Stella Artois!

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Aaah beer! Essence of happiness, liquid joy. One bottle, ease of mind, two bottles absolute contentment, three bottles... heavenly. Now, I know this is beginning to sound like the ramblings of an alcoholic, but i'm not, honestly! There's no addiction involved, i have it perfectly under control. I don't need to drink, I just choose to.

OK, fine, say what you will, but my question here is, how many of you aspies or fellow autistic people enjoy a good drink from time to time. I mean, really ENJOY a drink. When it comes to other drugs/mind altering substances I couldn't care less. When it comes to weed, I'd run a mile now before you could get me to take a toke. But alcohol, alcohol is special! Alcohol is good. Alcohol is revitilising. When i'm tired, it allows me to sleep, when i'm hungry i can eat, when i feel like relaxing and listening to some music or watching a film, i will relax and listen to some music or watch a film. Alcohol makes me feel normal, alcohol makes me feel human.

So... how many of you use alcohol as a coping mechanism? How many of you enjoy a good drink, and how many of you ENJOY a good drink and couldn't imagine a life without it. Any stories of addiction and any warning to a naive 19 year old aspie who thinks he has it all under control??!

Stella (known in the UK as 'Wifebeater') isn't a beer. It is urine masquerading as beer. There's loads of great beer out there, whether you live in Britain, Ireland, Denmark, Norway (perhaps only Nøgne Ø at a tenner a bottle, but still), Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Poland, Czech Republic, the US, Canada and loads of others. Why spend your time drinking mass-produced chemicals when there's so much good beer out there to drink?

Even in my local county I can name the following local microbreweries:

Bowland (visited their barn)
Grindleton
Hopstar
Lytham
Red Rose (visited the pub)
Lancaster
Fuzzy Duck
Hart (visited the pub)

So I'll spend my time drinking that instead.

When I was 15, we used to have Year 11 parties, once or maybe twice a month. I loved getting drunk as it made me feel like everyone else. I never wanted the nights to end, and ended up drinking without parties. It got to a point where I would just look for whatever alcoholic beverages were in the house, because I'd finished whatever alcopops my mum bought me. Drinking home-made damson gin neat on a Wednesday night until you fall over when you have an exam the following morning is not a good idea, yet I did it (though I was quite upset and confused at the time, as my "friends" had decided they'd had enough of my weirdness - yes, I felt normal whilst drinking, but that's not to say I WAS). I don't think I was addicted to the alcohol; just addicted the feeling I got when I drank it. I only stopped when there was nothing left. I don't know whether my mum had noticed, but there seemed to be no booze in the house for months, which suggests she didn't want me drinking my GCSE's away.

I then got into a very controlling relationship, where I was looked down upon for drinking/smoking/taking drugs - EVER. Not even a glass of sherry at Christmas, or a can of lager at New Years, or even so much of a sniff of wine when watching TV with my mother in the evening. Thoughts of experimenting with anything else was forbidden. Safe to say, it wasn't very fun.

I got out of it finally after 2 1/2 years of sobriety (well, I was determined to have a drink or two at my 18th birthday, which was met with grave disappointment and disapproval), at 19. I then went to university! And proceeded to get drunk regularly with my new friends, who embraced my oddness. I loved it. The first night I got so drunk, that I was late for my induction, and had to go home early. And there came a time again where if ppl weren't keen to go out that night, I'd pop down to Tesco down the road and buy myself some vodka, or Southern Comfort, and drink myself to sleep. What can I say? It helped me sleep. I used to get drunk so much that I stopped going to lessons. I promptly withdrew from the course, due to personal reasons, as well as mental and physical health.

I have calmed down a lot since then (again, 2 1/2 years ago), only ever drinking when I'm out (which is rarely, but when I do go out, I let my hair down!), and I'm happy in a long-term relationship and my lovely house.

I don't really know what to say to you, because at the moment you're probably in the same mindset as I was in, at the beginning of my drinking. It's fantastic, and I don't promote sobriety constantly, unless it's for someone who REALLY need not to drink. All I want to say is BE VERY CAREFUL. Keep an eye on how much you drink, and how often.

I drink to improve my social skills.


Just don't think that drinking improves your social skills, because it doesn't. And after a while, you'll end up drinking alone. And then it will finally hit you--"I couldn't even get drunk properly."

I've recently come to the legal age and begun to develop a fondness for beer. There's nothing wrong with liking it, or drinking it regularly. As long as your habits fall within "moderate drinking," ie. something like no more than 2-3 per day, no more than 8 or so per week, and as long as you're not using it irresponsibly (drinking and driving etc) I don't think it's a problem.

Lots of people enjoy beer. It's fun, it's tasty, it's a great social catalyst, but with all that of course comes responsibility... I feel like I have to tread a line, because this is something I could easily use too much of (maybe carrying around a hip flask and using it to take the edge off for all social encounters).

Of the few I've tried so far I think my favorite beer is Sam Adams Boston Lager. Nice hoppy flavor, not too heavy, not too light. As soon as I get back to college I'll probably go to the beer superstore and sample some more ales. The Belgian trappist stuff was pretty good.

Homer Simpson

Have to agree, Stella is bad! It's the first time I think i've really tried it. I usually drink Carlsberg Export (this one I do love!) or Carling. Perhaps as a beer lover I owe it to expand my horizons slightly Still, plenty of time for that...

I admit I used to drink as a teen to "fit in". But now I cannot stand most booze (and I never liked beer of any kind). The only stuff I like is Bailey's Irish Cream, yum! But I don't drink it to "fit in" (I am too wise for that now).. I drink it on occasion because I like it!

If people really care what their beer tastes like they make their own.

It isn't the alcohol. Its the herbal blend.

We started up another 5 gallons last weekend and plan to bottle it this weekend.

Drinking is good, but drinking from home is much better since it avoids the need to socialise. And occasionally my sister unsuccesfully persuades me to join her in her social gathering. Which although I enjoy the appeal of free alcohol cannot stand the people in the pubs.
Not appealed by beer, although like 'tea', I do somtimes get the appeal of it when I'm thirsty, so perhaps I'm slowly becoming less immune to the dislike of it.
Much prefer the delicacies of alchohol, those that immitate deserts, chocolate, coffee or fruit, which is essentially the liquors. But it appeals more to my sweeter side. However consumption of it is less frequent and taken in small quantities, so perhaps the appeal of alchohol isn't the alchohol, but rather the flavours which it brings.

You are joking? I probably drink 30+ (15 pints) in a week. And that's in a normal week - I have drank 36 pints (72 units) last month. All decent real ale stuff but can't be good in that kind of quantity.



If you live in the US you probably have tons of great craft breweries near you. Go explore them!



I'd love to be able to make my own beer but sadly I have neither the time nor the technical expertise. The beer brewed locally is fine (often quite good in fact) but quite boring after a while as there aren't very many beers that challenge the palate. Even going to the local Booths (supermarket with a good selection of beer) doesn't turn up anything particularly exciting. Oh, if I could brew strong milds, porters and roast coffee stouts...



A beer lover wouldn't seriously consider any of those to be good beers. The vast majority of British-produced lager is fizzy water. There are a very few exceptions such as Cain's Finest Lager (which I've yet to try) but on the whole it's awful stuff. Not all lager is bad - quite the contrary as some delightful bottom-fermented beers are brewed on the continent and in the US - Pilsner Urquell, among others. There are helles, bocks, schwarzbiers, dunkels, kölschbiers, hefeweizens, smoked beers, witbiers, wheat beers, Viennas, Baltic porters... and then there is your industrial swill. Once you try a reasonable amount of decent beer you'll find it difficult to go back to macrolager. These days if I go to a pub in the UK and there are no cask handpulls I'll walk straight out the door and find another pub. There's loads of good pubs serving great beer so why should I spend my time bothering with the bad ones?

That made me laugh! My friends drink that beer.

I like Heineken or Guinness.
I like a few Australian beers too, especially if I'm strapped for cash. I usually choose Tooheys Extra Dry, anything below that is just, well, like you described Stella.
Since going gluten-free I have to cut down on alcohol or just drink the hard stuff.

Ordinary Guinness is quite a tasteless affair these days with anything representing bitterness or flavour being brewed out of it. I'd barely consider it a stout.

Fortunately, Guinness do still brew one or two good beers, the best of them being Guinness Special Export Stout (8%), a sweet, roasted coffee-dominated beer not unlike Imperial stout and is what Guinness used to taste like. The second choice is Foreign Extra Stout (7.5%) which, while not as sweet or as nice-tasting as the aforementioned Special Export, tends to be much easier to find in supermarkets.

I get the feeling that if I lived in Australia I'd probably spend my time drinking Tooheys Old.

I'm not very fond of alcohol. I'll have a pint of beer but I can't seem to have mself start on a second. I'm ok with that, means I have a little control. I hate the feeling of a buzz, it's quite painful. I stare at that second glass and think it's not going to make this any better, so I stop. I usually leave the bar once I have had that drink.

wasn't it Monty Python who gave us the quintessential line:

"I tend to find drinking American beer like making love in a canoe...f**king close to water"

Of American beers I like Anchor Steam (made in San Francisco). I was very thrilled to find it at the grocery store near my apartment here in Austin.

Cheers!