🍻 From Kallu to Craft: A Personal Journey Through Beer Culture
Thank you to Josh Bernstein for his recent WSJ article on mid-strength beers, which sent me on a journey—not to a bar, but back to my childhood village in Telangana.
My first taste of alcohol wasn't a beer. It was palm tree kallu, a cloudy, slightly sweet toddy the elders would let us kids sample. It was the original low-ABV brew, long before I knew what that meant.
From there, my beer journey became a map of my life:
→ Young Adulthood, India: "Beer and biryani" was the ritual. Kingfisher, Kalyani, Haywards 2000—local lagers that were less about the tasting notes and more about the long conversations.
→ Culture Shock, Sweden: Walking into a cafeteria and seeing Meckatzer Löwenbräu on draft next to Coke at breakfast time was surreal. It challenged my entire definition of when and where beer belonged.
→ An Economic Lesson, Moscow: A friend with US dollars bought me a Heineken. It was a Western luxury I couldn't afford, teaching me that currency dictated not just purchasing power, but access to taste.
→ The ABV Arms Race, USA: I watched American craft brewing evolve. IPAs climbed to 8%, and barrel-aged stouts pushed past 10%. "Bigger, bolder, stronger" was the undisputed mantra.
Now, the pendulum is swinging back.
Mid-strength beers (3-4% ABV) are returning, not because brewers can't go higher, but because drinkers are realizing they don't always want to.
As I sip a Bay Light from Brookville Farm Brewing here in Maryland, I see it clearly. Our taste in beer often mirrors our stage in life. The weekend warrior gives way to the Monday-functioning parent. The all-nighter is replaced by the lunch beer that doesn't derail the afternoon.
From toddy tapped from a tree to a precisely crafted session IPA, the journey isn't just about alcohol. It's about finding the right drink for the moment—and the life—you're living now.
What has your journey taught you?
#Beer #CraftBeer #Culture #PersonalStory #LifeLessons
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