Beer or Cocktail.

I voted beer because there’s one for both seasons, heat or cold. Heat, Miller Lite. Cold, Boulevard Pale Ale.

I’ll buy and drink blended scotch, but I much prefer the Speyside single malts: Aberlour, Balvenire, Glennroths, Oban, an 18 or older Macallan, etc. The wife is gone for a week, so it might be time to get a nice single malt. For medicinal purposes, of course.

 

Mine wasn’t quite that permissive, but my grandpa and I were drinking beers together after I turned 18. “If you’re old enough to fight and die, you’re old enough to drink.”

When my kids were in their late teens, I told them they could drink in my house under Québec rules. “You can drink when you’re 18, but you have to ask for it in French.” Didn’t take long for my oldest kid to waltz in from college and ask, “pourrais-je avoir une bière, s'il vous plaît?”

 

My first beer was one of my dad's I snatched from the basement, snuck down into the field, and sipped by the creek one summer day.
I've been drinking beer beside bodies of water ever since.

 

Time, place and what you want it to do have to be a factor.

Watching football… lager.
Beer festival… IPA in smaller cups.
After a good dinner… cocktail.
Almost never… stout.

 

Thankfully, I have some great go-to bars that make excellent cocktails. I love a good Old Fashioned, a mojito. I'll go over to my old boss's house for a night of margaritas about once a month.

I can only drink about one beer a night. I drink slowly, it's very filling. I usually go with wheat beers or ciders, but love a good stout or porter in the winter.

 

A cooler with ice cold cans is a requirement when bow fishing or running lines.

 

I love mojitos with fresh mint and fresh lime; I love saying “mojito” too.

 

Strictly a beer guy, the next glass of wine I have will be my first one. I stay clear of the hard stuff after a couple dreadful experiences taught me it wasn't for me.

I like dark beers and red ales in the fall and winter and since I rarely go out anymore stick with my long-time go tos at home, Labatt 50, Molson Export and OV.

 

For most of my life, I would have said beer. I still love beer, but in the last couple of years, I've started to get filled up more quickly so I feel bloated if I have more than one. And I've gotten fatigued by the increasing IPA dominance of the beer scene. Every bar with a big beer selection or every beer store I go into is full of shelves and shelves of indistinguishable hazy IPAs. There's no longer room for good Belgian dubbels and tripels and good, solid English style pale ales (or traditional well-balanced English IPAs for that matter, like Samuel Smith's India Ale, which are brewed in the original spirit of the style). I'll still take a beer with my meal over anything else. But if I'm just going out for drinks, if I'm honest with myself, I now prefer a good cocktail. And if I'm having a drink at home to wind down, I'm more likely to have a bourbon or scotch. I don't fill up as much and I feel better the next day.

 

After a hot day of yard work, there's nothing better than a cold beer in the shower.

Aside from that, it's mostly cocktails in our house. I rarely, rarely drink if we go out to dinner. I'm pretty much a lightweight, so I'm not taking any chances driving home.

My wife makes a really good Old Fashioned, and she created a drink that's really good in the summer, and it involves grapefruit vodka, lime simple syrup and ginger beer, all over crushed ice. It's really good.

 

I have found I am not capable of operating my grill or smoker without a beer in my left hand.

It just doesn't work.

 

I felt the same way until I had to help during a school field trip for 6th graders. I got assigned to grill hot dogs. I told one of the other parents that I'd never done this without beer, I don't know if I can do it. I struggled through, but got it done.