Quality beer, a story about the beer I love to drink!

My love for beer was not something that was genetically determined through some genetic predisposition because I am Irish. Well, with the exception of liking and drinking Guiness, which I only really like at a bar from a tap. I visited the Guinness brewery last fall in Dublin and I was very impressed how efficient of the brewery, how their museum had reflected the huge impact of the beer on Ireland and the beers popularity through out the world. The free beer at the end of the tour was one of the best Guinness beers that I have tasted in my life. I didn’t really like beer the first couple of years that I was drinking it.
By the time I was 23 though, I realized that I had a no real love for drunks, hard alcohol and I started to prefer beer, which was a life changing “moment of clarity in the beer being my drink of choice when it came to alcohol. When I went to Germany with a Military Police unit to Mannheim, Germany, (around 1987), I got hooked on good beers, specifically Weiss bier, hefeweizen, wheat beer, white beer, breakfast beer, that I got hooked on quality beer. Around 2000, I started drinking Harpoon IRA, Liberty Ale and Micro brews from the local Micro Brewery. I have been into drinking local quality brews ever since. Because of people like me, Budweiser has attempted to capture a larger market share and has come out with its Golden Wheat, I have not tried it though.
I was on leave during OIF 1, in 2003, on my honeymoon, backpacking around Europe on leave from Baghdad, and I feel in love with the beers of Europe. Since then I have been hooked. I never have liked the traditional American beers and have always been of fan of micro breweries and quality imports, yes, I am a beer snob! Life is to short for nasty beer!
Here are my growlers of choice, at my local micro breweries and the flavor of the monument that I enjoy drinking when I feel like spending a little more than I want on a beer that has a 24 hour shelf life once I open it up. If I go up to the big city, Providence, I like the Rhode Island IPA or Harpoon that I get at the Trinity Brew House , I will settle for a Harpoon IPA if I am lucky enough to be at a bar where they have it on tap. While at home where I live, I like the Winter Warmer this time of year, which I get at the Coodington Brewery.
In New York City, you can get beer where you shop and in at the up scale market, Whole Foods, you can get a "growler" of you beer of choice now. The Whole Foods beer store on Houston Street began its program in 2007. While shopping, you can get what you need and quality beer before you leave the store. This is not legal in all states, like the one that I live in but in NY it is totally legal. But hey, that is life in the big city, you can get everything there for a price!

I can remember watching the movie Scarface, the original, in a film class and people in the movie going to bars and getting beers in buckets from bars. Reading his article in the NYT, I realized that this actually took place. The growlers in a more civilized and sanitary method of procuring beer than back in the day. In the late 19th century and the early 20th century, both The New York Times and The Brooklyn Eagle regularly published contentious stories about the containers, which then took the form of small galvanized pails. The articles cataloged the complaints of saloon keepers, who thought growlers they cut into their profit, and those of temperance groups, who hoped to curb home drinking.

Back in New England, I have visited Portland, Maine, and discovered the Allagash White Beer and have fallen in love with it. This is like the hefeweeizen beer that I feel in love with in Germany. Another beer in this genre is Blue Moon beer, the orange slice in actually good but it is always weird getting fruit in your beer unless your drinking a Corona. That is my beer story, so drink up all you beer snobs and maybe I have shared with you a beer that you may find to you liking.