There is almost nothing worse than walking into a bar and seeing 50 different "craft" beers, all of them with names like "Soft Honey Drop Lager" and "Musty Beard Odor Porter" and "Woke as F— Pale Ale" and "I Am Literally Your Moral Superior IPA," staring at you from an endless series of decorated draft towers and novelty faucet handles. When I was a child the beer list was always divided into "Import"—which in those days meant Labatt Blue, not one of those Bavarian things with more alcohol in a single pint than a bottle of Tempranillo and a name like Korvettenkapitän Hefeweissbier—and "Domestic." You always chose "Domestic."
I am supposed to be writing a piece for Another Outlet about what I call "the IPA dialectic," so I won't go into all the problems with people who pore idiotically over malt beverages as if they were annotating the Shijing except to say that I agree wholeheartedly with Anthony Bourdain, who made the obvious but important point the other day that we go to bars to "get a little bit buzzed," not to "sit there f— analyzing beer."
Instead, I'm going to list the seven best—well, what would you call them? Non-"craft" beers? Macrobrews? Whatever: they're the beers your dad and your grandpa drank. The worst thing that can be said for them is that you can't really enjoy them as part of a nutritious and satisfying meal.
7) Miller High Life
Okay, so if I had my way the "Champagne of Beers" tagline would be illegal along with "méthode champenoise." Otherwise, I'm a fan. I get that it's sort of a novelty item, not something you want to drink 15 of when the Ohio State-Wisconsin game goes into overtime. Still, on the right hot day out in a boat or doing yard work, there is nothing like cracking open one of these guys.
6) Coors Light
I'm sort of surprised this didn't end up higher on the list given the fact that it's been my go-to for college football games this year. My Saturday game total has been steadily rising since week one, from just Michigan and maybe one other Big 10 match-up to five last week, and so has my consumption of the old Silver Bullets here. One problem: you cannot let these boys do any breathing. Once you pop the top off, you have about four minutes to finish it. Max. Best pace yourself unless you're a professional.
5) Narragansett
This is only your old man's beer if you're from New England and your old man is older than mine. For the rest of us, it's the Jaws beer. I love everything about it: the packaging, the name, the images it conjures up of old-time pre-Clinton fundraiser Martha's Vineyard. I can hardly even look at the label without those harsh beautiful opening lines of Robert Lowell's "Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket" coming to mind:
A brackish reach of shoal off Madaket—The sea was still breaking violently and nightHad steamed into our North Atlantic Fleet,When the drowned sailor clutched the drag-net.…
I really can't think of anything I would rather do than slam one of these as the sun goes down in July and then maybe have a dip before bringing the boat in.
4) Pabst Blue Ribbon
PBR was my great-grandmother's brew of choice. She used to pour hers in a glass because that's the sort of lady she was. (She was also secretary to Justice Jackson at Nuremberg; her papers were recently acquired by the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills, Michigan—a great story that I hope to write one of these days.) When I consider the fact that my own fondest memory of this Wisconsin legend involve a college poker game that went on for about 16 hours and ended at 4:00 a.m. with a visit to—ugh—a Hardee's drive-through and no clear winner, I am reminded of how great the Greatest Generation really was.
3) Budweiser
I drink this only one day a week, and when I do it's usually at least six at a time. This is another beer you can't really nurse. The best way to drink Bud Heavy in a bar is with one friend you can talk to about anything. If you alternate between one of you talking and not drinking and the other one downing his bottle in five or six practiced sips, with some outdoor smoke breaks thrown in every two bottles or so, you'll have a great time.
2) Miller Lite
I know a man in Alexandria, Va., who can and does drink this like water. He refers to it as "fuel." He's right: I have seen him polish off four of them in less than ten minutes and then do manual labor for half an hour. Unlike all the preceding entries here, Miller Lite is best enjoyed in draft form. The bottles are okay, the cans are awful, but from a pitcher off the tap? Ambrosia.
1) Coors
My paternal grandfather taught me to call the little brown bottles—the only real way to drink Coors—"yellow bellies," so that's what I do. Where do I even begin? Coors is more than just the best beer in America or the perfect accompaniment to a smoke and a Flying Burrito Brothers LP and your two-in-the-morning reverie.
It is also an American institution that gave us, albeit indirectly, the Environmental Protection Agency and, but for the skullduggery of amoral congressional Democrats, universal basic income. We are lucky to have it.