So, you guys like beer? I don’t, but my disliking it is not what this column is about. Well, it kinda is. But it’s mostly about beer! That beautiful golden drink with the thick snowy top to it. Beautiful! Oh the smell of beer, it’s just great. I’ve always loved the smell, but ugh, the taste.

Tell me, do beer or booze drinkers really love the taste of that stuff or do they really love it for the feeling it creates? Maybe the two are mixed together. I’m not sure, but I do know that while beer has a great scent, to me the taste is appalling. Gaggo. Oh, I get it when a guy or not a guy wants to “crack a cold one” after mowing the lawn when it’s 95 degrees out there, or maybe at the start of a fabulous TV athletic event where the viewers clank their beer bottles together in some sort of jousting toast. Sorry folks; I guess it’s unAmerican of me, but swallowing a cold one to me is like swallowing long dead caterpillars. Of course, I’ve never swallowed those but I’m sure that’s how it tastes.

Being of the forgiving persuasion, I thought I’d look up some history of beer because everyone knows it’s an ancient beverage. Some people think the drink originated with your Egyptians or was that the Sumerians or hey, maybe even the Mesopotamians. Somehow, no one is totally sure, but someone back in those ancient BC years stirred up some sort of barley and wheat mixture, (likely a woman) and beer was born, so when they did that, everyone got wasted and realized they’d really hit on something pretty great. Thus, they immediately changed beer into a religious thing of importance which allowed them to get totally and legally hammered whenever they wanted to, and they apparently really wanted to. I mean if one is swilling the stuff of and for the gods, then it’s really more of a required sacred act, and not just an excuse to get utterly plastered by 10 a.m., if in fact they had clocks back then. I’m not sure. That’s for another column.

After a while, hops were added to the existing beer and while I’m unsure what a hop is, I think it may add flavor to beer. Whatever it is or they are, beer never lost its popularity and even women have enjoyed it over the centuries. When I was growing up, it was unseemly for a woman to have a beer in social circles, but that’s all changed and women today swill it out of the bottle just like the guys do, and no one cares. And why not?

Are you yearning to know why “beer” is called “beer”? You are? Then this is your lucky day. I looked it up and apparently way back in the waaaay back it was called “bieraz” in some country that hadn’t been named yet. The word had something to do with the fermentation or the froth on top and it eventually became “beer” in the lexicon. The stuff has been known to have been made and enjoyed in ancient times but as for me anything that’s been “fermented” kinda loses its appeal.

I am apparently in the minority because there all sorts of fests and parties all over the world that celebrate beer and are fueled by beer, so what do I know? I’m not sure if these days one still gets busted for having open containers of beer in their cars, but it’s all just plain obvious that beer is loved by most and has been adored for the Millennium, so it’s obvious it ain’t going anywhere! However, these new breweries that make “boutique beers” by stirring in kumquats, strawberries, pomegranates, cantaloupe and blueberries, well the very thought of that makes my guts lurch a bit.

But hey, this is still America and people can do what they wish as long as no one gets hurt. If people wish to blend fruit salads into their brewskis, who am I to judge? After all, I like a large glob of vanilla ice cream to float around in my jug of Coke, and to some that’s really gross. “To each according to his needs” was said by Karl Max back in 1875. I wonder if he was drinking beer when he said that.

LC Van Savage is a Brunswick writer.