Dear Beer,

We’ve been together an unbelievable 25 years now, but as great as it’s been, I have to let you go. It’s just not working for me anymore. Please don’t take it so hard and for God’s sake stop sweating or this will really be difficult.

Beer – you’re caring, wonderful, and thoughtful, always keeping the relationship fresh and changing yourself to make sure I’m satisfied. You were watery and weak when I needed something that wouldn’t fill me up while watching NASCAR. You were dark, stout, and strong when we hung out with that Irish rugby team. You were my St. Pauli Girl when I was lonely and you even made yourself non-alcoholic when they wouldn’t let you into Afghanistan or Kuwait in your full-bodied form (those tea teetotalers just don’t understand us).

Your Red Stripe made me new friends, your Rolling Rocks broke the ice at social functions when I didn’t want to be bothered by anyone, and all of your German varieties opened the doors to a few female nether regions where men had never trod. I humbly thank you from the bottom of my heart for that (though you never got me those twins you promised).

Remember when you made me grow a foot taller and two feet wider with every passing moment? Lucky for all those other guys who started crap with me that you made my eyesight blurry and slurred my speech or I would have jacked all of them up, right? Although we’ll never be allowed to party in Haiti again, impersonating Miss Cleo to get into that sacred voodoo ritual was priceless. I couldn’t have done that without you.

The good times
We tipped cows together, filled children’s piñatas with ketchup, ran across the roof of a Quonset hut in a snowstorm (until that invisible cable floored me), invented new games (remember strip hopscotch?), ran for mayor of Boobville, went puppy shopping in a Michael Vick jersey, and followed a paperboy at 4 am gathering up all his little bundles of happiness as he tossed them away. We made it into the Century Club, the Beers of the World Club, and the super elite Puked on Every Continent Association together.

But you also scare me. I still have no idea how I ended up in the Panama Canal in a pair of footie pajamas, found Molly Querim’s business card in my pocket, faked a doctor’s order for Nick’s colonoscopy, got a restraining order from Bob Barker, or woke up in a pool of Neet looking like Doctor Evil’s hairless cat from the waist up. As much as I ask the question, you’re never forthcoming with the answers on how these things happened. I get the feeling you’re keeping something from me and we can’t have a healthy relationship without communication. Just ask Maury Povich.

You’ve been whoring yourself out to anyone lately
Lately our time together is as empty as your calories. I’m more bloated than a Fat Tire, have heartburn like a Corona, and feel more insecure than Samuel Adams. You’ve been using strange ingredients to get a cheap thrill like chocolate, walnuts, and pumpkin spice. Whatever happened to regular old hops? Are you too good for that now? You judge me with your frothy Guinness smirk and I see you out partying in seedy places. You don’t even care who you’re with-men, women, Dogfish, Mooseheads. I even saw a Liberal Democrat with his hands fondling your Dos Equis while his wine cooler sat alone and ignored on the bar. You looked so happy with him that I still can’t get the image out of my head and don’t think I’ll ever be able to trust you again.

But the infidelity (and this whole “Forties” phase) is excusable. Your attitude isn’t. You used to inspire me to do more, to brave new experiences, to do things I’d tell my kids about. But now you just sit there, cold and unemotional and refuse to open up until I get a tool out of the kitchen and force you to. It’s just not the same, you Arrogant Bastard.

Maybe it’s not you, Beer. Maybe I’m the one who’s changed here. I have to admit something that might be hard to hear…I’ve discovered bourbon. It’s a spirit they distill in Kentucky. Whiskey? No, that’s made in Tennessee. There’s a difference. Please don’t be trite.

Bourbon makes me feel like I did when we first got together in college. I get those giddy butterflies and semi-chubbies that I don’t get from you anymore. I’m a dog with his head out the window on the highway, tongue flapping in the breeze only now my tongue is in an oak-barrel of Maker’s Mark instead of your…glasshole.

Don’t be too sad. I’m tossing you into the recycling bin so maybe someone else will get enjoyment out of you. You still have a few good Blue Moons left. Go find yourself another young Shocktop and set Full Sail for the Sierra Nevadas. You deserve better.

Goodbye.