by Scotty Mack

Created on: June 21, 2008   Last Updated: November 07, 2008

I love beer! No, I'm not talking about chugging beers until I can't see straight; I like to think of myself as more of a connoisseur of the golden beverage. After spending a long, hot day, working in the Florida sun, there is nothing that hits the spot like an ice cold beer.

When I was in college, a group of friends and I made it a point to try a new beer every Friday night. After we had exhausted all of the beers that one finds in a typical liquor store, we found the need to venture out further from home to a bar that sold package goods and offered 180 different beers from around the world. Because of this, I have tasted beers from virtually every country that knows how to put it in a bottle.

Maybe it has something to do with the water, but each country's beers tend to have a similar quality to them. Certain countries' beers we weren't as fond of as others and we found ourselves gravitating toward some countries' beers more often until we had exhausted all of that country's available options. Rules are rules, however, and even though we were reluctant to try a beer because of a less-than-pleasant experience with other beers from a particular country, we were not going to give up on our quest to try them all.

As hard as it may be to believe, it is possible to be a member of the "Beer of the Week" club and still graduate from college in four years. With vacations, breaks and holidays, we never quite made it through all 180 beers. What I did gain from that wonderful ritual, is an appreciation for the subtle differences in beer and a bias toward beers from certain countries. At first, I thought the Canadian beers were the best; then it was Holland. Although Mexico, Japan and China had some interesting beers, I thought I had finally hit the jackpot when we discovered the brilliance of German-brewed beers like Becks and St. Pauli Girl; then Wurzburger Hofbrau and the incredible offerings of Augustiner Brau.

Many years later, in a small bar in St. Augustine, Florida, I tasted my first Belgian beer. In a word, it was amazing. I don't possess the vocabulary necessary to do justice to the fantastic flavor of that beer. Since then, whenever I have had the opportunity to sample other Belgian beers, I have leapt at the chance. When it comes to brewing beer, the masters of the world live in Belgium.

When I heard a week ago, that Belgian brewer InBev had made an offer to purchase Anheuser-Busch, my heart leapt (okay, maybe it was my taste buds). Instead of having to search high

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