My Name Is David Chang, and I Hate Fancy Beer

For years I've watched craft-beer aficionados go on about their triple-hopped IPAs and cocoa-flavored English milk stouts while inside I've harbored a dark secret: I love cheap, watery swill. Singha, Tecate, Miller High Life—they're all the champagnes of beer, and for more reasons than you think
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For years I've watched craft-beer aficionados go on about their triple-hopped IPAs and cocoa-flavored English milk stouts while inside I've harbored a dark secret: I love cheap, watery swill. Singha, Tecate, Miller High Life—they're all the champagnes of beer, and for more reasons than you think

I have a tenuous relationship with the epicurean snob sets. Cheese snobs are okay, except for the delusional ones who proclaim America’s artisanal cheeses are as good as Europe’s. Wine snobs are pretty great, because they give me delicious wine. Sometimes they get worried when I want ice in my white wine, but what are you gonna do? I tell them I am a large man and I overheat. Coffee snobbery is just foreign to me; I don’t drink much coffee, because there is this great stuff called Diet Coke that has plenty of caffeine. It’s really refreshing, and I don’t need any tattoos to make it or fake Italian words to order it.

Beer snobs are the worst of the bunch. You know the old joke about cheap beer being like having sex in a canoe? I will take a beer that’s "fucking near water" every night of the week over combing out my neck beard while arguing about hop varieties.

See, when a waiter asks me what I want to drink, I respond, "What is your lightest, crappiest beer?" I’m very direct about my preference. But sometimes they think I’m being a jokey frat guy and don’t take me seriously. Or the sommelier worries that I’m turning up my nose at his wine list. The worst is when some dude starts to suggest a handcrafted lambic and I have to clarify my position.

I’m not saying that those beers don’t taste good. They do! And there’s a time and place for imperial stouts and barrel-aged saisons. (I have seen the sunrise from the bar at Mikkeller, okay, guys?) But 95 percent of the time, I don’t want something that tastes delicious. I want a Bud Light. I am not being falsely contrarian or ironic in a hipsterish way. This is something that I genuinely feel: I do not want a tasty beer.

Maybe it goes back to my childhood. I remember watching my grandfather mow the lawn on a ninety-degree day in Virginia, and as soon as he finished, he’d ask me to fetch him a can of ice-cold beer. He’d tell me, "One day, you’ll understand what it’s like to drink a really cold beer when you’ve earned it." I was like, "What the fuck does that mean?"

In high school, we drank cheap beer because we could afford it—we’d buy it by the case. But when I became a cook, I learned what that beer meant to my grandpa. Working alongside the Hispanic guys who really work in a restaurant kitchen, I learned that the world south of Texas makes amazing bad beer: Imperial from Costa Rica, Presidente from the Dominican Republic, Tecate from Mexico—all excellent bad beers.

For all the debatability of my rant here, let me make one ironclad argument for shitty beer: It pairs really well with food. All food. Think about how well champagne pairs with almost anything. Champagne is not a flavor bomb! It’s bubbly and has a little hint of acid and tannin and is cool and crisp and refreshing. Cheap beer is, no joke, the champagne of beers. And cheap beer and spicy food go together like nothing else. Think about Natty Boh and Old Bay-smothered crabs. Or Asian lagers like Orion and Singha and Tiger, which are all perfect ways to wash down your mapo tofu.

But there’s no beverage that I’ve drunk more of in my life than Bud Light. (Except water, but what’s the difference?) And there’s no drink I love more. I love it more than any great white wine, more than any white Burgundy, which I love very, very much. In my fridge, the only beer—practically the only foodstuff I’ve ever purchased for home—is Bud Light bottles. And since I live in New York City, I don’t even have to mow a lawn to earn one.

More David Chang:

The Ultimate Bologna Sandwich Recipe

Why You Should Order the Tasting Menu

How Not to Eff Up Lobster

And If You Like Fancy Beers: The 50 Best Craft Beers You Should Try Now