Turning 21, Alcohol Eligible

I consider myself a beer snob, but it was not always so.

In my early college years, when drinking related recreation was on hand, I would typically drink whatever alcoholic beverage was present. This ‘settling’ for any alcohol was due to the fact that I was not yet of legal drinking age, but details can be a bother. This left me with the choice of either ‘Drink it or not’, rather than, ‘Would you like this or that’. I quickly realized that the hard alcohol affected my tender young body more harshly than beer, pushing my preference to the carbonated barley drink.

Drinking and driving was not a problem at U. C. Santa Barbara. The community of Isla Vista was immediately adjacent to the university campus and was jammed packed with students. This made ample local party roving conducive to bicycle, skateboard, or feet. My mode of transport consisted of a skateboard and, intermittently, a bicycle.


June 1988

I turned 21. My alcohol intake took on a surprisingly steadying change. Now that I was 21 I could drink whatever I wanted. No longer was I subject to the inhospitabilities of a ‘take it or leave it’ drinking prospect. My drink of choice became beer. I typically knew the affect beer was going to render unto me. I knew how many beers I could consume in a night without involuntarily discarding my motor skills.


When I graduated from college, socializing was no longer foot traffic friendly. It now involved driving. My friends and I might meet at a rendezvous point and then drive to the designated entertainment area.

With driving as the primary mode of transport, my beer consumption was limited to one or two in an evening. Naturally, I wanted to retain my senses so as to be able to drive. With the decrease in my beer quantity, quality of said hooch became the emphasis. I now began to take some preference in what I wanted to drink. [A friendly note, here: Drinking and driving is dangerous and should not be done.]

This was the early stage of me becoming the beer snob that I am today. I have traversed much land in my beer studies. I have enjoyed my findings.


Thank you Wife Klem for the lovely birthday beers; Paulaner Original Munich, the Belgian Peche Lambic, Franziskaner weissbier, Warsteiner, and the two fancy soda pops. I’m lucky to have such a temptress as you.
-klem