Is there anything better than the age old custom of throwing some beef on a fire while you soak up some suds? Do you remember when beer was beer? It wasn’t fancy. Water, malt, hops and yeast.

Seasonal brews like light summer ales can get you just as sloshed. After you down a couple, you kind of forget about the fact that artisans tediously crafted it for your premium top shelf experience.

Either we’ve grown up as beer drinkers or the marketers are having a field day by the fact that the Sam Adams Brewery is pairing a special cut of steak with their beers. As they mention in the website, ‘The upfront malt flavor matches the caramelized flavors in the steak perfectly, while the hops lift some of the heaviness’. OK, I figure the more you imbibe the lighter you get anyway.

But the ‘hops lift some of the Heaviness’…where did they get this language; from the tasting descriptor of a snooty French wine?

The charming yet complex depth of this bottle leads to an approachable young fruity and yet aggressively robust structure. It is toasty yet thin; round and sassy yet reticent to reveal to the palate. Its opulent yet mellow and oaky tannins while blah blah blah.

Hey would you pass the pickled eggs?

Coming to America from Europe are specialty beers like smoked beer, herb/spice beer and fruit and vegetable beer. Pardon me but I want a drink, not my vitamin supplement.

There’s organic beer, which is not made with insecticides, herbicides and fungicides but doesn’t the brewing process and the alcohol kill that stuff anyway?

Some beer has really gone upscale…… until it turns to gas.

There’s nothing like a hint of raspberry wheat and a back mouth taste of winter barley topped off by the feeling one gets as an excess of gas builds up and heads north through the alimentary canal.

Not unlike a barge making its ponderous way through the gates of the Erie Canal, this gas buildup craves life on the outside.

Oh anyone can burp, but in that heady moment a true aficionado wants more. Therein lies a great, and for the most part, untapped art, known as burp talking.

More easily understood than the Navaho code talkers of WW II, it does a beer drinker proud and could evoke gales of laughter from everyone with a true sophomoric sense of humor. It lends itself to words with a preponderance of vowels which, I’m told, are easier to get out. Try it at your next BBQ.