This is, FOR FUCKING SURE, not a blog I ever thought I’d write.

Here’s the story. It’s August 15th, 2019… There I am, sitting with a dear friend at a lovely bar having just tasted a beer I thought was awful. He presses me ‘what is it you don’t like?’ I don’t know flavor profiles … I know that something can be smokey or hoppy or bitter or sweet but truly, I can’t sort that out on my tongue. I like it or I don’t. I want to spend time with it or I don’t… but this guy, he knows beer. He’s all ‘Flavor Profile Emperor’, the man who taught me that I do indeed enjoy an IPA after AGES of me swearing they were all horrible, the guy who can tell you every step in the brewing process that separates an ale from a lager (yes, they are totally different things). He’s amazing and wonderful and I always sort of want to impress him and I’m on the spot, without the right words or palate to answer his question.

‘What don’t you like about it?’ I’m frustrated now, a little defensive and embarrassed trying to figure out how to explain that there’s a ‘feeling’ to it, a smarminess, a dishonesty. Finally, in desperation, I close my eyes and I began to describe:

So you know those tea colored glasses men wore in the seventies. He’s wearing those and has nondescript reddish brown hair that can’t be committed to ginger…. a corduroy jacket … mustache… he’s slimy and dishonest… he goes down easy and smooth but there’s a slug like quality a metallic slickness that you can’t trust…

What I didn’t say (because I thought it might be too much) is that this beer is the guy who would slide a finger inside you on the train and then pretend it wasn’t him while tossing you a wink as you disembarked … as though you both secretly know you enjoyed the violation.

So, after finishing my description I look over at my friend. He’s wide eyed and open mouthed. At that point things shift in my head ‘oh they aren’t people for you are they?’ I ask. He shakes his head no. They are and they always have been for me, I just never took the time or invested the energies to explore.

Which brings us here, surrounded by the absurdity of language and taste, sensation and character. I’m going to drink beer and tell you who they are.

I’m going to explore this strange phenomena in myself, find its edges and weigh it in my palm and try to understand a little bit more how it is that All Day IPA is a beautiful lanky middle aged man who works in his garage all day, sunburned and smiling at passersby, always with a kind greeting, always with a cup of coffee, always shirtless and warm and generous … always aching just a little bit for a different kind of happiness and feeling at odds with that very honest ache, because his life is good… it’s just not everything.