Today is International Beer Day

August 1st (the first Friday in August) is International Beer Day. The borderline (or full-on) alcoholics who founded this "holiday" have declared three purposes:

1. To gather with friends and enjoy the taste of beer.
2. To celebrate those responsible for brewing and serving beer.
3. To unite the world under the banner of beer by celebrating the beers of all nations together on a single day.

That's all fine and dandy, but personally, the beer drinkers I know don't need their own holiday ... they seem perfectly able to celebrate beer every day! Regardless of my thoughts, International Beer Day is now a (little-known) reality.

The "Earth Cooler"

As luck would have it, a company in Denmark has developed an "earth cooler" designed to keep your beer chilled to perfection ... no electricity or ice required. And, good news for all those drunk beer drinkers, it's touted as "easy to install"! Simply drill a 22" x 4' hole in the ground and drop in the economical $350 "earth cooler" into the resulting abyss. It has a crank handle to retrieve the cans, so you can enjoy a cold one even during a power outage. Brilliant!

But, I digress. Back to International Beer Day ...

"Participants" (I guess drunks or alcoholics sounded too judgmental) are encouraged to give one another the gift of beer by buying each other drinks and expressing their gratitude to brewers, bartenders, and other beer technicians. In the international spirit of the holiday, it is also suggested that "participants" step out of their domestic and/or locally brewed comfort zone and sample beer from another culture.

Given the "rules" of International Beer Day, I'm guessing brewers, bartenders, and other beer technicians invented this holiday, I'll be the gratitude "participants" are encouraged to give should be in the monetary form ... not a verbal "Thanks, dude!".

So, today ... beer gather and drinkers unite! (As if beer drinkers need a holiday to gather and unite). Have a beer, foreign or domestic ... and tip generously ... or the people who created your special holiday may decide they aren't being shown enough gratitude and discontinue the holiday forevermore!