How to get your lady to like beer: PART I

POLITICALLY CORRECT PREFACE:  In Ancient times, women were the brewers of the family while the men threw some spears and scratched their loin cloths.  Women haven't always been beer-averse, but  throughout history, beer has been associated more with masculinity while wine and fruit cocktails have been viewed as more feminine.  Despite major breweries such as Lazy Magnolia now being led my women, this slowly changing perception persists, and I now plan to capitalize on it.

Rosy the Riveter was the original bad ass lady beer drinker

Gentlemen, would you like to go out with your girlfriend, wife, fiancee (hopefully not all three at once) and enjoy some great beers together, but can't because she hates the taste?  Well I'm here today to tell you it is possible to train your lady to like beer.  It worked on my girlfriend, and it will surely work on yours given a little patience and persistence.

The goal of the program is to gently ease your yaya pants sister from more fruity beers to basic beers and eventually into hardcore hoppy, malty, and high grav beers such as imperial IPAs, Russian stouts, and strong Belgians. Without further ado, let's get drinking.

STEP 1 Fruity Beers (e.g. Lambics and other Fruits)

In our PC Preface, we somewhat offensively suggested that women predominantly like wine and fruity cocktails.  In my life experience this assumption holds to be empirically flawless, which is why we must begin with beers that include fruit.  It's very important that you do not include ciders or meads in the beginning as they are technically wines and not beers.

In this step we are going to gently ease into beers that have familiar flavors and tastes of wine or cocktails.  Some great choices for this step are Abita's Purple Haze, Sweetwater Blue, Carolina Strawberry Ale, Well's Banana Bread, Dogfish Head Aprihop, and Lindeman's Kriek (cherry infused lambic).  The goal of the fruit step is to knock down some preconceived notions of what beer must taste like and also to have our subject become more comfortable with ordering and drinking a beer over the usual crap-tini.

Lindeman's Kriek is brewed with cherries.  Good starting point.

Feeling Sassy?- Try adding a sour component, which could lead to a taste for Flemish sours.  A good example is New Belgium's Tart Lychee.

STEP 2 Hefeweizens and Light Wheats

In the first step, we introduce beers that actually contain fruit or fruit extract.  In the second step, we're going to introduce her to a style that yields fruity flavors and aromas without actually containing fruit.  Esters, which hefeweizen yeast produces plenty of in the fermentation process, give the style fruity aromas and flavors such as banana.  To emphasize the fruity characteristics, feel free to add a lemon or orange wedge to the rim.  Hefeweizens are brewed with light grain bills and hop profiles.  It's an extremely approachable style for the nouveau beer drinker.  Now that she likes a classic beer style with no gimmicks added (just the four standard beer ingredients), we can move on to some basic lagers and light ales.

Weihenstephaner Hefeweizen: All the flavor with none of the masculinity

Feeling Sassy?- Try a weizenbock, which is a hybrid of a high-gravity dopplebock and a hefeweizen.  Darker, more alcohol, and slightly sweeter than a hefeweizen.  Schneider Aventinus is a great choice.

STEP 3 Pilseners, Vienna Lagers, Kolschs et other lights

Now that she's used to real beers, we can ease into some core styles that are neither very hoppy nor malty.  By drinking the styles in this step, she will acquire a taste and smell for slightly more hoppy and drier beers than their predecessors.  The hoppiest of these styles will be the pilsener (e.g. Pilsener Urquell), especially if it's an Americanized version.  However, none of them will be as hoppy as pales or IPAs.  The maltiest will be the Vienna lager (e.g. Dos Equis Amber), which is a great, soft balance between hops and malts.  This step will also serve as the divergence point from which you and your lady can pick your path among two epic journey choices: hoppy or malty.

Although an ale, the kolsch style from Cologne is a great, crisp light beer. Reissdorf is my favorite.

Feeling Sassy?- Try a Belgian Golden Strong.  Belgian golden strongs, such as Duvel Single and Leffe Blond, taste just like a light lager or ale, but pack a nice punch at about 7-8% abv.

To be Continued in Part II

  For the sake of brevity, I'll break this post into two parts and give you a chance to try out the techniques at the bar.  In the next post, we'll tackle the hop path leading up to Imperial American IPAs and the malty path leading up to Imperial Stouts/Porters.  Until then, go ahead and start the program.  Tell me how it goes.  Cheers!