You should always order the local beer and, in most cases, eschew the local wine, I say. Any more than three ingredients and you're risking a silly drink, I say. Only masochists and Argentines willingly take Fernet-Branca, I say. It's "I couldn't care less" not "I could care less," I say.
"People couldn't care less about your little rules," she says.
She's right, I guess. Our culture has been long divorced from the grand traditions; we've lost our taste for grammar and manners. Basically our society has gone to Helena Handbasket, your one-stop apocalyptic party shop. Grownups express themselves using something called "emojis." People aren't ashamed to append "-tini" to apples and pears, or to -- with their bills tucked between their tiny fingers -- order Jagerbombs or Long Island iced teas. The other day I saw a Lamborghini with an automatic transmission.
"I don't have rules," I tell her. "I have standards."
Walks away, she does. No words, but her head shakes sadly.
So I am that guy. The rule-giver. Or, more accurately, the rule-haver. I don't advertise the rules because I trust you have the sense our Lord bestowed on a goose. There are things you should just know. Like you don't wear tennis shorts to the opera. That no male over the age of 10 should wear a sports jersey with anyone else's name on it. And unless you're actually wearing it as part of an organized competition where the rules require it, no male over the age of 10 should wear any sports jersey anywhere anyway.
(It's different for women. I don't know why. Maybe there's sexism involved, but jerseys are cute on women. Women can even get away with wearing eye black. Whereas, if a grown man dresses up like Sidelines Bret Bielema to run down to the Kroger for chips and America -- the beer formerly known as Budweiser -- he's going to get silently judged.)
I know, no one has died and left me king. (Because I'd quickly get a reputation. Best case, I'd be King Philip the Harsh but Fair. More likely Philip the Tetchy. But at least I'd get to ban short-sleeve dress shirts, whatever they are. And frozen margaritas. Or maybe I wouldn't ban them outright. Maybe I'd just set up a bunch of re-education camps.)
I know my rules don't matter. No matter how hard I shut my eyes and wish, my beliefs are unlikely to have any effect on the behavior of others. So it's either go around disappointed in the world or shrug my shoulders and accept that I'm only one person and all I can do is live my life according to my principles. If you want to be happy, you have to cut the world some slack.
And maybe now and again admit that you were wrong.
That, dear friends, is why I've called you all here today. To admit that I was wrong. Totally, absolutely. I was a victim of my own prejudice, but now I have seen the light. And so I testify:
There is absolutely nothing wrong with canned beer. I recant my oft-stated, once thought unshakable belief that glass bottles were an inherently superior delivery system. I am truly sorry for my heresy. May I attempt to explain myself?
I still believe the experience of drinking from a can is not as enjoyable as drinking from a bottle. Drinking from a can evokes memories of stumbling around the suburbs with my high school buddies, looking for just the right place to kick an aluminum light pole so it will flicker off for a second, or of riding toward New Orleans in the back of a K-car after midnight with a purple-tinged case of Katz & Besthoff Light. Good times, perhaps, but embarrassing in the way some good times are when considered in a sober light. It didn't take me long to discover that I didn't really like the downmarket domestic beer that typically came in cans. Once I had some resources, I upgraded to skunky imports that came in green glass bottles.
Until recently I thought all canned beer was worse than any bottled beer. (Just as I still believe that most draft beer is better than most bottled or canned beer.) It wasn't anything I'd rigorously thought through, though I guess if I'd been pressed I'd have said it was because you could somehow taste the can in the beer. I'd have said there was a metallic taste, though that was probably also present in the bottled varieties of the beers I was remembering.
But it turns out that the only real advantage a bottle has over a can is that it's nicer to hold and to drink from, especially if it has one of those stylish long necks. Drinking from a can always feels awkward and I suspect that since aluminum is a better conductor of heat than glass (it is, right?), holding a can in your hand warms the beer quicker than dangling a bottle by its neck. So, unless you're slamming cans, the last few sips are likely to be warmer than optimum, unless you're using a novelty koozie, which is something else I have a rule against.
If, on the other hand, you, like an adult, bother to pour the can of beer into a glass, it's just fine. It can even be better than a bottled beer, which can be degraded by the light that leaks through the green or brown (or clear) glass. (It's long been known that darker glass is better than lighter glass for preserving beer -- Schlitz was touting the advantages of brown glass more than 100 years ago.) Light is destructive to the organic compounds that produce a beer's taste. Opaque aluminum is better at keeping out light than even translucent dark brown glass. Cans also seal better -- they are more reliable than bottle caps at keeping air out of the beer.
Plus cans are more convenient than bottles. They aren't as lethal when wielded as weapons; they don't shatter into dangerous shards when dropped. They are easier stacked and stored. Cans chill better (though the American taste for beer colder than an umpire's heart is a cultural anomaly).
It used to be that better beers didn't come in cans, probably because cans were associated with popularly priced products. People like me became bottle snobs in the same way some oenophiles become cork snobs. While there is no evidence that synthetic corks or even twist-off caps have anything to do with the quality of wine they're holding back, to some of us the presence of "real cork" signifies authenticity.
While I'd gotten over my real cork fetish long ago, it wasn't until this year that I realized how stupid I was being about canned beer. A friend of mine, a genuine connoisseur of the stuff, brought a six-pack of canned beer to a dinner party. Then I picked up some cans of Lost Forty at the grocery store. ("Drink the local beer" is not just something you do when traveling.)
I tried both of these products. And liked them.
When I asked my connoisseur friend if bottles were better than cans, he gave me a quizzical look.
"You can't take bottles to the lake," he said after a moment.
True enough.
And so one of my deepest rooted beliefs was yanked up and tossed on the compost pile. I have seen the light. You don't judge a beer by its container. As with people, it's what's inside that counts.
Email:
pmartin@arkansasonline.com
blooddirtangels.com
Style on 05/29/2016