Sometimes I feel like all this talk that rings of “I’m not beer snob, I’m just a beer geek, is a subtly constructed comfort lie meant to ease the conscience of the typical beer enthusiast.  Seriously…I felt like I had to explain myself recently when, while out with some beer geek friends I ordered a PILSNER a brewed by a CRAFT BREWER.  The surprised looks revealed the inner thought:

Whoa, whoa, whoa, Nate…a Pilsner?  We only drink heavily flavored and dark beers at this table….couldn’t you at least have found an Imperial Pilsner or Wheat Beer on the menu?

We try to pass ourselves off as nerds rather than the dreaded snob we associate with the wine culture, but if we were honest with ourselves, we hold the same type of notions, perhaps we are just a little jovial or dressed down about it.  You know, the wine snob might where a tuxedo while scoffing at the notion of somebody bringing Yellow Tail to a tasting, while we would scoff at somebody bringing Stella Artois to a tasting while wearing blue jeans and a t-shirt.

But hey is a little bit of snobbery a bad thing?

What I want to know is, what is your guilty pleasure?  (I’m talking about beer…I don’t want to hear that you have every Barbara Streisand album on you iPod).   Do you secretly stash a Mickey’s in the back of your fridge, or do you sneak away for a Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy after having mowed the yard?

Go ahead, enter the Thank Heaven for Beer confessional…just don’t expect any pardon.  I’ll go first:

Against all beer geekery/snobbery, I occasionally will pick up a sixer of Michelob’s  Amber Bock.  Yes, I am aware that the demigods over at BeerAdvocate only gave it a “C” rating.  Yes, I am aware the the beer geek Satan–InBev/Anheuser-Busc–is the brains behind this brew.   But hear me out…First off, the flavor isn’t repulsive…in fact, it’s not that bad.  The beer tastes better to me than most because I can distinctly remember that this beer, Amber Bock, was the beer I drank on the night that my wife and I gave into our passions and conceived our first son Malachi.  No, we weren’t drunk.  The flavor is so engraved in my head, that at one sip and I am reminded of that evening.

So there you have it.

What’s your Guilty Beer Pleasure???