Living With a Beer Nut - My Point of View

As I briefly mentioned here yesterday, my fiance decided to sit down at the computer and write a little piece on her view of living with a beer nut (Me). I gotta say that as someone with Celiac disease, she does put up with an awful lot of my obsession and as she points out, sometimes my beer stuff does come before things she wants to do. Sorry! So, here it is, enjoy.

Over the past year, I’ve watched Troy’s blog grow in its number of readers. From his favourite beers to his favourite pubs, and to the countless beer events that he’s attended, he’s tried his best to cover them. He does this for fun, or a better term would be "for the love of the game." Troy has been engulfed in this wonderful world of beer, and living with him, so have I. Unfortunately, I’m allergic to wheat and gluten which prevents me from being able to enjoy the immense option of beers that sit in our apartment waiting to be drunk. Sometimes it’s annoying to watch Troy crack open a unique beer that’s been ageing on one of our shelves. It’s especially annoying when he tells me how great it is and that I can smell it if I want. I know he’s just trying to be nice, but why would I want to enjoy the smell of a flavourful beer that I can’t drink?

Troy puts a lot of time and energy into his beer world, purely based on passion. He spends lots of time on his beer blog, he writes for TAPS magazine (which affords him passes to cover different beer events) and he meets with brewers to discuss potential advertising opportunities. Now before I go on, it must be noted that this is Troy’s “on the side” hobby. He works full time doing other things that have nothing to do with beer. Yet he somehow still finds the time to put quality work into his passion for beer - and not just any beer Troy would say, but Craft beer.

“For the dessert at our wedding, let’s do ice cream floats with Nickelbrook’s apple beer rather than a cake.”

Sometimes Troy’s beer world comes before things that I would like to do, but that’s what comes with the territory. For the most part, Troy invites me to the beer events that he attends. Again, it’s hard to be the only person at the beer event who asks for a glass of wine or cider. I get funny looks from people and the odd comment about drinking something other than beer, but what can you do. One thing that I really like doing is our day trips. Troy and I will randomly pick a town and drive there to scope out a pub – and not just any pub, but a true pub. I’m sure you’ve read about Troy’s definition of a true pub on his blog, so I’m not going to go into detail. We usually go for lunch, chat it up with the pub owner about its history, take some pictures, write in detail the décor of the pub, and then head home. I get a free lunch out of it, so I’m not concerned about not being able to drink the beer then.

If you could see our apartment, you would know that a beer fanatic (aka beer geek) lived there. We have a fair size bookshelf dedicated to beer books, a coffee table that, according to Troy, has to have beer magazines sitting on it for company to read when they come over, a medium sized shelf for his ageing beers, a mini fridge used only for beer, beer photos and posters on the walls,and other beer memorabilia sitting on side tables, etc. I mentioned one day that I would like to have some of my things around the place and he said “I know, that’s why I left you a wall.” Geez, thanks.

It’s been a fun watching him do something that he loves. Though there are times when I don’t want to hear one more thing about beer, it’s been fun overall. The latest two comments that almost sent me over the edge were: 1) “Let’s get married at Steam Whistle.” At the time, I didn’t know that there actually is an event room at the brewery for weddings. The wedding photos on their website are beautiful, but we’re not getting married there; and 2) “For the dessert at our wedding, let’s do ice cream floats with Nickelbrook’s apple beer rather than a cake.” Okay, seriously - as much fun as that sounds, I would like to eat something that I’m not allergic to.