Ok, ok. I confess. I’ve never been a beer lover. I know that makes me ”un-American” but usually it was all I could do to down an entire glass. Perhaps it was because I didn’t touch alcohol until I was in my 30’s (you might say I was raised in a conservative family - and fully bought into it for three decades). Since I went down that slippery slope to Hell, my drink of choice has been primarily Captain Morgan’s and coke with Vodka and Tonic as a close second the last few years. I’ve always gotten along fine with a wide variety of mixed drinks. They suit me fine and that is what I order when I’m out and have quite a wide collection of hard liquor at home. Along the way I even mostly avoided wine, but marrying a Napa Valley gal and eventually moving to the Valley, I have become more acquainted with it and even like some of it. Wine tasting events have been great fun. However, I continued to shun beer, having probably had less than ten beers during the last twenty years.

Today Sharlet and I toured the [1] Anchor Steam Brewery, just a couple blocks from where we are currently house sitting in San Francisco’s Potrero Hills. Two years ago we toured Guinness in Ireland and I can’t say their sample afterward did anything to make me more interested in beer. I figured this tour would be an interesting deviation from our regular schedule but didn’t expect any different outcome. Boy was I in for a surprise. Each of the five beers we tried we liked. Not just tolerated, but actually liked. For the first time in my life I’m actually wanting to go out and buy some beer!

Anchor Brewery has all of one brewery and has a relatively small production run with old school methods. However, I used to live in Portland, OR, where microbreweries abound, yet I never tasted a beer there that I cared for. Ok, maybe that was because I would like as not have hard cider or my good old rum and coke when I went to a bar with friends instead of trying the local brews.

Now, I can’t say that a connoisseur of beer would necessarily rank Anchor at the top of the beer pile, but I can say that I finally found something that I like and I’ll actually buy and enjoy. I have no doubt it is at least partly due to their care in production. Quite possibly my palet has adjusted over the years that the timing was right for me to find a beer that I enjoyed and admittedly have noticed myself disliking beer less and less. This time, however, I have moved from disliking it less to actually liking it. Now when I’m out and about I’ll be asking if they have any “Anchor” brews.

Next ‘ya know I’ll be eating pizza and watching football. Did I mention the slippery slope?