and was not available for purchase in Atlanta. I told everyone they were lucky. Garbage beer. Lucky for me I didn't have a car on campus until my senior year, when Dad left his Audio 4000 turbo out in a golf-ball sized hail storm. I certainly couldn't damage it any more so I drove it down and I think because Denver to Atlanta is mostly downhill and all the dimples gave it golf-ball like aerodynamic powers, managed 56 mpg. That car made it as far as Key West and yes, I did a Smokey and the Bandit run with a case of Coors getting warm and even more disgusting in the trunk just to show the chirping birds when I arrived at the house that Coors wasn't all that. Still, most people's favorite beer is Free and Cold, and Cold is optional.

Stanford was all about oil can Fosters opened carried right into football games, so no more dates, right? I think that's when I discovered Anchor Steam and I morphed into trying to drink "good beer," which my non-drinking girlfriend (now wife of 35 years) actually shopped for once, like that's what it would say on the label. 'What kind of beer do you like.' 'Good beer.'

I'm pretty much in the group Mick mentions. Non-drinker other than on occasion. It's not how many beers a month I have anymore, it is how many months pass between a beer.