SusieJ's Advent Calendar December 10, 2009

Confession: A trip to Germany will do that

My visits to Germany imparted not only a love of breads, cakes, and driving really, really fast, but also of good beer. When I left for my first adult trip, I hated beer. Mom said, "You'll come back liking beer. I hated beer when I went to Germany, and when I came back, I liked it." But I was 21 and knew better than Mom.

Mom was right. Not only did I return a beer fan, but a beer snob.

It started with a Dinkel Acker Pils in Napoleon, the Kneipe I went to with my cousin. Then my aunt introduced me to Hefeweizen, which everyone was still drinking that unseasonably warm October. Soon I was having a Klareweizen after squash.

The first sign was ordering a beer when out with everyone, rather than a coke and vodka or glass of bad wine. There were enough Irish bars on campus that I could indulge in a taste for a great Irish beer I'd tasted on a visit to London: Guinness, perhaps you've heard of it?

The second sign was that beer at parties became important. My roommate and I went from buying a beer ball (of Genessee Cream Ale) to a quarter keg. Budweiser, Michelob and light beers were out of the question. The distributor carried some local brew, Yuengling, for the same price as Budweiser. And they delivered too. Yuengling became the house beer for the next fifteen years.

Now I have a favorite bar for trying new beers (Bridgewaters, in 30th Street Station; Monks of course, if I'm up for the walk), a favorite distributer (Hatboro Beverage; Madonna's in Glenside is a close second) and like to watch my friends brew beer, to see how ingredients influence taste.

Sometimes, it's nice when Mom is right.

[Me in front of the Christmas stockings about age 2, drinking something that is assuredly not beer.]