This probably more painfully bizarre than funny. Drinking down at my local Vet's Club the other day, where I try not to mention or talk about homebrewing (as you can imagine, it's an older-BMC crowd, very suspicious/superstitious bunch), but I start talking with this younger guy I've known for a while and he seems to have a genuine interest in homebrewing, the equipment, the ingredients, the whole process, what kind of beers I brew- how they'd compare to craft beers he's had. He's throwing out a lot of the usual names, Sierra Nevada, Rogue, Dogfish Head, Flying Dog, Lagunitas, Founder's etc. He's being really humble and keeps saying he doesn't know what he's talking about, but he's a lot more knowledgeable than the average dude I run into at a VFW or an American Legion. So, we're having a good conversation and this semi-obnoxious girl that's always down there with her degenerate Bud Light-drunk husband comes over to have a cigarette where we are and all she hears are the words beer and home in the same sentence. She gets really excited and tells me that if I like home-made beer I have to come over to their house because they make home-made beer all the time. If you had any idea what these people are like, you'd be as blown away as I was. So, I ask her if they brew all grain or extract and she gives me this weird look and says, What are you talking about? We make our own beer at home! We've got a Mr. Beer! Now, I should have just walked away, but my buddy and I were really buzzed, so I had to go somewhere with this. Now, I have nothing against Mr. Beer, and I know some people that really got into homebrewing because of it, but I've never used a Mr. Beer though I think I've got a decent idea how it works, so I say, Yeah, you know that stuff that comes in the can? (thinking malt extract) And she stops me and says, No, we don't put our beer in cans- cans are bad for beer! Cans make beer go bad! We put it in plastic Mr. Beer bottles! Baffled, and thinking I can come back to this later, I try to keep things as simple as possible, and try to explain all grain brewing, but she's dumbfounded and I can almost see her brain inside her head shutting down, so I start talking about extract brewing and she shuts me up, telling me, You can't make up your own ingredients for beer! You have to buy it! You can't use cereal like Grape Nuts or granola! At this point, I realize that I'm not going to get too much further, so I say, You should stop over the next time I brew, I can show you that it's really easy to make great beer and better beer than you can make in a Mr. Beer, but she flips out and keeps shouting Mr. Beer is the only way to make home-made beer! That's why they sell it! I buy my husband a different kind every year for Christmas! Go online! You can make any kind of beer with Mr. Beer! You can make American beer and Canadian beer and even German beer! At this point, I'm all done, but my buddy speaks up and says, Oh man, German beer. That stuff makes me sick. Gives me a headache. And he goes back inside. I follow him in and we're having a chuckle about the girl and I tell him that I don't have much of my homebrew ready to drink, but I'll bring him down what I've got, a couple bottles of my Pale Ale, and my Blonde. He looks at me kind of weird and I tell him the Blonde isn't that great, but my mother and her friends, who only ever drink Coors Light, really love the stuff and he just says with all seriousness, Oh, no, man. Really, I can't drink that Blonde stuff, it kicks my ass, I wasn't kidding. And ales are bad news, I can't handle ale like you can. But I definitely want some of your beer when it's ready.