Would You Drink This Beer?

By Christie Aschwanden, 3-16-05

	Caption: Found Beer

This morning my hubby and I went for a little cross-country ski on our local trails. On our way up the Grand Mesa Scenic Byway, I happened to spot what looked like a six pack of Fat Tire Amber Ale sitting beside the road. "Stop the car!" I said to Dave. He refused, certain that it was just a bunch of empty bottles left by litterbugs.

We arrived at the County Line trailhead, went for our ski, and drove home. This time, when we approached the beer, Dave reluctantly stopped the car (probably to make me stop shouting, "There it is!"). I jumped out, grabbed the handle on the six pack and lifted. Jackpot! The bottles were full and the bottle caps still in place.

I got into the car, beer in tow.
"I wouldn't drink that if I were you," Dave said.
"Why not? They haven't been opened."
"You don't know how long those bottles have been sitting in the sun," he says.
I think about it for a second. We had gone up to the ski area on Sunday, and I hadn't seen the beer then—there is now way it could have been sitting there more than two days. Plus, it was in a conspicuous place, and I'm certainly not the only one in Delta County who likes beer.

As I pondered this, the DJ on KVNF, our local public radio station, came on to make some community announcements. Which gave me an idea: maybe I should call the station and ask them to put out an announcement.
"Did you lose your beer? Call Christie, and if you can describe where you left it, she'll give it back."

Then I started having visions of drunks calling up to try and claim the stuff. I decided to focus on figuring out what the hell the beer was doing on the side of the road. I've seen plenty of lost shoes, condoms and banana peels on the roadside in my time, but abandoned beer was a first.

My first guess was that some teenagers had illicitly obtained the beer and were forced to ditch it suddenly to avoid being caught. But I couldn't quite figure out a scenario under which this would happen in this particular spot. Besides, most teenagers favor a nice cheap beer like Shaffer over the $7 a six pack price of microbrews.

Perhaps preference had something to do with it. I would not have stopped if it were Budweiser. Perhaps Fat Tire aficionados like me are scare in these parts. Maybe someone bought the six-pack, drank the one beer that was missing, decided s/he didn't like it, and ditched it on the side of the road.

Or maybe the Grand Mesa has a beer fairy. Don't beer-loving adults deserve supernatural friends too? I like the idea of a fairy that leaves tasty beer for me to find, so I've settled on that as my explanation of choice. Now the question is—is there something wrong with the beer? I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime, I welcome your solutions to the beer mystery.

[End of article]