PBR - the beer of champions...

Call me a beer snob, 'cause I am one.

I refuse to drink anything that might be found at a frat party. If it's American, it better be a micro-brew, Sam Adams or do a pretty dead-on impersonation of one. If it's international, it better not be a Beck's or warm.

I don't know what my top-10 beer list would look like, but it would include: Guinness, Sam Octoberfest, Hennepin, Gambrinius, Ithaca Brown (for sentimental reasons), Newcastle, Rogue Dead Guy Ale and Sam Summer. Anything by Bud, Coors, Miller or Busch is not allowed in my house or at my parties.

Although PBR is considered the nectar of hipsters, plenty of my friends drink it and you can regularly find it at exclusive clubs and dives (where it is universally the cheapest thing on tap), I've never had one - at least until Monday, that is.

I went out after the final final of my Master's career. My professor for the course treated the class to the first round and we were greeted with 8 pitchers of PBR. Never one to A) turn down a free drink or B) look a gift horse in the mouth, I had a glass.

The result? Good, not great. Drinkable, not horse pee.

PBR, in case you haven't tried it, is an extremely light, blond beer. The coloring looks like honey, there's minimal head (as it's mostly water) and it has a nice crispness about it that pretty much every other beer of its ilk I've had lacks. And it goes down, oh, so easy - you may as well ask for ice in the class and a straw, because it's like drinking water. It definitely doesn't sparkle, but it doesn't suck either.

The question I'd then pose to you, dear reader, what more could you ask for from a cheap, American beer? The answer: not much.

So, while I won't be stocking PBR in my fridge anytime soon nor will I order it while I'm chowing down on a steak, I may add it to my bar rotation. Quite simply, it'll become my "Mike is really, really poor and hasn't gotten paid in a while" standby.

"A pint costs $2? I have five. Well, then, barkeep... give me one for myself, one for my friend, keep the change and let's have a 1/2 hour conversation."

As my good friend Guinness would say, "Brilliant!"