Beer

I like beer. I know what you're gonna say, "A lot of men like beer, Martin!", but with me, it's a whole lot deeper. I don't mean that I spend my days sitting on the couch, watching sports, and guzzling six-packs of cheap swill for the sole purpose of making the game interesting and catching a 'buzz'. I don't like just any beer. I am in an eternal search for excellent beer, for what I feel is the best of the best, beer that has reached a pinnacle of superiority. I only drink infrequently and in moderation, and I hate to waste calories and money on inferior product. I don't drink to get drunk, but to savor and appreciate the subtleties and complexities of a well-brewed brewski, the depths and character, the texture and color. Yes, I am a beer snob.

Now, before moving to Europe, I was really looking forward to testing and tasting all the varieties of beer that they brew here. After all, beer has been brewed in Europe for centuries, millennia, they have to know what they're doing by now! Sadly, most of them don't. I have yet to find a beer that comes even close to the quality and sublime tastes of many well-brewed American beers(and please, don't think that I am speaking of Budweiser or Coors or any other mass-brewed American piss, when I refer to American beer). I can only believe that, as with many, many other aspects of European culture, they continue to do things the same way they have done them for centuries simply for the fact that 'this is the way they have done them for centuries'! Cultural inertia is a condition to be feared and loathed.

So, no luck on the beer front for me. I thought that Scotland or England might have some decent brews, but no luck there either. Guinness(I know, it's Irish)is pathetic, the taste is average, but with no depth. It's hollow. I tried at least half a dozen UK beers, and on a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate the best about a 3. Swiss beer is awful, possibly even worse than "Badweiser", which I had previously thought was the worst beer ever created, and the Swiss drink it as if they actually liked it. The main brand here in Lucerne is called Eichhoff, and I cough (get it?) if I ever have to drink it! Unfortunately, they seem to have a virtual monopoly on the dispensing of beer in this canton. You can't go anywhere around here without being overwhelmed with Eichhoff advertisements and Eichhoff-sponsored restaurants and bars. It's as if, even with a monopoly, they still have to inundate the population with advertising to get them to drink their slop. I pity the Swiss.


I will continue to search for a decent beer in Europe as long as I live here, but with less and less expectation for something truly sensational. I have yet to travel around Germany and sample what they have to offer, and they are really my last hope. Or maybe Belgium?