Editorial: Appreciate responsibly

We college students love beer. Duh.

But what kind of beer drinkers are we? Those of us on the editorial board who aren’t yet 21 years old obviously have no idea what beer tastes like. Bread, we’ve been told.

We’ve seen undergrads at frat parties chug cans of Keystones like water — boat racing and shotgunning and chanting and throwing ping-pong balls into plastic cups and all sorts of other things you should never do with beer.

Correction: Those are things you should never do with good beer. Natty Light? OK. Pong that shit up.

Beer is an artform. It deserves to be savored as such. It should be poured into a glass. It should be poured into the right glass, so it can create and maintain the right amount of head. Yes, foam is important.

It’s sad going to The Davis Beer Shoppe and feeling almost exclusively surrounded by non-students and grad students. Great beer, and bartenders who will happily tell you all about the beer, are worth the extra buck or two.

At the Pliny The Younger release on Monday, there was hardly an undergrad in sight. People! Pliny is a big deal! Google it! And skip class so you can line up well in advance at Burgers & Brew when they start serving it today at 3 p.m. You’re welcome in advance.

In our collective few visits to University of Beer, we have seen a fair share of undergrads, actually. Maybe it’s because of the word “University.” We’re not going to bash the bar, which impressively has 60 beers on tap, but we are going to complain a little.

Why no prices, UoB? Is it because you’re targeting college students, and you think we don’t know how much high-end beers should cost?

Do you know how frustrating it is to stare at three flat-screen televisions broadcasting your sizable list of beer — beer which, might we add, is listed in no logical order — and have no idea what size the glasses will be or how much they’ll cost? Do you know how difficult it is to hold a bartender’s attention during a busy night to ask for the prices of beer after beer after beer, until you finally find one in your price range?

Do you know how embarrassing it is to be on a blind date and try to seem impressive by ordering a foreign sour that you remember having at the Beer Shoppe for $6, and then discover that you’ve been billed $9 for two ounces less? Do you know how it feels when someone never calls you back because of the obscene profanity that inevitably escaped your mouth after such a deception?

Um … neither do we.

With all of that said, we encourage all folks of legal age to consider their next beer as a journey. There are lots of specials downtown through March 3 for Sacramento Beer Week, so be adventurous and try something new. Or go to the Davis Food Co-op and pick up that brew made with saffron, honey and muscat grapes you’ve always been meaning to try. Whatever you choose to do, use a glass, please.