Another Confession

Last Saturday I had a beer—my very first bottle of beer.

I know that this fact is hard to believe, but the truth is that I have never liked beer. And it was not for the lack of trying. I have tasted other peoples’ beers. I have ordered shot size samplers at restaurants. I have gone to beer tastings at breweries. All of those beers smelled good, but tasted bad to me.

I have more or less given up, and assumed that, just like my mother, I simply do not like any beer. That was until a few months ago, when I tried a Japanese white ale at a party. At last there was the beer I actually enjoyed drinking as well as smelling.

So last Saturday, when we went to have dinner at The Publick House in Brookline, famous for their enormous beer selection, I decided that I was finally ready to have a beer. The restaurant carried several Belgian white ales, and Nick picked Wittekerke for me. So there it was—my first beer, ordered specifically for me, consumed and enjoyed entirely by me.