Beer and Babies

Pairing beer and babies was a challenge set to me one evening by a mother of two. Coming on the heels of my statement that one of my missions is to be the Chicago Beer Pairing Examiner, I feel a need to fulfill.

One obvious pairing of beer and babies is the seeming near-direct relationship between brew-blottoed nights and unintended pregnancies. Whether inhibitions lost, inability to care to obtain or to properly operate a condom, and/or insufficient memory after-the-fact, the facts of life are that beer can lead to a propagating pairing, married or not.

Elixirs of life pair beer and babies through the bottle. An almost-perfect delivery vehicle, one downfall to the bottle - and certainly not the only one - is its propensity to push air down the throat of the consumer. Adults release this at their own risk as a belch; babies burp with a little back-pat.

Further I would pair beer and babies with the effect that beer has on many: reducing people to their younger selves. Ironically, younger people will pretend to be more aged, to pretend to be legally servable. In specific, I have personally witnessed testosterone-laden teens -- copiously liquored-up off campus in Madison, WI - that are prone to childish displays of destruction and melee.

And, not unlike a bit of whiskey daubed on the gums of a teething infant, a barleywine might serve the same purpose, quelling ones aches and pains.

Pairing beer and babies: that's child's play.