I like beer and like the fact that there are lots of kinds. Today we have more breweries than ever in the U.S.
I didn’t know it at the time, but I evidently started drinking beer at the low point of breweries in the U.S. Wisconsin still had a few. We had Point Brewery where I went to school, Leinenkugel in Chippewa Falls, Heileman’s Old Style in Lacrosse & Huber in Monroe, plus the bigger brewers like Pabst & Schlitz. I think they are all gone now or owned by others.
I remember we used to make a big deal about getting Coors. It was not sold far from Colorado because it was not pasteurized and needed to be kept cold. Coors was also one of the first to use recyclable aluminum cans. We thought it was cool that you could crush the soft can in one hand. Steel cans were not so easy. They even made a movie, “Smokey and the Bandit,” about bringing Coors east. Now you can get Coors everywhere. I still like it but only during the day. I usually take a couple cans when I do work on the tree farm. It is very refreshing on a hot day but a little to light to sit and drink in the evening.
Anyway, it is good to see that there is more variety, but it does make life complicated. In the old days, there were lots of types of beer, but they were local. You had to travel to get them. Today they are all or mostly all available in your local liquor store. In some ways that ruins the fun. It was nice to have some things you had to travel to get or could bring back from a trip.