Out of Beer

Apparently no beer on the top shelf of the refrigerator for shabbos dinner.  Cannot remember the last time that occurred.  Indeed, my consumption of suds has gone way down over a couple of years, now pretty much limited to a bottle on Friday evenings, and not every Friday evening with the regularity of challah.

Beer has its share of attributes.  I've not abandoned it.  At a time in history, some brewed concoction had a safety advantage over river water for drinking.  It probably tasted a lot different than what we pour out of cans now.  It also did not compete with soda. My father arranged periodic beer delivery when we first moved to our house in the 1950s.  A wooden case of 24 bottles of Blatz would arrive on a schedule.  New York State allowed beer sales in the supermarket which became very convenient, allowing advertising of sales and on-site selection of brands.  Despite consumer choice, my father had a limited array of preferences.  Wife and kids had soda, he had one bottle of his brew.  Despite the legal age of consumption in NY at the time being only 18, I did not join in.

Beer mostly became a special event beverage in college, a disposable plastic glass from the keg at a frat party mostly.  Even in medical school, now of age and in a city known for its immense brewery, beer was never something I brought home.  It could be had with a meal or at a pub alone or with friends, bought by the pitcher at a restaurant, sampled in the tasting room of the brewery tour.  It was not something to displace soda as the beverage of choice at home.  It started to change as a resident, then as a homeowner and young parent, wanting to minimize soda, I started keeping beer at home, initially six packs, later bottles of twelve became my preference.  And going out, one that I've not had before became my preference.  But at home, I drifted towards cheap, cold and wet with some foam, but not soda.

A transition point probably came with the emergence of craft beers in their many varieties.  Now Brewpubs became a place I would occasionally stop or seek out after my last office patient session.  It was often the dinner out place of choice.  Many were short-lived.  But having a package of twelve bottles at home, with preference for samplers, kept the bottles at hand.  They would last awhile, maybe just under a month.  Sometimes I would go cheap with mass market brews.  For a while, I filled one of two growlers until it got expensive.

But over time the purchases of twelve lasted two months instead of one, the growlers assigned to a shelf in the basement where they've been forever.  Soda has not returned, though.  Beer had just gotten expensive, the more intriguing small batch stuff exceeding what I was willing to pay.  It became a shabbos treat, never quite running out until this week.  For a while, the Blood Bank offered its donors a discount coupon for a regional pub.  Those few redemptions have been my only pub visits, deterred in part by price, in part by waning interest.

I do not know how much of a microcosm I am for the larger marketplace.  Maybe.  Probably on my next occasion to go to Total Whine I'll get another twelve bottles, or maybe cans as there are advantages to the brewers to packaging them that way.  But I'm not ready to set replacement of weekly shabbos suds as a gotta have.