Watch Out For Those Mean Beers!

You enter a bar. Maybe you’re there to have a drink or two with some old pals, or maybe it’s a co-worker’s birthday party. It’s a nice spot, a cozy place with a solid oak bar that sits under a row of self-defeatingly dim light bulbs. You take it all in and move towards the friendly bartender, because it’s time to do what you came here to do. It’s time to get a drink.

But wait, there are no drink menus on the bar. Not even little ones printed out on cheap card stock! How do you order a drink?

Up there, on the wall behind the bartender, there’s a chalkboard. Oh. It’s that kind of place. You scan the options on the chalkboard, unsure of what any of the beers listed really taste like. All you know is that you definitely don’t want one of those overly dank IPAs that tastes like it was fermented in a Viking’s boot and leaves you feeling like your stomach is full of Pop Rocks the size of bricks.

You think about asking for a Miller Lite, but you don’t want waste the opportunity to have a fancy beer in a fine establishment. I can have Miller Lite anywhere. I should enjoy a high-quality beer today. So you scan the chalkboard one more time, and you zero in on a name that catches your eye: The Bitches Brew Hellhound Ale.

You look the bartender in the eyes and say, “I’ll have the Bitches Brew Hellhound Ale.”

Well guess what, friend, you just fucked up. That ale you just ordered is exactly the kind of IPA you were hoping to avoid drinking. You’re about to spend the next 30-45 minutes slowly sipping away at a beer you hate, your mouth feeling like it’s been stuffed full of old potpourri.

How did I know of your mistake before you did? Because you ordered the beer with the mean name. Never order the beer with the mean name, because those beers always taste the worst.