Well, today I got to thinking about beer. I have a couple favorites which are always in the refrigerator. Of course I am not averse to having others. My taste is in the lagers and pilsners. Stella Artois, Saint Arnold 5 O'Clock Pils and Yeungling are part of that list. There are also a couple more intense ones that I like: Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and St. Arnold's Elissa IPA. These are quite hoppy, but not bitter. As a point of interesting information, the Sierra Nevada Pale Ale was first produced in 1980. It was the first beer produced by Sierra Nevada and it started out as a flop. If you can think back that far you will understand why. Everybody was drinking crappy light beers so a pale ale was totally foreign to the market. Sierra Nevada persisted and now that is their biggest selling product.

So where are we going with this? While shopping at the grocery store last week a six pack of St. Arnold's Pub Crawl pale ale jumped right out of the shelf and into my cart. Didn't even notice it until Ginny asked, "What's that?" at check out. My mind generally categorizes pale ales as hoppy, not bitter and India Pale Ales as hoppy and bitter. That is how the market has drifted over the years. Seems that there has been a contest to see who can make the most bitter IPAs. Definitely not my style.

Anyway I was anxious to give it a try. I was disappointed because it was very bitter. Not at all like the Sierra Nevada. Guess the other five cans I will save for visitors and ask them if they would like to try a local pale ale. What do they know? I bought a 12 pack of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale this morning. I tasted a bottle, and it was up to snuff.