As I was chatting over lunch with a friend from work yesterday, he pulled out the grocery list his wife had given him to pick up the remaining items for Thanksgiving dinner. That led to a discussion about the rising price of food this year. We’re all feeling it, but I was reminded of the senior citizen down the road from me who is feeling it a lot harder than I am.
Coincidentally, I had given Jack a six pack sampler from my last 3 batches recently – he LOVES my brews, by the way – and THAT got me thinking about one way we homebrewers can make a real difference during these tough economic times. I figured I’d use this forum to float my idea.
Jack is in his eighties and he likes his beer. During a neighborhood chat recently he mentioned the 2 or 3 bargain beers he’d come across. He also talked about the best prices he’d found for various staples in the grocery fliers that he scours regularly. It dawned on me that, by sharing 10% of my brew (that’s what a six pack roughly equates to out of a five-gallon batch) with a friend on a fixed income I was helping him offset the rising cost of food. Instead of buying cheap beer, he’s enjoying my good stuff for free and he can spend his beer money on other groceries.
So my proposal during this season of giving is for homebrewers to consider a brewer’s tithe – simply by sharing one tenth of our beer with beer lovers we know who are on limited incomes, we are helping them afford the food they need while spreading good cheer and an appreciation of the finer things in life.
While I think your intentions are admirable, if someone is really hurting for money, beer should be the one of last things on their list of needed things.
Maybe, but I’d see it like giving chocolate to people… More of a spirit-lifter than anything else. I wouldn’t recommend just dropping off beer at random peoples’ places… But certainly showing up at someone’s house with a six pack, when you know they’re down on their luck, and sharing a beer or two, is certainly a welcome respite.
Maybe it’s just me, but if someone is spending money on beer when they’re having trouble making ends meet, there might be some addiction involved and I wouldn’t want to contribute to that.
Now, if I knew them well enough to know that wasn’t the case, then yes, I’d be more than happy to share a few beers with them.
If the man is going to spend money on beer anyway he apparantly enjoys it enough to sacrific something else in return. Giving him a 6pk will free that money up for something else.
If he is in his 80’s then I’m sure he has made a great contribution to society over his life and is part of what we are able to have.
Let him enjoy what time he has left. Give him a 12 pk.
Also take time to sit down a share a brew with him and listen to his stories; you will learn a great deal. Plus, I’m sure he will enjoy the company.
If one person on this forum says (and I already see the sarcastic posts coming : ) that at the age of 80 you won’t be buying beer or at least wanting a beer I’d call you a dead liar! Me personally, I’ve already declared to my wife that when we retire and move into an assisted living home, they’re going to be assisting me in brewing!
For this situation; we don’t know anything more than what was given to us so we don’t know his previous or current financial, family, emotional, or health situation(s). It would be impossible for us to accurately know this man’s life details from the little given, so for what it’s worth, my opinion is that I would give this an elderly man a beer from time to time. I figure even in tough circumstances having something in your life that perks you up a little and keeps the spirits up is well worth a few dollars. Give the man a few beers, a 6 pack equates to a little more than a beer a week this guy gets, and hope it cheers him up some.
Sharing a portion of your beer, which you poured your time and effort into, with someone on a limited budget is definitely considerate. To make an actual sacrifice, however would be to use the money spent on grain, hops, and fuel/energy, to make a contribution at a local food bank or even to donate directly to a family that you know that is struggling to get by. Or give both, for that matter!
Good beer is good, but it’s still a luxury to someone missing out on the basics.
I’m doing this in a manner…I’m using the 3-4 kegs that SN will send me from Beer Camp to put on a fundraiser for our local food bank. SN will donate the beer.
A while back I posted about donating some of my beer for a charity auction at work. Well I decided to go for it and my colleague helped me make a “brew basket” with a six pack (2 Oatmeal Stouts, 2 JubelAle clones and 2 CaliCommons) a bag of Rolled Gold, can of beer nuts, 2 nice Pilsner glasses, a jar of Stout Dijon and some beer pads and stickers from local brewpubs; that and a bomber of each of the beers mentioned. They went nuts for the stuff! Pulled in $347 from all combined. I’m a little nervous to hand out bombers that folks shelled out $30 bucks for! We ended up raising $5277 in a little over an hour that we donate 100% to three different local charities that we select every year. Felt good.
You are missing the point altogether. The man is already buying beer. Nobody is holding him down and pouring it down his throat. The OP is wanting to share some beer that’s better than the swill than the old man is buying now.
i had an 85 yo diabetic patient. she already had a stroke, copd, chf, the whole shabang. she was already on the Good Lord’s borrowed time. Her daughter wouldn’t let her have chocolate because she was a diabetic. I told her “your mother is 85 years old, she deserves to have what ever the hell she wants.”
+1
Little joys are as important as anything in life. A positive mental attitude has cured more maladies than any medicine.
What’s the point of maybe eking out a few more days if you are just miserable all of the time?
Please read the OP. Is this really what he described and did I suggest anything more than to be careful that the free beer could, repeat, could contribute to an addiction?
I have no doubt that there are many responsible beer drinkers on this forum, but the fact remains, alcoholism is a real problem. Maybe I’m blocking some of your precious Hawaiian sunshine, but we still need to be responsible brewers. If we can be caring about a turkey on Thanksgiving (other thread), surely we can show a little of the same with elderly folks that may have a money problem and possibly a drinking one as well.
I apologize to the OP. The direction this thread has taken is not what I ever expected and I’m very sad for that. My intentions were meant to be positive.
Instead of just giving the beer away, which isn’t such of a bad idea in the spirit of the topic; and if he is interested- how about maybe having this man pitch in say $10 for ingredients and he helps brew in some small way. Could be just interesting company around the kettle. Then he gets a case of the finished product and a say in what gets brewed.
What I’m hearing from you is that being poor = being an alcoholic, and I know some hardworking poor people that would mightily disagree with you on that. The 85 year old guy is probably just struggling to get by after (like a lot of people these days) seeing his pension or IRA ripped to shreds. That being said, of course you are absolutely correct that we shouldn’t just go handing out beer to anybody, hence why I agree with the “sitting down and drinking one or two with him.”
I’m not trying to start a fight, I just think you need to give us a little more credit in the intelligent decisions department
Thank you Phil. I will take it a step further than that:
Being frugal ≠ being poor ≠ being an alcoholic.
In the spirit of Thanksgiving, Tim made his first post on this forum to share what I consider to be a very generous idea, and the thread gets hijacked by political correctness. WTF?
I admire your generosity Tim. Homebrewing and sharing go hand-in-hand. See if your friend is interested in helping you make better beer. Please keep posting here, and let us know how it goes. Keep up your good works!
) that at the age of 80 you won’t be buying beer or at least wanting a beer I’d call you a dead liar! Me personally, I’ve already declared to my wife that when we retire and move into an assisted living home, they’re going to be assisting me in brewing!