Afraid of the Dark

Thanks to all who gave advice for my upcoming trip. Everything seems to be in order (except, maybe, for the weather). I think I've become a bit more agoraphobic as I age. Generally, what I look forward to in lieu of a real vacation, is just having a night where I have no obligations the next morning, and I can have some relax-time with some good beer and something to read or watch on TV (the wonderful, 6-month Minnesota winter only enables my tendencies, which I am thankful for). Why venture out into the dark when I know I've got all the things I like at home? Well, man does not live by bread alone, he also needs beer and some r&r, as I believe the saying goes.  So I venture out into the dark. And now that I'm past the anxiety-ridden planning stage of the trip, I'm very excited and grateful to have it.

Which has had me thinking* about beer, Irish beer, and dark beer.

"I don't drink dark beer". I can't say how many times I've heard someone say this. We probably all have.  I can't help but wonder where this instinct comes from. It's usually said by someone who "doesn't like beer" or simply doesn't enjoy it all that much. People whose tastes have been corrupted by terrible beer. But it really makes me wonder, why don't these people drink dark beer? Is it just a general assumption that dark beer will be heavy, thick, and alcoholic, like people seem to assume, or is it based on a specific bad experience at the hands of [the most ubiquitous dark beer in the world] Guinness? I wonder. Especially since Guinness was one of my gateway beers in the embryonic stages of my beer snobbery. Which is to say, it was one of the first non-lager beers I ever had, and which I enjoyed, and which will probably always cause me to have some nostalgia for it, regardless of what the company has probably done to stifle beer in far-off parts of the globe.

That's a bit of a ramble. Let's bring on home with a simple question: why do you think some "don't drink dark beer"? Pride, prejudice, or preference?







*insert crappy joke about me thinking here