Ale in the Afternoon

I am passionate about wine, and will drink it to the end of days, however long they may be. Beer, however, I will drink on more than a few afternoons. I don't claim to know much about it. I know I like Chimay, Duvel, and Leffe, Spaten dark and Guinness. I am partial to ales, but lagers taste good to me, too. I even remember the first time I tasted beer and hated it, mistakenly assuming for years that all beer tasted like watered down horse pee (aka Budweiser). But I eventually found my way. I have since discovered that my taste for beers has a peculiar time frame in which it dictates enjoyment, and that beers are associated with certain people and emotions. First, I can only drink beer in the afternoon, because it is best in daylight, with or without food. I don't know the exact reason for this, but I believe it must be partly because I have reserved the night for that sacred beverage, wine. And I wouldn't want a beer with my dinner. I most assuredly would with lunch, though. There are calories to consider, yes, but that is a trifling matter to be worried about by the sort of women who care about whether their bras match their panties. I can't be bothered by these details.

I associate dark porters with a friend from college, and wheat beers with my old apartment on Normal Avenue. I associate pale beers with my father, together with light yellow flowers. This is the color beer he most often drank when he was living. Once, at age seven, he sent me a bunch of yellow flowers to cheer me up when my dog died, and I still have the little card that came with them, found inside a book years later. It had a sketch of yellow roses on it. Just wanted to cheer up my little girl. I love you, Daddy.

In high school he again sent me a bouquet of yellow flowers, which I dried and pressed into a book. (I have a habit of storing remembrances inside books, along with writer's guild certificates and photographs). Ten years later, I saved the yellow roses from his funeral and pressed them into the same pages. I could have sworn they gave off the faintest scent of polished wood and lager.

If my father were alive, he would visit me here in Brooklyn and we would walk down to the little German place I've grown fond of. He would order a light Spaten in a boot, and I would have an Optimator. Then we would sample the various sausages, and on our second round I would pull out the little card with the picture of the yellow flowers and show him how I'd saved it all these years. He would take it from my hand and laugh out loud - a big boisterous laugh - and we would talk about my childhood pet, Sandy. Later, I would show him the pressed flowers I'd saved, and we'd sort through the photographs and memories late into the day. We might even, should the mood hit us, toast to life's surprises over a Trappist. At least that's the way I imagine it would be.

You see, I love wine. But sometimes, it's good to have an ale in the afternoon.