To whoever it may concern:

I write to you today in advocacy of the single greatest discovery of my youth, the shower beer.

It began innocently enough. I’d returned from work late one night, worn out from an arduous day of cleaning dishes that left me covered in grease & filth. Taking a shower was nearly the perfect precursor to my slumber.

My shift ended well after the bars had closed, eliminating any possibility of having a beer to take the edge off. So when I walked through the door of my home, I was resigned to the notion of simply dreaming about a delicious craft beer that night. But someone was watching over me that night … me.

I opened the refrigerator and lo and behold, the final beer of six from a variety pack I’d purchased recently – perfectly chilled, perfectly delicious. Instinct took over and I carried the delicacy with me all the way into the bathroom, opening the bottle right before turning on the water.

How could I describe this new experience? I imagined the only things comparable were sitting down to a plate of finely smoked bacon dressed in a velvet robe, melting into a hot tub in the chill of winter and being swaddled by a giant friendly cat that also feeds you beer. It was my sanctuary.

I did research and discovered I was not the only proponent of the shower beer, far from it. Further probing indicated a science behind the beauty: conditions similar to a sauna had a tendency to expand your pallet, making even lesser beers akin to nectar of the gods.

Shower beers have increased my passion for beer, something I did not previously consider possible after the many flights I have purchased from my favorite watering holes. When people point at bottles in the bathroom and say, “Really?”, I wear it like a badge of honor. And when the lady in my life embraced my curious leisure activity so openly, I knew I’d found the one for me. All of this thanks to the shower beer.

I hope you too experience the joy of sipping a finely chilled vanilla porter under the torrential downpour of your showerhead. You never really know your beer until you’ve shared the intimacy of a shower.