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Monday, September 26, 2005
Top Ten Reasons Wine is Better than Beer
Wine vs. Beer
I’ve gotten so many comments on this fun little story that ran in the Sept. 14 Dayton Daily News pitting me against beer columnist Jim Witmer in a duel for “The Top Ten Reasons Why Wine is Better than Beer” (vice-versa for the beer dude) that it deserves a command performance.
Can anyone come up with more (publishable) reasons why wine trumps beer? Let’s keep this thing going!
By the way, my 17-year-old son got a good laugh out of my reason number 10: “Who ever heard of a wine belly?”
“That’s pretty funny coming from you, considering you HAVE one,” he told me.
Har-Dee-Har.
To see the full story, click on the story link underlined above or the “continue reading” link.
Cheers!
Mark Fisher
Determined to singlehandedly reverse the erosion of support for malted beverages, Dayton Daily News beer columnist Jim Witmer offers his “Top 10 Reasons Why Beer Is Better Than Wine” while wine columnist Mark Fisher, still gloating over Gallup Poll results, proposes the “Top 10 Reasons Why Wine Is Better Than Beer.”
It was the Gallup Poll that shocked the drinking world - and it has beermakers crying in their suds. For the first time in more than a decade of Gallup polling, just as many Americans identified wine as their drink of choice as beer. Actually, wine beat beer 39 percent to 36 percent, but the difference is within the Gallup Consumption Habits poll’s margin of error, so the survey’s authors are calling it a tie.
Still, that’s a huge change from what Gallup found in 1992, when 47 percent of Americans said beer was their favorite alcoholic drink, and only 27 percent chose wine. Wine preference jumped six percentage points just since last year, “the first significant shift in wine preferences recorded in the last eight years,” the Gallup folks said.
Now that’s an upward - as opposed to a Sideways - trend. Beer defenders point out that sales of wellcrafted microbrews and other flavorful offerings are rising, suggesting that beer enthusiasts might be drinking less, but they’re drinking better. And wine no doubt benefited from the explosion of popularity of the Charles Shaw line of “Two-Buck Chuck” wines and its imitators. Could it be that beer drinkers are becoming more sophisticated while wine drinkers are becoming less so? Perhaps we should ponder that question over a tasty pint of pale ale - or a nice glass of pinot noir.
TOP 10 REASONS WINE IS BETTER THAN BEER:
- Did you ever hear of a “wine belly?”
- Wine glasses don’t weigh as much as beer mugs - less wear and tear on the wrist and elbow, fewer cases of carpal tunnel.
- Fewer unanticipated belches (unless consuming champagne).
- Doesn’t open the “flood gates” quite the same way beer does.
- Was there an Oscar-nominated movie last year about beer?
- Ages better - and so do those who drink it!
- Jesus didn’t turn water into beer; he left that to Miller and Anheuser-Busch, which proceeded to get the process backward and turn beer into water.
- Tastes better with ALL kinds of food - not just brats, chili and tacos.
- When asked what attributes they’re looking for in the perfect mate, “Knows how to navigate a beer list” never makes top 10.
And the No. 1 reason wine is better than beer: Tastes great, less filling!
TOP 10 REASONS WHY BEER IS BETTER THAN WINE:
- Beer doesn’t rely on a piece of wood to give it character.
- The French don’t set the standard for beer-making and food-pairing.
- Beer is richer, better looking and has a better body.
- The twist-off cap. Wine makers are just starting to figure that one out.
- Beer doesn’t need a movie about two losers (Sideways) to increase its popularity.
- Beer never has a “bad year.”
- An old English beer-drinking song inspired the melody for The Star-Spangled Banner. Wine coolers inspire Britney Spears.
- No phony pseudo-sophisticated snobby elitist names starting with “chateau.”
- Beer is so cool we use it to describe ourselves. We want six-pack abs, not magnum thighs.
And the No. 1 reason beer is better than wine: The Mayflower was loaded with beer, not wine. So was Ben Franklin when he discovered electricity.
