The great thing about being a hoarder, and never throwing anything away, is that you are often nostalgically surprised when you pull something out of a box you’ve had stored in the attic for 20-years.
Take this Farfrompüken t-shirt I discovered this morning. This thing brings back memories. Memories such as waking-up under a freeway overpass in a shopping cart and wondering at what point during the previous night I agreed to wearing a “Picasso-deranged” version of clown makeup.
It’s funny how, when you’re in your early twenties, spending two hours in the imported beer section at Cork-n-Bottle was not only acceptable, but crucial! Every label had to be read in order to guarantee you were getting the most alcohol content possible while still maintaining some sort of traditional, non-threatening ingredients. “Now With Extra Turpentine!” is probably a clue you should try something else.
Once you hit thirty, buying beer is much less exciting — oh, you’ll drink more — but spending more than 10-seconds choosing a beer is pretty much a thing of the past. I spent most of my life living in the city of beer (well, it used to be, anyway): Cincinnati. If you live here, it’s a written law that you must drink a Cincinnati beer; otherwise, I’m pretty sure it is legal for citizens to dress you up in a Pittsburgh Steelers uniform and let you loose in a frozen, but moderately trafficked, section of the state (Cincinnatians will immediately recognize this as a fate much worse than death). The good news, though, is that nearly every small town has it’s own brewery, so you can always find something you like.
My favorite personal favorite was Little Kings from the old Shoenling brewery, in those tiny, short green bottles. I’ve had many exciting adventures fueled by Little Kings — sometimes mixing such unrelated themes as lumberjacking and the abuse of fireworks.
By the time you get to be forty-years-old you drink almost the same amount of beer you did in your thirties, but the beer-induced adventures consist of you watching your drunk, thirty-something friends experience their alcohol-fueled adventures. When you’re forty, climbing trees in 10-below zero temperatures doesn’t sound like the greatest idea ever anymore — but, watching your inebriated buddies do it can be very entertaining.
Now that I’m almost fifty, I just don’t get that excited about beer anymore. I might have one or two if I go out to a pizza place or something, and you can’t even get Little Kings here anymore. If I do order a beer it’s usually Dos Equis — not because it tastes the best, but because that’s what the most interesting man in the world prefers. 
Stay thirsty, my friends…
Little Kings (Photo credit: My Local Watering Hole)
Related articles
- Beer Tasting Class (the2fatfoodies.wordpress.com)
Who The Fuck Is Brad? 