Light Beer vs. Dark Beer (Not Just Another Cliche)

One notable body practice that many of us find tied to our individual identities is the good ol' past-time of drinking beer. Be it good or bad, as U of M students, I'd imagine that it's an activity that many of us are fairly well acquainted with. And whether you drink beer or not, or for whatever reason you do drink it, in American society the choice to drink beer, and more importantly the kind of beer that one chooses to drink, is a rather significant choice that every individual makes by the time they reach adulthood and continues to make as they grow older. And while much of this can be said for drinking in general, it does seem that beer (particularly in the middle class) resonates with individuals as being unique to themselves more so than with any other alcoholic drink.

To begin with, beer is very much a cultural product. It differs in perception and in production almost everywhere you go with almost endless styles and varieties for different geographic regions of the planet. Likewise, the exact role that beer takes on in a given society that embraces it is unique to that society. For many it's an issue of heritage. For others its a taboo.

In Germany, due to its long history of beer production, each region (and many cities) generally has its own style of beer. Even how you name the beer is very telling of where you come from and which kind of culture in Germany you identify with. e.g. If I'm from Lower-Saxony, I'll probably call wheat beer Hefeweizen (yeast-wheat) as opposed to Weissbier (white beer) if I'm in Bavaria. And here in Minnesota, many of us find ourselves identifying with Summit, Grainbelt, and even Hamm's (if you're old enough to remember it.) It's just a part of the culture.


Vitage Hamm's Commercial. Truly a Minnesota Classic.

The scope of this association can also be quite dramatic, and is different at various levels of society. For the Irish, Guinness has an extremely strong patriotic tie to their national image as do Molson and Labatt with Canada, and Budweiser and Samuel Adams for the US. This is as true at the national level as it is on the level of subcultures, be it (admittedly stereotypically) hipsters with PBR or fraternity men with Natural Light (aka "fratty light".) And typically, individuals associate most closely with beers associated with the groups they identify most closely with.

Keep Calm and Frat On.



As a body practice, drinking beer isn't solely linked to identification with a particular group of people. It can also be used to display and reaffirm attributes of the individual within the context of society. For most in the United States, drinking beer is almost inextricably tied to masculinity. Men drink beer. Why it's particularly masculine is never actually argued - it just is. It's simply part of the larger framework for male gender-roles that we mostly accept and is a part of the praxis that we are argued into. And it's a very deep rooted argument. Many of us grow up with beer being associated with family experiences and male-bonding. This is something also capitalized on through advertisements.


Gotta love a clever Heineken ad.

However, even though in American society there is a significant cultural argument being made through beer, most people drink beer simply because they enjoy doing so. It's certainly not wrong that we associate beer drinking with masculinity (or any other attribute) or put such a strong personal identification on it. It's simply a product of the culture and as such can serve very well in telling us much more about ourselves than we might at first think.