Beer: It Ain't Beer

The Bottom Line: It ain't beer.

We Americans put some really stupid stuff into our beer. We take out some really great stuff from our beer. We don't really deserve to call what we make and drink beer. We pretend we're drinking soft drinks. Where will it end?

We Americans put some really stupid stuff into our beer. That's why it ain't beer. If you plop a turd into a punch bowl, do you still consider the punch bowl's contents punch? Mmmm, poo-nch. Heck, no. But here we are, diluting good golden, sun-ripened heartland barley malt with corn and rice, cooking it up and calling the derivative beer.

The Germans knew we'd try to bastardize beer 500 years ago. In an effort to avert potential disaster, they wrote up the German Purity Law (in thick-tongued English, after a tipping a few back, pronounced "Reinheitsgebot") delineating barley, hops and water as the only possible ingredients used in the brewing of beer. I think it's because they'd tasted Sake and Moonshine and didn't want any parallel Teutonic futures to include beer-mutations made from rice or corn products. Forward-looking race, those Germans.
Anyway, barley, hops and water. That's beer. Since the Germans of 1516 didn't know anything about microorganisms, we give everyone a pass and include yeast in a modern listing of ingredients. Barley, hops, yeast and water, okay. But that's where it has to end! The Germans bombed and bombed and bombed the English during WWII for thumbing their reddened noses at the Reinheitsgebot with their upraised pints of Oatmeal stout. But did the English get the message? Heck no.

And neither did we, obviously. I mean, don't expect me to even go into how we Americans get really, really stupid and add peaches, limes, lemons, raspberry extracts, chili peppers and even Cheerios to our beers. That's not beer! You don't have to have read the Reinheitsgebot to know that nothing good can come of such unholy experimentation.
How long can we show such a blatant disregard for iron German law? It's only a matter of time before the Germans come for us. And we'll have no one to blame but ourselves for the carnage.
Besides, I think the Mexicans are behind it. I think they're trying to start some trouble between America and Germany, then woosh swoop in over our border and reclaim all that land they lost at the Alamo. And then some. The first time someone handed me a Mexican beer with a slice of lime stuffed into the bottle's mouth, I figured that the feller was trying to save me. You know, don't drink the water, and all that. I had no idea he was serious. But now I know what a deadly serious Fifth Columnist he was.

We Americans take out some really great stuff from our beers. Stuff like nutrition, flavor, and the yeast.
Beer is supposed to be a living thing - you know, little living yeasties consuming malt sugars and peeing out alcohol and tooting Co2. That's fermentation, the beer-making process. Open your mouth; taste; swallow water, malt, hops, yeast, peed alcohol; belch tooted Co2. That's intoxication, the beer-drinking process. At least in the countries where people drink real beer.

Here in America, brewing our proprietary beers is not so simple. We have to work to extract all the life from the stuff. Sure, we force the yeast to eat those corn/rice additives and still do their fermentation in lively fashion, but then what? Run the derivative through a filter and strain out the yeast. After all their hard work, is that all the thanks they get? Sure! Next, spin the concoction down in a centrifuge and separate the liquid from the color and substance. Fine! Oh, and then pasteurize the remainder to neutralize any elements left that even remotely show signs of life. Great!
Then, insult to injury, why not sticker the bottle with a Born-On dated label to create the illusion that it's a fresh and living thing instead of the flavorless, bodiless, lifeless corpse of a beer? Because that's what it is, I guarantee it.

As far as the beer-drinking process in America is concerned, the only ones who really get it are the high-school and college students. They're young. They don't appreciate what the breweries had to accomplish to remove the flavor and life from their beers. They only know that it shouldn't come in contact with their tastebuds, so they, in their youthful exuberance and creativity, build beer bongs, shotguns and funnels. And the flow continues.

But it's not beer that's flowing!

Let's hold up for a minute. We don't really even deserve to call what we make and drink beer. We can't in good conscience call this American corn/rice/malt derivative-beverage beer! I suggest that we hereafter use "corn/rice/malt derivative beer-alternative-beverage" to avoid any misrepresentation. We're drinking corn/rice/malt derivative beer-alternative-beverages! That's why it ain't beer.

We add all this other stuff, we drain the life from it. It's no wonder we Americans pretend we're drinking soft drinks when we're sipping one of our corn/rice/malt derivative beer-alternative-beverages.
I mean, which came first? Lite beer, or diet Soda? Weren't they born-on the same date? Do you really think, oh smug American man with that Coors Light in your hand, that the Germans are going to be drinking light Bier as they marshal their strength for a sudden retributory strike at the heart of America? I don't think so! Don't you know what damage you're doing to the international prestige of The Home Of The Brave? Isn't it bad enough that Aussies snigger contemptuously and the Irish shoot ale from their noses when they talk about how insubstantial our regular corn/rice/malt derivative beer-alternative-beverages are? And yet you have the impudence to purchase a lightened version?
It's people like you who weaken America in the eyes of the world and make America a laughingstock to those who we would hope to lead. OH, sure! You didn't make America a laughingstock; Bill Clinton was to blame for that. Riiiight. Pointing fingers won't deflect attention from that pathetic can of mostly-water you're holding, son.

How twisted, emasculated and weak! How far we have fallen! And here is the ultimate sign that the apocalypse is upon us: the latest American craze is to paint and sugar corn/rice/malt derivative beer-alternative-beverages into lemonade or orangeade lookalikes; or to sweeten them up while simultaneously taking all the coloring and body out to simulate an alcoholic Seven-Up. It's the end of the world as we know it, surely.
But this final step into absurdity might actually be a hopeful, healthy step in the direction of healing. We may snap out of our inebriation to look with eyes that truly see upon that underachieving glass of liquid before us. We may awaken and avert certain destruction if we're actually no longer pretending that we're really drinking beer.

'Cause we ain't.