Clowning IPAs

I’m not quite sure exactly how and why this sensation(?) happened, but I’ll do my best to put it into clear terms, starting with a story.
I don’t think teenage me ever thought I would be as avid of a drinker as I am today. I had my first full beer when I was maybe 16, and it was with my dad. I spent some time later believing I was “straightedge” and refrained from smoking weed or drinking alcohol (thankfully I didn’t get a stupid tattoo, at least), but got more into parties and all that shit as a senior in high school. We were teenagers, so we weren’t picky. Miller Lite was practically 17-year-old scotch to us. So for a few months I would indulge at the occasional party, and on some weekends my dad would let me have a skunky Bud Light Lime with dinner (those were huge back then, but everyone kind of figured out they’re just lazy Coronas).
On a fateful weekend night in February, I went to a friend’s house for a little shindig. Maybe a dozen people or so, and most of them were actually a year or two younger than I was, and even less experienced at partying. As a result of that, I was Beer Pong Genghis Khan that night, and my teammate and I probably downed ten beers apiece. Ten cheap beers that were sitting in crusty, used red plastic cups before being consumed. Cheap beers that, on a mostly empty stomach, weren’t able to be kept down for very long. In a daze, I ran to the bathroom and I puked my guts out. It was terrifying and liberating all at once. I thought nothing of it, it was a mostly fun evening and something that I still remember to this day. Then about a week later I tried drinking a beer at home right before dinner and it immediately came back up, thankfully without any witnesses.
I ended up dumping that beer out, knowing that if I tried to choke the rest down while eating with my family I would have the same result. I just wasn’t feeling well, I said to myself. Bud Light Lime was pretty gross anyway, I wasn’t exactly missing out. But then it happened again about a month later at another friend’s house. This dude’s stepdad brewed his own beer Hank Schrader-style, and it was *normally* delicious. Picture a better version of Shock Top’s Raspberry Wheat. But I couldn’t do it, I developed a gag reflex. I was embarrassed. My friend was delighted to take mine and have a coveted Second Beer With Dinner.
My problem came to a head a month later on Prom Night, which was already disastrous due to the company that was kept. After 45 minutes of pretending to be interested, the small group of people I was with dipped out for more beer pong at a small house party, this time outdoors in a dirt yard with fucking Rolling Rock. If you’ve never had Rolling Rock, it essentially tastes like thrown up beer with a spoonful of vinegar added to it. I made it through one game before literally puking in this girl’s yard, whom I had never met. I was embarrassed, my date was mortified, but the girl hosting the party was super kind and gracious. She made me a vodka lemonade, and that’s pretty much when I decided that beer was for chumps. Fuck your goofy IPA’s, hipsters.
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In the ensuing years, that mantra got flipped on its head, slowly but surely. Drinking exclusively hard liquor got too expensive and arduous, so I switched to, ugh, Bud Light Straw-ber-itas and Smirnoff Ice. I was a diabetic 19-year-old combining the two biggest poisons I could find, alcohol and sugar, while looking like a bitchy step-mother in the process.
Eventually those vile concoctions got cast aside to make way for the next big trend; CIDERS. Hell yeah, brother. The amber liquid in my bottle made it seem like I was drinking real beer! I was awash in masculine glory. Plus I was really into Jameson (which, you know, still applies to me today), and dropping a shot of that into an Angry Orchard was a one-way ticket to Smackedville. I was content with ciders for another year or so, until those got too sweet, similarly to the Ritas. I can’t say when or how it happened, but before I knew it I was drinking beer again. Lighter stuff like Summer Shandy’s and Blue Moon at first, but then eventually Lagunitas, then Sierra Nevada’s Torpedo, then really strong stuff like Old Rasputin (9% ABV, motherfucker).
Which brings me to now, where my opinion of IPAs has come full circle. Once I stepped away from ciders and back into the world of beer drinking, I was 100% a snob about it. I scoffed haughtily at domestics, and I sneered at your beer’s low IBU. I’ve uttered the phrase “did you know Guinness has the same alcohol content as Bud Light?” probably four hundred times. It took me several years to *mostly* stop caring about all that, but there are a few caveats.
One, if you’re at a bar, I recommend getting a higher-end beer, at least for your first drink. Unless there’s an excellent deal going on for domestics, or you’re with a group and a pitcher is more logical, getting a craft beer will not cost you significantly more money than a simpler one, and you’ll enjoy a better product. If a pint of a local brew that you might not even be able to buy in stores is $6 and a Coors Light is $4.50, why not live a little, you know? It’s just a buck-fifty. This obviously changes if you’re at the store, where Humperdink’s Super Dope and Chill Microbrew is $20 for a sixer and you can get a case of Coors for the same price. But in small portions, it makes sense to try something new, in my opinion.
Two, I still enjoy the taste of most IPAs, but man do they come with baggage now. Like wearing Supreme clothing, or being a Rick and Morty fan, drinking an IPA opens the doors for perceptions to be made about you. You might seem pretentious, or overly concerned about your masculinity. Shit, my little anecdote I just told proves BOTH of those things. Most IPAs also taste very similar anyway, and their “coolness” went out the window the time I heard a MAGA guy ask the bartender “what are some good IPAs, hun?” But just like I now believe you should be allowed to enjoy whatever you’re drinking (or doing in general, for that matter), I think that IPA-drinkers should be included in that argument. Just, like, don’t be a dick about it.
