Here's to Beer! The cause of and solution to all of life's problems!

Well Happy Pre-Thanksgiving everybody.  I'm writing this post a bus, which is the worst form of transportation ever devised.  I was going to say "devised by man" but this is clearly the devil's work.  Thanksgiving is an interesting holiday in that you get together to eat and drink with family and friends at a holiday whose history and iconography might be the most racist things on earth.  The whole "the Indians got together with the Pilgrims and had themselves a nice dinner where they worked things out peacefully" story might be the most offensive whitewashing of a genocide ever.  Seriously.  To make an EXTREMELY APT analogy, this would be like if we had a holiday celebrating that time when all of the slaves and slave-masters got together for a big meal and peacefully worked out their differences.  I know you're going to say, "Ryan, no one pays attention to that story anymore.  Now its just a day about giving thanks.  You have a problem being thankful?"  To you I say: cut the shit.  First, that racist iconography is everywhere.  Liz once made a similar point to me, and then she went out and bought dish towels with turkeys wearing those Pilgrim hats with buckles on them.  So now, every time they are out, I get to point at them and say, "I am right!  I am always right!  This racist iconography is so seeped into our culture that even you, Liz, you who recognizes that, yeah that story is pretty racist, has purchased and displayed items bearing that racist iconography!"  I anxiously await my Husband of the Year Award.

Second, I am perfectly fine with giving thanks.  I love being thankful.  Gratitude is one of the best 'tudes there is, probably right behind Latitude and ahead of Platitude.  I am all for family and friends and hanging out and counting your blessings.  But let's go ahead and move it to day that doesn't directly whitewash the greatest American genocide.  I think a helpful way to think about this is if you were an American Indian, how would you feel about the Thanksgiving day story?  Probably not too thankful.

But in the non-racist spirit of the holiday, I'd like to take a moment and discuss some beer things I am thankful for (for which I am thankful, that is): The 21st Amendment.  The fact that I can get great beers from all over the world right in my hometown.  The fact that I can go all over the world and find beers that I can't get in my home town.  Barleywines.  Yuengling's storage caves.  That my grandma knows what a growler is.  The lack of a noticeable (meaningful) backlash to "extreme" beers.  Ceasar Romero from Unibroue.  The internet (someone write a phd dissertation on the internet as propagating the craft beer movement).  That I can get a Sam Adams Chocolate Stout at the corner bodega in my West Indian Brooklyn neighborhood.  Michigan as a Top 5 beer state.  That people with more stones than me quit their jobs office jobs to start brewing full time.  Tap handles.  Arizona's track record of producing great floral IPAs.  That my wife likes beer.  Beer as a universal currency.  That Sudan has a brewery.  Holiday ales.  That there was something called a "Beer Summit."  21st Amendment's cans.  That Obama has been to Bethlehem Brew Works.  Ommegang's commitment to Belgian ales.  That its the beverage of choice for sporting events.  That New York State gave Brooklyn Brewery serious cash to expand their brewery. That I accidentally stumbled upon that super delicious Ommegang Adoration listed below while waiting in line to buy other beer.  That America is the best beer country in the entire world.  And I'm deadly serious about that.

Add what you're thankful for in the comments.  I would like to know!

Tuesday: Hebrew Bittersweet Lenny's R.I.P.A., Erdinger Hefe-Weizen Dark
Monday: Duchess de Bourgogne
Sunday: Ommegang Adoration Special Winter Ale, Yuengling Premium, Ommegang Three Philosophers