Tears in my beer

I knew I was dan­ger­ous­ly short of sleep when I broke down weep­ing while read­ing an arti­cle about Leinenkugel Brew­ing’s newest prod­uct, a 8.9% ABV India Pale Ale. As excit­ing as it is that this ven­er­a­ble mid­dle-of-the-road brew­ery is ven­tur­ing into some more adven­tur­ous and high­er-qual­i­ty ter­ri­to­ry, it hard­ly mer­it­ed waterworks.

When I was a boy I would always sing the old (I believe Hank Williams) song that goes “There’s a tear in my beer, ’cause I’m cry­ing for you, dear.” That was all I ever knew of the song — pre­sum­ably there are a few more lyrics — but it held a sig­nif­i­cant place in my imag­i­na­tion for many years. My grand­fa­ther would some­time sing his own ver­sion when we were work­ing togeth­er in his wood shop: “I’ve got tears in my ears, from lying on my back while I’m cry­ing for you, dear.” 

Today’s life les­son: Cry into your beer. Don’t cry about your beer.

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