======= ======= ====== ====== ====== ===== ==== ====== ====== ===== ==== ======= ======= ====== ====== ====== ===== ==== ====== ====== ===== ====
Have you ever thought about your favorite beer? I’m not talking about the 9% Triple IPA that costs $13 for a six pack. I mean your favorite domestic. The one that if I opened your fridge would be 2/3 of the beer population. Have you ever wondered why it’s always Miller Lite you reach for when you’re headed to a tailgate? Better yet, why does everyone in the group show up with Millers except for Mike who always brings Budweiser? My two best friends and I are a great example. We’re basically the same person. We share the same interests and graduated from the same school, but our favorite beers are totally different. How can we be so similar in everything except for something as simple as a beer? It’s not like a Miller is any different from a Coors in the first place.
Your favorite beer probably has nothing to do with the taste. The only reason I drink Coors Light is because when I was a cart boy in HS someone left a full one in their cooler and that was the first beer I tried. From then on when I’d try to buy from a convenience store that I hoped didn’t card I’d get Coors because it was familiar. Sure, we all know the difference between a Miller Lite and a Budweiser now, but back when we were first cutting our teeth on beer we didn’t have a clue. We just knew that Dad stocked the fridge with Millers so we could sneak a couple without him noticing. Or that the bum you split a 30 rack with on a Hey Mister would bring back Buds.
Sometimes your favorite beer isn’t your first. You might have started out on Miller Lite, but after spending your undergrad abusing more Millers than any 20-year-old can stomach you’ve started drinking Budweiser. It’s not that Budweiser tastes better, it’s that the smell doesn’t flood your memory with four years worth of hangovers.
Regional loyalties and nostalgia are also a big factor in our choices as well. Open a Texan’s fridge and you’ll find at least one Shiner. We might not drink them exclusively, but State Pride demands at least one Shiner Bock in the fridge at all times. Maybe you’re on a PBR kick. You just got back from the deer lease, couldn’t stop thinking about how grandpa always had a couple rolling around in the back of his truck, and snagged some on the way home in honor of a few good childhood memories.
No matter what suds we swear our allegiances to, we rarely find our favorite beers from the taste. There’s deeper meaning behind those cans. They get there from a careless or helpful relative when we were younger. Or we pick them because that’s what the singer at our first concert drank on stage. Maybe that’s what the fraternity house always stocked. Whatever the brand, our favorite brews will always be short on price and long on memory..
Respond
BBisgard45
Golf Pro in B/CS TX trying to trick the PGA into certifying me to give swing advice for a living.
@BrianBisgard
I like Coors Light. It’s cheap, I’m poor, and you can drink a ton of them in one sitting.
Dude. Preach. 12 pack to the face. Friday night. Saturday night.
Agreed. I’m from Colorado so I think there’s something about drinking a beer made in your state that just makes it good.
Truth. I’m from MA so my allegiance is to Sam Adams for the hometown pride, but if I just wanna down a few cheap ones, it’s Coors Lite all day. And I might get shit for this one, but in the summer nothing beats Bud Lite Lime
Bud Lime was our goto beer pong beer. Cheap enough to buy in bulk, and tasted a whole hell of a lot better flat and warm than anything else. Didn’t get near the amount of complaints from our female house guests when we poured Bud Lime in the pong cups that we did when we used Keystone or Coors
I’m a Coors guy too. My favorite by far. Hot take: Miller and Bud suck. I won’t drink Miller but I can stomach Bud, but neither compares to Coors Light or Busch Light even.
Yuengling all day
Cheers! Nothing better than traveling to the east coast and ordering a Yuengling at your hotel bar.
Oldest brewery in America!
“I stood in the local convenience store, young, naive, and ready to take on the world. A siren song echoed from the beer fridge. Her eyes were blue with hints of silver. The first kiss was magical, like something out of a nudie mag in a truck stop bathroom and instilled a fire in my belly the likes of which could shake man or beast. We’ve been together ever since.” – the story I’ll tell my children when I hand them their first Busch Light at 15.
True love a beautiful thing fam.
I assumed it was an undergrad thing because it was cheap. After I graduated I tried to switch to a big boy beer that now sits in the back of my fridge. No matter what happens you never outgrow a first love.
There was a bar across the street from the fraternity house. It wasn’t a busy bar, so we got to know the bartenders quite well.
Each Monday the seniors would go over after class and before chapter. The bartender who worked Monday’s was named Bethanie (a busty blonde who graduated a few years earlier). Bethanie made a deal with us: if we tipped heavily, we could drink all the old beers we wanted to free.
This turned into what we called: Mystery Beer Monday.
Some Mondays were horrible, gross IPAs with more hops than a cracked out 8-year with ADD, but this monday wasn’t one of those days.
This was in September right as school was starting. There were only a few of us in the bar that day, so Bethanie gave us the last of what she called “Summer Shandy”.
It was glorious. Refreshing yet beer. Sweet yet tangy. We couldn’t get enough. After the bar we hit up the local supermarket looking for more, but it was past their season and we were out of luck.
We waited an entire school year to have another Leinenkugel Summer Shandy, but it was worth the wait.
Every summer, I look forward to having the first Summer Shandy of the season. It seems they are coming out earlier and earlier (which is fine with me). It marks the beginning of my favorite time of the year. It reminds me of my last hurrah in college. It pairs nicely with grilled burgers and Game of Thrones. It tastes great warm or cold. It’s the best beer every made.
Not better beer to have on the lake in the summer. I too look forward to seeing them start showing up.
Natty light is what I was on when beer stopped being gross to me. It’s stuck since it’s cheap and easy to drink.
Omg nooooo
I’d say sup to your picture and propensity to drink but I can’t deal with the negativity of natty haters in my life.
Bad memories of Natty. But if I’m plastered enough, I’ll pound em.
Sup
Pabst Blue Ribbon. I’m a redneck at heart and prior to the hipsters sullying its reputation, PBR was the beer of rednecks and blue collar folks.
Still is. Don’t let them tell you different
Absolutely. I probably should have phrased that better.
not my drink of choice, but I have a buddy who lives and dies by the mantra “pabst blue: red white and better than you since 1992,” and I can’t help but chant it with him every time
Miller Lite, because when I asked the older guys at work to get me a case after Friday shifts they would get me Miller.
As for my close second, Rolling Rock, I have no idea but I’m sure that first sip was magical.
Glad someone else can appreciate Rolling Rock. Miller Lite is always the go-to, of course.
You from Charlotte? Erbody here drink Rock.
Cleveland. But glad to know when I visit Charlotte I won’t have any problem getting my hands on some Rocks
Rolling Rock is my number 2, but for some reason only out of a can. But where in Charlotte do you find it? Seems to me that bud light has a monopoly on the city
Something about that green can.
Michelob Golden Light. I think its only in St. Louis but damn it’s a good all day drinking beer.
Minnesota has it in every. single. store.
Can attest to this. My poor mother has no clue what to order if they don’t have Michelob. Great lake beer.
I had never seen it til I went to my buddy’s wedding in Minnesota. They had a few beer choices, but literally anyone that was drinking beer was indulging in Golden Light.
I moved to PHX last year and it’s literally the first tying I buy when I get to MSP.
When I lived in South Dakota, it was The Banquet Beer. Now that I live in Wisconsin, its Miller Lite. But put me on a lake, and I’m drinking Michelob Golden Light.
Hey fam SD here, where’d you live at?
Rapid City, Sioux Falls, and Brookings. You?
Lone Star/Shiner Blonde all day.
Also what do you shoot?
Lone star is a go to. Thanks Rust Cohle.
Picked up on Lone Star in high school. My old man was cheap when it came to buying me beer, so I drank that, or I paid for my own beer, and we all know I wasn’t about to do that.