I wrote it on Twitter so I must have meant it:

Good beer elevated my croquet game yesterday. A couple of hefeweizens did the trick. Why does swank food get all the pairing attention?

What was I on about? Well, someone else wrote something somewhere over the weekend about good beer elevating food. I can't find the quote and I don't really know why but this grates on me nerves just a little. But it does. Me nerves get that bit grated. Then I write about it and then others don't get it. And then that bothers me, too. What am I on about?

There was something about that croquet game yesterday that got me thinking. The pointless clunk of mallet on ball. The new cut lawn in the sunshine. And the glass of Weihenstephaner. We also had long absent cousins over earlier on the weekend and popped an Allagash Confluence Ale, ate no food and caught Syracuse get smoked in overtime... but with style. It worked. I read Jay's post today about picking hops, having a great time labo(u)ring for Labo(u)r Day. While there was good cheese (and who doesn't like good cheese? The cheeseless, that's who) there was Washoe, too. Later, I had dinner and poured an iced green tea to go along with dinner from the big jug in the fridge. It was great. Better than a beer for that particular moment. On another day, the brew would have fit better.

Sometimes when friends or family pop by I open a beer and sometimes I don't. Won't have one today and maybe not tomorrow either. It's a school night, you know, and I got kids. Much the same, beer can elevate food but it can also take away from it. Food can elevate beer, too, making what seemed a dud in the glass suddenly have hidden meaning. And so can a decent lawn chair on a quiet weekend afternoon. That chair can elevate a beer - as can friends, a good game on the TV or a book. And a good beer in the wrong hands at the wrong time can kill a party, put you one over the limit or just the the source of the next day's moment of regret as you survey the stash.

I don't think I am an advocate. I know I am not an apologist. Good beer needs to make its case to me every time. It needs to earn my money. It usually does.