The first time I swiped loose IPAs from my parent’s fridge, my friends and I ended up throwing each one away. The postdated expiry dates were lying, we mused, they tasted like rotting milk dipped in moldy bread. That night and the rest of high school, we retreated to our reliable all-you-can-scrounge-together buffets of Malibu, Natural Light, rail vodka, and on the most special occasions, Four Loko.
Oh, how the palate evolves! Unlike 13-year-old me shedding an obstinate aversion to tomatoes when one day the brilliant, red flesh—undoubtedly the muse of the Hot Cheetos’ laboratory—proved irresistible and opened up a new dimension of sensory appreciation, the stimulating tang cutting through the heft of garlicky, soy fried rice and egg yolk, the road to craft beer appreciation has been a long march of pint-sized steps.
In college, drinking centered on utility and thrift. A Blue Moon or any non-light beer was deemed exotic, too expensive for recurring purchase, and set one’s self up for a bloated and, quite possibly, shirt-on, afternoon of beer die. The mission was simple: find the cheapest cardboard box of thirty beers and give the fake the ol’ college try.
Fast forward a degree, a global pandemic, and a return back to the East Coast, the countdown changed from weekends left until graduation to years until retirement. This sudden expansion of time provoked a newly found sense of appreciation for the variation of present, sensuous experiences. In the landscape of days portending to monotony, the small vagaries of encountered, offline stimulation offer unexplored bounties of beauty and intrigue.
It’s a Friday night and my friends are strewn across the country. I don’t need 30 beers and I’ve got an entry-level paycheck burning a hole in my pocket. Maybe I’ll let myself look past the cheapest of the cheap and explore the fluorescent and linoleum maze a bit.
The first few times you walk solo through a liquor store as a card-carrying adult, your eyes wander the shelves, only coming into focus on the bottles and labels featured in your parents’ liquor cabinet and football commercials. Yet, a gravity compels you towards the back wall, through the aisles and their varying shades of dark and clear. Is it the current of air drawing towards the wall of refrigerator intakes? Is it the pardoned-criminal’s subconscious lapse into mens rea recalling a need to quickly escape the probing watch of the checkout clerk who will inevitably ask for ID?
Akin to the proverbial “kid in a vape store,” the collage of playful witticisms and pop-art adorned cans calling out from behind frosted glass greet you in revelry.