(2 of 2)
Still, when beer is criticized, its aficionados close ranks. Their standards are like no others. After all, the soft drinker is only looking for sweetness and a slaked thirst. The serious drinker is seeking an altered state of consciousness.
The malt-and-hops crowd are something else: fresh from tennis or raucous cheering from the sidelines or weary from a long day's work, they seek a mild high and an infusion of cold, gratifying liquid. Their first beer is not sipped from the edge of the glass. It is poured down a parched throat, gratifying the whole body, not merely the palate.
That thirst seems to be growing more powerful with each succeeding year, and this should prove the nation's greatest froth of July. "We have to have extra shipments in the spring to handle the huge summer demand," says Chester Gardner, spokesman for the U.S. Brewers Association. "More Americans are drinking beer than ever before." Per capita consumption this year is expected to be 22 gal., a jump of almost 25% in the last decade.
This annual 4.8 billion-gallon guzzle is no longer a blue-collar thing. Women consume about 36% of the beer in the country, and the drink is replacing martinis in some of the best executive clubs. Some of the time, that beer is indeed the low-calorie brew that has given the industry new fizz. Though big companies like Miller, Schlitz and Anheuser-Busch have enthusiastically entered the light-beer market, the intense rivalry for new consumers, plus the cost of manufacturing the new brew, keeps profit margins low.
Still, for this holiday, the range of flavor, bouquet and hue remains as bountiful as the nation. In The Taster's Guide to Beer (Macmillan), Michael A. Weiner lists 187 different ales, stouts and beers, most of them available in any major city. Weiner also assures the consumer that beer is more relaxing than intoxicating (no more than 6% alcohol), less caloric than cola (144 calories per 12 oz. of lager), contains no fat and has an assortment of B vitamins.
True quaff men — and women — need no such encouragement. They know, as A.E. Housman did, that "Malt does more than Milton can to justify God's ways to man," that the July fourth doubleheader requires beer almost as much as it does bats, that picnics on the grass, family outings, earnest conversations on city park benches — all the classic holiday activities — need to be viewed through a glass lightly. There may be a paucity of manufacturers, but there is no dearth of consumers who offer three cheers for the red, white and brew.
Stefan Kanfer