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My Beer Journey: An Auto-Ethnography of Beer
I have been drinking beer since I was 21, the legal drinking age in the United States. It’s not that I was waiting for my 21st birthday to have my first legal drink (I won’t say any more on that), it’s that prior to that, I hated beer. Even the smell of it vaguely wafting across the room bothered me. The few tastes my parents allowed, I found disgusting. At college parties, light beer flowed freely, and I learned to wince and drink it for the sole goal of getting drunk. But I didn’t enjoy either the taste or the buzz.
These days, beer is a big part of my culinary experience. I drink beer to relax — surely not the healthiest habit, but I also don’t drink to get drunk. Beer-drinking is part of my identity, a way in which I celebrate humanity’s creativity and knack for crafting something unique out of what the Earth has to offer. Beer is something I pair with food, or treat as a dessert.
So, what changed? How did I go from being completely disgusted by this drink to a full-fledged beer snob?
I was on tour with a theatre production to Dallas, Texas, and we went to the local BJ’s Brewhouse to eat. I was intrigued by their brews’ descriptions, which…
