Breakfast Beer: It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere

(Photo: Facebook)

We’ve all been there. The morning after a birthday/big game/house party/Wednesday, the harsh light of day beating through the window, you drag your carcass out of bed in search of something, anything that will make your pounding hangover subside, an attempt to take the edge off…then you see it: the can of warm, half-flat PBR on the counter. Dare you?! A hair of the dog can’t hurt, right? Bottoms up and hope for the best.

Well, a brewery in New Zealand says, enough is enough. Time to free morning beer from its stigma as “desperate hangover cure” and into a whole new perspective: elegant breakfast!

According to the NZ Herald, Moa brewery has released a new beer, a “cherry-flavoured, wheat lager,” that is being marketed as a breakfast beverage. Of course, this has simultaneously excited and outraged society. Some sources go so far as to call it “normalising pathological behaviour.” Hmm, pathological? The Moa brewery co-owner makes a valid counterpoint:

“Look at cultures like Germany where a lager in the right circumstances is part of the culture, or Italy where the grappa is used as a morning pick-me-up. Cultures around the world consume alcohol in the right way, and that includes breakfast.”

Beer as breakfast: a welcome addition to the table, or a plight upon society?