DESPITE THE OCCASIONAL USE OF THE TERM HEFEWEIZEN

What I like about beer is, you basically just drink it, then you order another one. You don't sniff at it, or hold it up to the light and slosh it around, and above all you don't drone on and on about it, the way people do with wine.

Comments

[Horace LaBadie]

Bat urine wine. Perhaps the south side of the cave, about three-quarters of the way up the wall.

[insomniac]

if you can say 'hefeweizen' clearly, you're not drinking enough...

[billinbossier]

I avoid any gathering that you have to have a rented tux to go to. Unless, of course they have free alcohol.

[Not My Usual Alias]

I knew a guy from the train who was dating a sommelier. He liked it when I asked "Does she whine a lot about her job?"

I'm pretty sure she didn't like it as much when he repeated the question to her.

[Betsy]

Let the record show that this was THE column that assured Dave's place in my life as primary source of unending *snorks*, quotes, and hours of solace during times of personal (and global) angst and dyspepsia.

And I have give copies of it to every friend or acquaintance who shows signs of becoming a wine snot.

*Standing ovation for lifetime achievement*

[Cheesewiz]

True then.
True now.
True dat.

[Annie Where-but-here]

Sadly, the simple pleasure of beer drinking is now being threatened. No, not just by global warming, but by nouveau beer snots yammering about ale yeast and piffle-bragging about their microbe-breweries.

The best thing about the actual act of drinking a beer is that one can't also speak at the same time.

[Steve]

I don't care what Dave said, I miss Ripple. I only had it once. My roommate walked in and asked who was baking bread, he could smell yeast.
The hangover started, literally, on the second glass and lasted, oh, about a week.
At the time, there was a bar in Lexington KY that sold a 16 oz. glass of Ripple for 9 cents on Saturday nights. I bet they made tons of money on that.
Unfortunately, Ripple is no more. Just as well, for I am much older. And if not wiser, at least well aged.

[nursecindy]

I've been to wine tastings where they will swish the wine around in their mouths and then spit it out. You would never see a beer drinker doing this. This is also one of my all time favorite Dave Barry columns.

[Loudmouth]

Chateau Thames Embankment, Chateau Lefete Snob, Bridget Bordeaux, Chardoneigh, Ceeantee (what goes with fava beans?).

[Hey Zeus]

Sorry, as a beer geek, I drone on and on about it but the words slur real soon and no one takes me seriously.

[O the U(manity)]

I agree with Annie ... lotsa folks with delusions of sophicationaryismness are startin' to intrude upon the simple pleasure of enjoyin' a malted beverage ...

I'll admit to teasin' other folks about the superiority of Guinness®, but I seriously doubt that I've become a snot about it ... I'll drink the occasional domestic bunny juice if that's whut they're servin' ... tho I'll look around to see if sum of the older, traditional stuff can be had ... y'know ... Old Mil, Schlitz, Hamm's and others that actually have a bit of character to offer the palate ...

[danceswithowies]

I got the next round of Guinness, O. As for that Wasssup brewski, I confess to anagrammatic snot ...

Budweiser Clydesdales = Surely, cases be widdled.

[danceswithvowels]

From the column comments:

> > That epitomises the whole charade of the wine tasting culture.

> just curious do you pronounce that sharahd, or sharayed?

Sure-Oz.

[Wes S.]

I'm sorry, but most beer tastes "widdled" to me.

I'm enjoying a nightcap of bourbon (Evan Williams) and Coke.

[Kristina L]

This is a great column. I like the bit about vinegrette being like electricity. Although this is the one time I wasn't convinced that Dave Barry wasn't making this up.

The first column that I read by Dave Barry was about the humor-impaired and Nixon's electric shots to signal that a joke had been made. Especially the part about "They wouldn't use electric shots. They would use hand signals!"

[NotSherly]

*snork* @ "microbe-breweries".

[judi the barberho]

betsy: this is one of my personal favorites too. i remember literally gasping for breath trying to finish it... i was howling! we lived in Macon Ga at the time ;) i mean, you must really like a column if you remember where you were when you first read it, right?

[Meanie the Blue]

Betsy and judi - chalk up another "Dave Fave" from me with this one, with the best part being Joshua Wesson's "God-given ability to lay it on with a trowel".

I had recently met Wesson at a book promotion event where my wife, an avid cook, was seeking Wesson's autograph on one of his very down-to-earth match-this-wine-with-this-food type of books. Food and drinks were being served as this casual event, and, as Dave says, Wesson was a very regular guy, and he was drinking, I believe, a 1996 Michelob.

[Betsy]

Judi...I was on my scratchy blue butt-sprung hand-me-down sofa, shaking with laughter. My kids looked up from their sections of the Sunday paper, and my daughter observed, "Mom's reading Dave Barry again."

P.S. Meanie? If Wesson was drinking a 1996 Michelob, and this was published in 1985......

[Meanie the Blue]

'Twas a reprint that I had read then, Betsy. Wesson was a fairly well-known sumel- similac wine recommending guy by that time.

[Cindy, the other (not nurse) one]

Ah, you're speaking Milwaukee-ese!