With the big craft beer boom showing some staying power, it is far easier to match a brew to your personal style and mood. When I was in college, the only way to do this was to be incredibly boring and predictable.
If that didn’t work, some of us would whip dandy little home-brews for our friends – or at least the ones who liked their beer chewy and to double as a mild hallucinogenic. These days, the options for those of us who want to pair a beer with our personality, our food, or our company has rather widened. You can find a perfect match even if you are obnoxious as hell!
The trouble is that sometimes we aren’t sure what our beer is saying about us.
To wit: the 4717 guide to what your holiday beer choice says about you:
Stouts & Scotch Ale: You are a traditionalist.
German Dunkels: See above.
Lambic: See above, only more so.
Sour Lambic: You’re mad at your family and/or friends.
Double IPA: …and the only way to deal with them is to get roaring drunk.
Pumpkin Spice Beer: You’re a lover not a fighter – this stuff is supposed to be an aphrodisiac.
Belgian Abbey Ale: No, it doesn’t count as going to church, and it certainly will not absolve you of your pumpkin beer fueled escapades.
Saison/Bier de Garde: You may not be salt of the earth, but you have a vague notion that your food did come from a farm and that is a good thing. Or…Your Aunt Pidge is bringing the turkey and she always dries the thing out like she’s making jerky.
Extra Special Bitter: Your family reads a lot of Dickens this time of year. Someone you know is way into Downton Abbey, possibly you.
Traditional German Lager: If you thought – even for a second – that you had the gams to pull of Lederhosen, you’d do it.
Czech Pils: You read Kafka. The Metamorphosis hit a little too close to home.
Witbier: You fancy that your soul is also unfiltered and cloudy. To illustrate this you’re going to pronounce it whitbeir and really lay that wh sound, which will annoy assembled company in a way they can’t quite place. They’ll naturally assume that you read Kafka.
Special Belge: The obvious “special bulge” pun was too good to pass. Aunt Pidge will be mightily offended.
Kölsch: That “experiment” with triple hops and seaweed IPA down at the local gastro-brew-pub was a little much for you. So was the 115 pound brewsnob who sneered at you for "not getting it." No one is going to accuse you of reading Kafka.
IPA: It’s 74 degrees at Christmas, and you’ve come to a peaceful resignation with global warming.
American Pale Ale: It’s 74 degrees at Christmas, and you’ve come to a patriotic peaceful resignation with global warming.
Budweiser: Your beer doesn't have much to say about you.
Hard Cider: You are Aunt Pidge.