My first sip of beer, on a picnic table, next to my sister: Labatt Blue, sour, puckered my face. I was seven, eight, twelve—she six years plus mine. My next taste, on my boyfriend’s tongue, slick metallic ferment. Living in Ontario, Hail to the Beer Store, brown glassed cathedral of Molson or some other long necked bottle held by teenage boys around the fire. In college, kegs meted into red plastic cups. Yeasty humidity. I snuck in mickies of tequila, Kahlua, vodka. Church told us parties were sinful, but all those people packed in, closer than hymn sings, had to be holy. Grand Rapids crafts Founders, Perrin, Brewery Vivant. I’ve cozied up along counters, bar tenders saying you’ll like this one. They hand me Rubaeus, red as a daquiri, watching to be proven right. I sip and smile, hops curling my tongue inward down toward the guts of memory when I first decided I didn’t like beer.
Wendy BooydeGraaff’s fiction, poems, and essays have been included in NOON, Flyover Country, X-R-A-Y, Slant: A Journal of Poetry, and elsewhere. Born and raised in Ontario, Canada, she now lives in Michigan.
