Beer fairy

What's a beer fairy? I'm sure you're thinking of many off-color jokes to make. No, that's not it. Once a special bottle of beer appeared on my desk at work. Immediately I knew the probable source, and reading the label confirmed it. It was a homebrew brewed by my friend Westy.

Since I've returned to Tellabs, I've been more into beer than wine. It's easier to sit down and have a beer than a bottle of wine. When you have a beer, you just open the bottle and drink it. When you have wine, usually you choose a wine that will match your meal, and then you might only drink half the bottle. The wine quickly deteriorates (oxidizes) over the next day or two. So you've paid $8 or $15 or $25 or whatever for half a bottle of wine. To enjoy a beer, on the other hand, you only need a salty snack and perhaps some poker buddies, both of which are prevalent on Thursday nights. Dennis, who hosts our weekly poker game, always has homebrew on tap, so I bring something interesting to trade.

I've vowed to drink every beer in the Best of Beer Advocate Top 100 list. I think it's important for everyone to strive for something. You need to set goals for yourself. And my goal is to drink 100 beers. I've had about 15 of them so far, which isn't bad since I've only been doing it for 6 months and many of them are hard to find.

So now instead of rare occasions, the beer fairy visits almost weekly. Westy drops off a beer or two at my desk, and I do the same for him. We get to try new beers that we might not try otherwise.

Benjamin Franklin said "Wine makes daily living easier, less hurried, with fewer tensions and more tolerance" but I believe it was Homer Simpson who said "Mmmmmm...beer". Relax, don't worry, have a homebrew.

- schneid