I cut my alcoholic teeth on a half-bottle of schnapps in my early teens, and because of the nausea and headaches that came after I downed it like soda, I convinced myself to avoid alcohol for a long time. In my early twenties, I left my hometown in Georgia for a year abroad in northeast England, and while there my affliction and affinity with alcohol were roughly honed and often inescapable for my friends and the general public. At home the beers I'd tried were mostly the light lagers produced by the kings of quantity in Milwaukee and St. Louis. These didn't do much for me, but they got me over the first hurdle in learning what beers was all about.
In England I met some people who really liked to drink and, well, the hobby was contagious. In the beginning I latched precariously onto lightweight lagers similar to what I'd been introduced to in the US. Kronenbourg was the draft of choice at most bars and clubs. Fosters was often the cheaper option, but it's from Australia, the only place to out-redneck Alabama--fucking bogans! Often I'd end up the only guy in a gaggle of girls hitting the bars for a pitcher of kool-aid and liquor, so I'd be the lone beer drinker in the group, which led me to branch out from what I'd been drinking when out with the lads. First came Belgium's most popular export, Stella Artois--or as an old co-worker dubbed it, Le Wife-beater Belgique--a pilsner that that
