You call this beer?
Still more on that Gallup poll that indicated wine has surpassed beer as America’s favorite drink, with some points very well made.
“You call this a beer?” asks the Los Angeles Times (registration required, it’s free). Here, class, is Takeaway No. 1:
Beer has a friendly challenger too: beer itself. That is, the more flavorful and adventurous drink we call craft beer is gaining ground on common beer faster than anything else, wine included.
The story includes visits to two beer dinners. After the second, the reporter gives us Takeaway No. 2:
This was the beer experience in another realm — an all-out jam session between complementary flavors at the junction of fork and glass. Wine can hit some fine high notes indeed, but it cannot make dinner music quite like this. If wine plays in the classical register, this meal delivered South Side jazz.
Gallup was no doubt correct in charting changes in our drinking habits, and heaven knows that wine aficionados have had a giddy time trying to wring portent from the finding. But as with all surveys, the results were no better than the questions posed.
Gallup didn’t ask how many American beer drinkers are drinking better beer. Nor how many Americans are getting better at drinking beer, for that matter.
The fact is, many of us are consuming less and wanting to make more of it. To ignore beer in that mix is to risk being left behind. The light, sudsy thirst quencher of summer afternoons now wears white tie and tails when the occasion calls for it.
I guess it’s OK for beer to wear white tie and tails - just so it doesn’t ask me to do the same.
