Dear Dave,

I’m a little worried about you. I mean, it was funny for a while. Like the time you told me in your restaurant how much you loved crappy beer. And then you told me in your other restaurant how you wanted the shittiest beer you could find. And the time one of your lieutenants asked me to make you a Momofuku beer, and that "Dave wants it to be ‘really bad, just like Tecate.’" And then you walked up to me at our mutual friend’s wedding a few months ago and said, "You’re really gonna hate to hear this, but…" I stopped you: "Let me guess…you wish that delicious cocktail was a terrible watery beer, right?" You looked a bit crestfallen. All this time I thought you were being, you know, spirited. As your column in this month’s GQ makes clear, you’re not joking at all.

C’mon man, give it a rest. You want us off your lawn?

The first beer I ever tried was at the age of 12 at a backyard BBQ. Miller High Life. I took a massive swig and spat it out into the grass. Turned out the stuff was nasty.

I continued to drink industrial beer all through college. But the fact was, I hated it. I also hated instant ramen but ate it every damned day, five packs to the dollar. I was a student. I didn’t have any money. I did it out of necessity; I wanted some booze.

Could I still murder a bag of White Castle cheeseburgers at midnight? Hells yeah! But I don’t go telling Danny Meyer about it every time I see him. White Castle is nostalgic, but Shake Shack burgers make me stupid with happiness. Now I can have a few nice things, and I like it that way. I respect industrial beer, but I don’t have to drink it anymore.

It’s not the fancy beer you don’t like. You don’t like us, your people. You have a "tenuous relationship with the Epicurean snob set?" You are the epicurean snob set! I’ve seen you with champagne in one hand and a Noma lamb leg in the other, chatting up celebrities. Why you frontin’? You spent your first three paragraphs insulting people just like you…is the cash, fame and luxury not working out?

We don’t come telling you how we love pink slime more than your Berkshire pork, or Cup O’ Soup more than your ramen, or a foil packet of carcinogens more than your tonkotsu. Why? Because that would be boring, that’s why. Come over to the brewery some time. We’ll have fun. I’ll show you how to do this, son.

With tough love,

Garrett

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