Liquid Lunch

"Work is the curse of the drinking class." Oscar Wilde

I know how you feel. Monday. Feh. Just two sleepless nights ago you were out partying with your friends, enjoying your favorite East Village Brewing Company ales and stouts, and claiming the night as your own as if you hadn't a care in the world.

Then it was Monday again. Back to the puppy mill, drone!! Or perhaps not... it's been a slow day at work. You don't think anything big will come up for the afternoon, and you're at your favorite midtown eatery taking a rare "non-desk day" for lunch when you spy the row of beer bottles behind the sandwich counter and think to yourself "man that would hit the spot."

But somewhere along the way that lunchtime beer got on the bad side of decorum. The calorie counters among us don't have much say in the matter, as plenty of the corporate elite still slam down glass after glass of equally as caloric iced tea with their overpriced butternut squash raviolini. I suppose the Mad Men inspired forty-three martini lunchers are still in the sweet spot of pop culture rubber stamping that g&t at 1230 when out with some co-workers, so we're losing some ground with that crowd. But why must the brewthusiast be forced to hide his strong desire for an IPA with his pastrami on rye? Doth not an amber ale make sense with that Dos Caminos guacamole sampler?

Lucky for you white collar worker bees out there, it seems like the tide is changing. Maybe it hasn't hit the stuffed shirt world of middle management yet but beer is getting classier by the minute. Craft and micro offerings that actually hold up on their own, warrant beer tasting classes and that can even be paired with shmancy 'client's picking up the tab' crab-cake-n-steak repast are no longer the stuff of legends. Once the EVBC starts mass producing our wares as well, I think the die shall be cast and beer embraced as the glorious centerpiece of the mid-day meal it should be. No longer shall the Thomas Pink wearing masses be forced to duck in and out of divey Irish bars on Weekday afternoons, popping four pieces of Dentyne Fire on the way out the door to cover up the Guinessy aftermath of their hallowed lunchtime tradition!

But my friends, for now it's but a dream. But believing in your dreams, like a well-placed lunchtime brew, should always be a good decision.