31. The Dry January Noise is Nothing New: Drinking and Judge Judies Have Always Gone Hand in Hand
Judging each other cancels out any benefits of a reset but we've been doing it forever anyway; plus a low-ABV beer for mindful balance.
PBR Was Just Fulfilling the Ancient Duty of Being a Judgmental Nincompoop About How Everyone Else is Drinking or Not Drinking
Well, it’s January and I write about beer so I am legally obligated to address Dry January. I don’t make the rules.
Each year the Dry January conversation grows louder and more confrontational. As does literally every conversation in the age of social media and, more recently, societal divides deepened by the pandemic. Can you remember when people were just like, “Oh, you do that thing? I don’t, I do this thing, but whatever, that’s cool!” I swear, there was a time when people were generally less obsessed with watching everyone else’s every move like a judgmental vulture who just sniffed a line of caffeine pills.
As a treat, this year for Dry January, we got PBR’s EatingAssGate. Brands, it’s straight up fucking uncool to ridicule or pressure people who want to take a breather for Dry January. And as far as the concept of craft breweries needing everyone’s support, any brewery indeed worthy of supporting understands that they sell alcohol, and that requires sensitivity to every individual’s needs. You can 100% still support breweries while doing Dry January. You can buy gift cards, you can buy beer to go (best done for more sustainable styles and maybe toward the end of the month), you can buy merch, you can go have lunch if they serve food.
You could also not do Dry January if you don’t want to! And everyone could mind their own business! IMAGINE IT. Take it from this excellent piece about Dry January by Beth Demmon for Good Beer Hunting last year. Back away from the computer, figure out what you want to do, do it, direct rage elsewhere.
Because of social media, indeed, the practice of inviting yourself into every other stranger’s business has found a new stage and fresh fervor. And that might make it feel new, but actually, being a Judgey Judgerson is one of humanity’s oldest pastimes. Throughout history, this has often been supported by the platform of religion—where, you know, whoever you pray to tells you it’s a good idea to go around telling everyone else they’re doing it wrong—but people certainly don’t need to rely on faith or even morality to feel compelled to tell another person that their best attempt to make it through the gauntlet of life leaves a lot to be desired and here is a list of reasons why. In the 14th and 15th centuries, any woman who took on a profession that not everyone approved of or decided to remain unmarried could end up being tried as a witch. In the 21st century, any woman who does anything not everyone else approves of could end up being called a witch—wait, I was going for something less dark. How about all of wellness Instagram? Because, you know, you’re eating and sleeping and meditating and exercising and skin-care-ing wrong?
And this unfortunate human compulsion does not stop at drinking. In fact, cultures have been especially fucking bananas in their attitudes toward drinking since drinking became a thing. PBR mocking wussies who want to do Dry January is just a 2022 aggro-bro update on a tale as old as time.
I’m once again going to reference Mark Forsyth’s A Short History of Drunkenness (when another book as neatly and concisely compiles an entire planet’s worth of drinking history, lmk!). There, Forsyth’s culture-by-culture exploration of relationships with alcohol paint a picture that’s perhaps surprisingly similar to today. Some cultures have always been cool with drinking, and believe it or not, that has often helped to maintain a healthier, more even-keeled interaction with the stuff for many people in those cultures. Others, meanwhile, have these fraught relationships where sometimes booze is very bad and sometimes booze is very good.
The ancient Egyptians were pretty much fine with drinking whenever. In ancient China, (legal) drinking was limited to rituals and ceremonies to attempt to remove the possibility of drunkenness from the act of imbibing, based on the “fact” that Confucius could guzzle tons of wine without getting tipsy (lol ok, my dude). Due to religious beliefs, early Muslims shunned drinking but then figured out clunky loopholes to do it anyway. In Medieval Europe, leaders of the church had to ask people to please stop partying there, but no biggie, this just led to the proliferation of alehouses or pubs. The Aztecs would kill you if you were caught drunk, unless you were very old (so, back then, prob like 28) or participating in a religious festival or maybe some other unspecified and therefore very confusing times. Even judging people for what they drank is an ancient hobby: the Greeks considered Persians barbarians because they drank beer instead of wine.
When we hear “wet cultures” versus “dry cultures,” we might think cultures that drink versus cultures that do not. This is not how many anthropologists categorize it. Wet cultures have more comfortable relationships with alcohol and less restrictions and rules around it; dry cultures do have alcohol, too, but not such cozy relations with it. Forsyth uses the example of Southern Europeans seeing no issue with sipping a little somethin’-somethin’ in the early afternoon, versus Northern Europeans who think it unseemly to drink before certain times in the evening or much during the week. Interestingly, of course, it’s often in these dry cultures where crazy unhealthy relationships with booze fester.
It’s not a mystery why people have always struggled with what a comfortable attitude toward booze looks like. Alcohol is, after all, a drug, a drug that in spite of any assortment of societal taboos or restrictions is usually acceptably consumed in a wide array of places and occasions. It absolutely has the power to kill, the power to ruin lives, the power to hurt families. Figuring out how to have a healthy relationship with alcohol, one built on moderation, balance, and mindfulness, would ideally always be the goal and the message, though, instead of getting bogged down in, for example, how everyone else you know from the internet is doing or not doing a marketable wellness trend.
Personally, I think that the brouhaha around Dry January diminishes the point—hot take, I know. Dry January isn’t about choosing your player (Team Total Temperance or Team PBR, duh) and then flogging everyone who does not comply in the public square. What the hell is that doing for helping you find your own personal ideal relationship with this accessible, legal drug?
As far as how I’m approaching Dry January, well, I’m not doing it. The idea of enforcing a month-long pause from something does not mix well with my long history of eating and body issues, and sets off a whole bunch of different triggers. I’ve always felt best and most comfortable with constant check-ins, and year-round striving for moderation, balance, and resets and mini-breaks. Of course you can do that and Dry January, too; this is just what works best for me. And because I’m pretty much always in search of alternative ways to enjoy the flavors and aromas of beers—not to mention that for work, I’m always diving into new trends and growing markets—I do have some favorites in the booze-free space, in case you’d like any ideas for Dry January or just any given Tuesday.
I tend to agree with Chris O’Leary’s confession in last week’s Brew York and Beyond, actually—I don’t love much of the NA beer out there. But, I’m really excited that the market is exploding, because it feels like where there used to be 10 options and only one was good, now there are 100 options so 10 are good. And 10 alcohol-free beer options ain’t too shabby.
In this house, we always have a supply of Clausthaler—Dry Hopped whenever we can find it. The Clausthaler folks recently sent some of the grapefruit variety my way and I have to say, #notanad, I really enjoy it even though I normally don’t love anything super fruity and am not particularly a grapefruit fan. And then Untitled Art is the big winner. I don’t know how they do it, but to me, this brewery comes the closest to making beer you can almost forget has no booze. The flavors and aromas you’re looking for can indeed be found in their Juicy IPA and Italian Pilsner—I’m itching to try their Chocolate Milk Stout, West Coast IPA, and S’Mores Dark Brew.
I also have a monthly subscription to HopLark HopTea. I love. This stuff. I know their hopped sparkling water is popular, too, but more than seltzer, I’m a tea fan. I love a nice bitter tea, never any milk or sugar, which translates to West Coast IPAs and hoppy pilsners. The hopped sparkling teas are bitter, refreshingly effervescent, botanical, herbal, and sometimes a little fruity depending on which variety you’re sipping. It’s obviously not beer and it’s not trying to be, but if you’re seeking big hop flavor when you reach for beer, you can achieve that with these teas.
Have you tried any of these? Love ‘em? Hate ‘em? Got other suggestions? General feelings about Dry January? Keep it to yourself! Lol just kidding—let me know in the comments!
Beer Tarot!
This week, I pulled the Queen of Cups.
So many things sprang to mind when I pulled this card. In no particular order: Should I have named this newsletter Queen of Cups? Somehow, in the life so far of this newsletter, I’ve never pulled a queen! This energy, of a queen pouring forth the liquid energy of life, feels very right. And now I’m thinking about the Perfume Genius song, “Queen”—fucking epic, that. And now I’m thinking about Hulu’s show, “The Great,” which omigod have you watched it?!
But. Let’s focus. Cups speaks to love, emotions, and relationships. When you pull a person card, like a knight or a king or a queen, the card speaks more to a personality. The Queen of Cups is compassionate, caring, stable, intuitive, and even-keeled. So, all of this is speaking to you and recognizing who you are, or it’s bringing your attention to energy you need to embody.
The Queen of Cups is an empath. She truly cares for others and makes room for their feelings and needs—she listens and pays attention and takes the time to help them. She is in tune with others, and is a nurturing presence. She is sensitive, and therefore good when it comes to friendships, navigating conflicts, and making sure everyone is heard in personal or work situations. However, she doesn’t take on all of these feelings in an unhealthy way. She knows where to draw the line so that she can be a shoulder to lean on and not create unnecessary drama or add to another person’s stress—and importantly, she does not let the moods of others add to her stress, either. From this (impossible?) point of balance, the Queen of Cups can listen and be open to communication and trust her intuition. She can maintain healthy relationships and trust her intuition, knowing when situations are and aren’t a good fit.
Placing tarot’s gendered language aside, because you absolutely can and should take these cues however you want, however you identify, I also feel like there’s a takeway from the Queen of Cups that has to do with this week’s very topic. How can we maintain a healthy relationship with imbibing, trust our intuition, and know when it’s a good time to indulge versus when it’s not and what kind of situations we want to be in? If we’re thinking about the real art of balance, I think a very low-ABV beer sums it up nicely. I recently saw Half Acre tweet about their hoppy small beer, Buzzard, 3%. If I were in Chicago, I would go snatch this up—it’s available on draft and in cans at the taproom.
This Week’s Boozy Reading Rec
Even when we’re talking about beer, it can be hard for me to really lock into anything too science-y science. As a matter of fact, only topics under the medical umbrella have ever been of any real interest to me in this vein. But leave it to Ruvani de Silva to have me riveted with a story about a yeast lab. What Community Cultures Yeast Lab in San Antonio is doing is indeed fascinating, and I think even a casual beer fan would be intrigued by the ins and outs of “clean” foraged yeast and how a locally sourced yeast makes its way into craft brews. Ruvani’s intrinsic balance of approachably authoritative understanding and enthusiasm, standing in for the reader by asking every question we’d want to know, though, makes this a must-read gem: Capturing the Flavor of Texas — Community Cultures Yeast Lab in San Antonio, Texas.
Until next week, here is Darby basking in the sunlight at Three Weavers back in 2019.
