"You're Kind of a Snob"

For the past six months or so I have been sampling cheap beer. I have tried Pabst of course but also Busch and Busch Light and Lone Star and Natural Light, etc. And I think that I am about to go back to full price and full flavor.

I once told someone that I would quit drinking beer if I couldn't afford Coors Light. And she told me that I was "kind of a snob." And maybe I was (what else was she going to think with my BMW and fancy Star Tac phone and all the other things I said or did to blow her indie rock fantasies away.) But as far as the beer was concerned I think that I was on to something.

The BMW days are long behind me. And things started going in a different direction when the CRM money ran out. When I moved to Nashville I had a job at a bookstore that paid $7 an hour. I was getting by because of some money I had saved, but there wasn't a lot left over. So I started buying cut-rate beer, PBR for 5.99 a 12 pack. And after a hard day hustling books or later making copies at a temp job A cold PBR tasted pretty good. I hardly ever drank more than 3 or 4 beers a night and everything was going fine. I laughed at my former self. Think of all the money I could have been saving. Yes, PBR was all right. And with its hipster popularity it was easy to come by. I might have still been drinking a PBR every now and then today if it had not been for the night in January when Tommy USA came up for a visit. We went out that Friday night on an East Nashville Bender, drank PBRs from 7 PM til 3AM, and the next day I thought I was going to die. The Anthropologist came in at 3PM Saturday and I was in bed. It was terrible. She was visibly upset by the sight of me. I was so bloated and red eyed. That might have happened with some other kind of beer, but I can't imagine it being that bad. If I drink just one PBR now I have a headache the next day. Yuck.

The rising gas prices have sent me back to the cheap end of the beer aisle. And while none of the beers I have tried are as nasty as PBR, they just aren't worth the money you save. The biggest reason for this is their low alcohol content. I will get tired of drinking Natty or Busch light before I get any of the benefits I'm looking for in a cold beer. Busch gets closer. But not enough. Next time I am going to spend the extra 2 bucks and get Coors Light or Bud. And leave the Busch and the Natty for a day at the pool. And leave the PBR alone all together!