Cheers, mate!

I would look around filled with anticipation and take a quick little sip. I'd follow that will pulling a face, spluttering and then trying my hardest to look like nothing had happened. I was somewhere in the age of under 10 years old and waiting for my Popi to momentarily walk away from his Saturday night can of Old Milwaukee or Miller High Life. It was disgusting and I silently fretted over the fact that I was the offspring of a crazy person.

Fast forward to those drinking-formative years of college. And not just any college, but the University of Colorado, where we not only like to pump out the most NASA astronauts, but also some hardcore partiers. Actually, it's the latter that CU is most notorious for - and if you don't like beer, then you gulp down Cosmopolitans in Nalgene bottles during tailgate parties (of which, it must be said, I recommend nothing LESS). I never really took to either.

And then, at the age of 20, I was off to Australia for 5 months. After 24 hours in my new country I hadn't had enough water - in fact, dehydration was the technical term - but I couldn't worry about that. I made a new friend and we went out for a lunch of pizza and beer. I'd read parts of the oh-so-fabulous In a Sunburned Country on the flight over, so I knew exactly what I wanted; I would be ordering a VB.

In one sip, my mind was changed. This beer had taste. Actual taste. It was the sipping experience of singing the Aladdin favorite, A Whole New World. There was flavor in a chilled beverage with an alcohol content substantially greater than that of American pisswater... I swoon; I pine; I lament the fact that VB is yet to be exported from the magical land of Oz.

To my great delight it wasn't just VB (though my first love remained my true love, to be sure). There was Toohey's New, Coopers, Emu Bitter, XXXX...and those are the ones that 7 years later I still remember off the top of my Aussie-beer-loving head.

And then...I moved to Boston. Home of obscure microbrews (Magic Hat #9, I await our reunion with a thirsty longing) and Sam Adams, my time in Boston cemented that I wasn't just an expatriate beer lover... I was on the road to becoming a beer snob. Me! the daughter of a mother who wouldn't touch the stuff and a father who loved whatever was on sale for the cheapest price!

After college there was a period of time where I was working in Minnesota and living with my parents. On summer nights when I had just battled over an hour of traffic and the sun was still shining down warm rays, I would thrust the car into park, breeze through the garage door and kick off my heels while prying the cap off a cold bottle of Sunshine Wheat, my Boulder contraband that had crossed state lines in the caravan between Colorado and home. More than once my Popi exclaimed during this 30-second routine, "My god! You're such a LADY!"

I would always try my hardest to belch a response, but in lieu of that would settle for something along the lines of, "HELL YEAH I AM."

Since then I've cooled my consumption of carbonated brew in favor of wine. But there's nothing like 3 weeks in Europe to reignite the passion. And there's nothing like 3 weeks in Europe with your snobby-beer-loving-daughter to persuade a Mother who has spent her entire life shunning it, to not only try it, but to LOVE it and become a bit of a snob herself - correctly claiming upon first sip that one particular brand in Prague was "shit."

We tried it all. In each city - a new beer. In Amsterdam and Prague where we spent more time, we would sight-see...take a beer break; museum visit...find a sidewalk cafe for a new beer tasting; shopping...beer break; dinner time...beer time.

When Christmas came this year Teen and I were met with a case of Beck's bottles. It was the beer on tap during our river cruise portion through Europe and now Mom's bev of choice. We drank it out of champagne glasses while getting gussied up for the Christmas Eve festivities. Mascara on!...Cheers! Clink! Gulp! Hair dried!...Cheers! Clink! Gulp! Hey everybody, Popi put on his fancy shoes!...Cheers! Clink! Gulp! Needless to say, it was utterly fantastic.


Then, a few weeks ago during a mini-break in San (read: Man) Diego with Teen, my beer-loving life came full-circle. On a cloudy Saturday afternoon we abandoned window shopping for the cheap thrill of bellying-up to a bar to drink Mexican beer and blather on like the silly twits our fellow belliers might guess we were. But this was not just any dive bar. THIS was the "Sleazy Bar Scene Location" made famous in Tom Cruise's epitome of hotness, Top Gun. THIS was Kansas City Barbeque, where the beers were cheap, multi-sized bras whirl off the edge of ceiling fans and a gal can enjoy it all while sitting across from the aviator helmet (mask?) of the Holiest of Hotties, Maverick. GOD BLESS MAN DIEGO.

But there was more in store...of course there was. There was a little spot of heaven called Bondi Bar, where cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die I found for the FIRST time, Australian beers (besides the dreaded Fosters) for sale on American soil. IF YOU WISH FOR SOMETHING HARD ENOUGH, IT JUST MAY COME TRUE. It wasn't my beloved VB, but it was Tooheys New, which had been the beloved of many dear friends and which I had always found completely acceptable to get myself pissed with.

I DO have respect for beer. Hell yeah I do! So does kissy-face Teen...

Teen didn't know what to do with my euphoria... OVER A BOTTLE OF BEER. She's so used to watching me try to pull my hair out from career-induced stress during my normal life, that the amount of smiling a mini-break + Aussie beer induced was rather startling. So she settled for taking an obscene amount of pictures. It is a fact that grannies don't take as many pictures of kiddies dressed up for Halloween. The first Tooheys New I'd laid eyes on in almost 7 years was subjected to a full-on photo shoot.

My friends from Australia will be so jealous.

Oh yes, I love beer. I love the way that it has peppered my memories of this last decade. And I love the vision that I have, of me and Teen, with white puffy little hairdos, taking photos of VB's triumphant arrival to the States, in what I grimly imagine to be many decades from now. A girl can always hope...

Le sigh.