This Is My Blood: Autocrat

The main point is that it's something that you're not supposed to be doing, and the thrill comes from doing it anyway. Drinking a beer at breakfast, I mean. It's something that you've probably done before, if you're a beer drinker. If you are the same type of beer drinker as I am, then maybe that first breakfast beer turned into a twelfth lunch beer, which turned into a dinner nap, which turned into an 11 PM hangover. Maybe you're not like that. Maybe you're like how I was today, drinking a flavor-appropriate beer at 7 AM, making it the only AM beer you have, and putting it to good use—pairing with a peanut butter and banana sandwich, taking small sips, having a Talking Heads dance party with a 2.5yo and a 1yo. Regardless, drinking a beer with breakfast is usually frowned upon by society for whatever reason. I say that drinking a beer with breakfast is the start of a great day.

This is an ode to the breakfast beer. Not that I have had that many breakfast beers in my life (there was Hazy Jane and JavaHead, among others in 2020). I could probably count on fewer than three hands the times when my day started with a beer. Some of those days have been so fucking memorable—the World Series parade, the Super Bowl parade, the Red Bull Flugtag. But maybe those were memorable because there were more beers immediately following that first one. Those breakfast beers should be placed aside in this ode. I want to honor today the beers that are allowed to exist by themselves in those morning hours. You have one beer, you savor it, you continue your day in the responsible way.

It's more akin to giving yourself a little pinch in the arm to wake up, having that one beer to start the day, as opposed to using that first beer to start an early-morning binge, which would be more like cutting off your whole arm with a chainsaw. At least at this point in my life, anyway. For real. Nah, for now, let me concentrate on and savor this one single breakfast beer, and then continue my day normally/soberly.

The type and flavor of beer is almost besides the point. I didn't even think Autocrat Coffee Milk Stout was all that good, to be honest. Of all the stouts I've sampled this year, this one tasted the most like coffee—yes, including the actual hard coffee—and as I've explained before, I don't like the taste of coffee. But like I said, that wasn't the point. The point was the thrill of it. The point was to be able to touch something that is normally ineffable and intangible at this hour of the day. I got there, during that one beer.

I wish it were socially acceptable for me to get to that place at 7 AM every day. Then again, maybe that would rob me of the feeling in the first place.

NOTES

BEER: Autocrat

STYLE: Milk Stout

ABV: 5.5%

BREWED BY: Narragansett Brewing Co. (right? who knew they had non-lagers on their roster)

LOCATION: Pawtucket, RI

PURCHASED AT: GAT Beer

PAIRED WITH: peanut butter and banana sandwich

GRADE: 1.5 pukes out of 5

 

BEER COUNT: 526 (plus a couple repeats—one Eraserhood IPA and three glasses of Bota Box Cab Sauv—see below)

 

I would be remiss to not mention that I had a bunch more alcoholic beverages about 13 hours after that first beer. It went unmentioned above because it didn't make sense in the context of the thesis I was trying to build—having your only beer at 7 AM really is a special experience, but I think it still counts if you have one beer at 7 AM and then don't have another one until 8 PM. You get the same thrills. Tonight, at 8 PM, me and Pam got together with our college friends on Zoom to have a gift exchange (ornaments were mailed in advance) and to catch up. It was one of the better Zoom sessions I've had in this long year of Zoom, probably because we really did spend a lot of time catching up with each other, talking about our lives, realizing that we all had similar misgivings and regrets about such a weird and unforgiving year. There was a holiday-fueled camaraderie that I haven't felt too often lately. I'm thankful for chosen families and warm spirits this year.

I got this as a pollyana gift in 2014, our first pollyanna together. I still have not opened it. I don't know if I ever will. Maybe I'll to save it for our last pollyanna. Like, when we are old and gray and hopefully not on Zoom anymore.