I live in a state where the distributors have a strangle hold on the variety of quality beers I can buy. Walk into any beer store in the state and the shelves look pretty much the same. A few years back oily pols all jumped on the "Protect the chiiiiiildren from eeeeevil beer pushers on the eeeeeevil Internet" bandwagon and passed legislation to prevent mail ordering beer.
So, while some of the more obvious choices of quality beers (Anchor, Rogue, Sierra Nevada) are available, the plethora of beer choices most of you enjoy is unavailable to me. Especially since I prefer darker beers.
Whenever I'm out of South Carolina, I stock up. And whenever friends from out of state visit, they bring me beer goodies. This has allowed me to develop a pretty healthy reputation with my local friends as "The Beer Lady". When I arrive at parties and picnics, everyone likes to have look at what I have in my cooler, and it's not for the fried chicken or potato salad. Hence my problem.
I enjoy sharing with other beer aficionados, its fun to try new beers with someone who can do more then grunt in pleasure or spit in disgust. But, what about the others, the wannabes and crowd followers; dem that ain't got a clue and would be happier with a Michlobe Light? Imagine how peevesome it is to discover a Brooklyn Brewery's Black Chocolate Stout tucked behind the other empties with just a sip or two gone.
But, oh the indignation when I suggest I'm disinclined to share! What a big meaniehead I am! I have taken to tucking a few exotic sounding but locally available beers to distract the clueless, anything by Flying Dog is great as the bottle labels look bizarre enough to be way kewl to the truly clueless.
And then I ask myself, why the hell am I buying these clueless fuckwits beer? I believe I'm going to tack a sign on the cooler with beer prices listed. I think I'm even going to enforce that with some of the local beer gentry, as some of seem to think I'm obligated to supply them with whatever beer strikes their fancy. I took a couple of bottles of my Alaskan Smoked Porter to a party last year, and someone I shared with never said think you, he just curled his lip and asked "Is that all you brought".
Penelope