Pints With Aquinas - 65: Should I drink to the point of hilarity? With Sam Guzman

Episode Date: July 18, 2017

Today I chat with my mate Sam Guzman of The Catholic Gentleman about 5 tips to drinking beer like a connoisseur.  Here's an article Sam wrote on the matter. https://www.catholicgentleman.net/2014/07/5-steps-to-tasting-beer-like-a-connoisseur/ SPONSORS EL Investments: https://www.elinvestments.net/pints Exodus 90: https://exodus90.com/mattfradd/  Hallow: http://hallow.app/mattfradd  STRIVE: https://www.strive21.com/  GIVING Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mattfradd This show (and all the plans we have in store) wouldn't be possible without you. I can't thank those of you who support me enough. Seriously! Thanks for essentially being a co-producer coproducer of the show. LINKS Website: https://pintswithaquinas.com/ Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/matt-fradd FREE 21 Day Detox From Porn Course: https://www.strive21.com/ SOCIAL Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd Twitter: https://twitter.com/mattfradd Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd MY BOOKS  Does God Exist: https://www.amazon.com/Does-God-Exist-Socratic-Dialogue-ebook/dp/B081ZGYJW3/ref=sr_1_9?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586377974&sr=8-9 Marian Consecration With Aquinas: https://www.amazon.com/Marian-Consecration-Aquinas-Growing-Closer-ebook/dp/B083XRQMTF/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586379026&sr=8-4 The Porn Myth: https://www.ignatius.com/The-Porn-Myth-P1985.aspx CONTACT Book me to speak: https://www.mattfradd.com/speakerrequestform

Pints with Aquinas depends on your support. If you're an awesome person and want to prove it, go to pintswithaquinas.com, click the Patreon banner, and there you can learn how to support the show for as little as $2 a month. Every dollar helps, and we are grateful for your support. Welcome to Pints with Aquinas, episode 65. I'm Matt Fradd. If you could sit down over a pint of beer with St. Thomas Aquinas and ask him any one question, what would it be? In today's episode, we'll talk to him about alcohol again. We'll ask him, did you ever say drink to the point of hilarity and then we're going to ask our fellow drinking partner here sam guzman from the catholic gentleman about five tips to tasting beer like a connoisseur welcome back to pints with aquinas this show where you and I pull up a barstool next to the angelic doctor to discuss theology and philosophy. Really excited about today's episode.

We're going to be discussing the topic of alcohol. If you haven't yet listened to episode 24, that's where I address what Aquinas says in the Summa Theologiae. That's episode 24. It's called, Are You Cool If I Get Hammered Drunk? But the other reason I want to address this issue is we keep getting questions sent to us at Pines with Aquinas like this one. Hi, Matt. My name's Elise. I just heard about your show and I just had a quick question. Elise, I just heard about your show, and I just had a quick question. My whole life, well, not my whole life, but recently especially, a lot of people quote Thomas Aquinas, and the quote is,

drink to hilarity. So I just want to see what your take on that is. If he's saying that getting buzzed is definitely okay. If maybe slightly drunk. I don't know. Whatever you think. Thanks. Bye. Thanks so much, Elise. This is a question that, as I say, a lot of people have asked us,

and so I wanted to address it on today's show before we bring in Sam Guzman. To the best of my knowledge, Aquinas never said drink to the point of hilarity. But the quote you're referring to seems to have been a quote by a Dominican friar that was published in the 2009, April 2009, print edition of Veritatis Preco. And I'm not going to read the Latin because I'll butcher it, but in English, he said, quote, hence to drink even to the point of hilarity is certainly not illicit per se. Now, as I already said, I've addressed what Aquinas said in the Summa Theologiae. If you're interested in listening to that episode, you can go check out episode 24. Essentially, what Aquinas does in that part of the Summa Theologiae, which, by the way, is the Secundae Secundae, question 150, articles 1 and 4. Essentially, what he does is he first dismantles the belief that alcohol is intrinsically bad, okay? So, alcohol's fine, we can drink it,

it's a gift from God. Certainly, in John chapter 2, there's Jesus, you know, multiplying or creating wine from water, okay? Secondly, the thing that he does is he shows that why getting drunk is a mortal sin, all right? Or at least a grave sin, and then when done with full consent of the will and with knowledge that it's wrong, that it would constitute mortal sin. So, it is serious. Nevertheless, how should we understand hilarity? Well, sometimes you hear the word hilarity, it sounds like hilarious. And so, you think of somebody laughing uncontrollably in a drunken state. Well, that's obviously not what we mean since drunkenness is never permissible. But if we think of hilarity as

lightheartedness, then I think the quote's completely legitimate. The reason you and I drink alcohol is so that we can be more lighthearted, so that conversation can flow more naturally and so forth. You know, you and I are looking for a physiological response when we have alcohol, that's why we drink it. Why else would you? So, in that sense, I think the quotation is legitimate. I think this suspicion towards alcohol, this complete intolerance of using particular swear words, right, like the S-H swear word, and dancing and things like this springs from this really puritanical past, okay? Here's a quotation from John Osterle in his introduction to St. Thomas Aquinas' Treatise

on the Virtues. He says the following, The meaning of virtue in modern times has lost some of the original force it once had, thanks in part to an extremely rigid moral tradition stretching perhaps back at least to Puritan times. Virtuous living has been linked with joyless living, and the very notion of virtue has been narrowed to signify principally some form of temperate conduct, and just as temperance in, has been primarily restricting to restraining the appetite for alcoholic drink, in which respect temperance has sometimes been confused with abstinence, so virtue, though actually much broader in meaning than temperance, has been largely confined in the minds of many to another area of temperance. I really like that. in the minds of many to another area of temperance. I really like that. Well, having said that,

now what I'd like to do is bring in Sam Guzman to discuss with us five tips to drinking beer like a connoisseur. Samuel Guzman, how's it going? That's a nice jingle there. I'm doing great. How are you? Have you ever gone through a period in your life where you thought, you know what, I'm going to reinvent myself as Samuel? I've actually thought about it, yes, I have. But I've never been able to take the leap and rebrand myself. Sam Guzman, Samuel Guzman. You know, when I joined Catholic Answers, I was still going by Matthew Fradd. This is a really interesting tidbit for people. And I was chatting with Jimmy Akin, who I had just met, who you know, at least through listening to him, Catholic Answers Live, I'm sure. And he said, do you go by Matt or Matthew? And I said to him, like, well, I don't know. I mean, I don't know what I should go by, you know, because I think my first book was coming out,

and I hadn't really thought of it. And he said this, he went frad matthew i would go with matt frad because you have the double dental stop with your teeth matt frad and i went oh sweet that'll do so he named it's got this nice symmetry about it you know one syllable one syllable i think some people think my name is matt frad i think they think that's my first name, Matt Fradd. Yeah, it just flows off the tongue. Well, anyway, Sam, you run a fantastic website called Catholic Gentleman, and everything you put out is super quality. I'm always impressed with you, Sam, because the temptation for me, and I'm sure for a lot of other people, is just to crank out content,

whether it's good or not. But whenever I see a new blog post by you, whether I see a new meme by you, or these beautiful Catholic gentleman coffee mugs, which I now have, thanks to you, thank you very much, it's all quality. And I'm really not just saying that because we're live and I'm trying to make you look good.

I really am impressed with how you do that. Well, I'm glad. I'm really glad. You know, I strive for that. So I'm happy to hear that. Well, I'm glad. I'm really glad. You know, I strive for that. So, I'm happy to hear that. Good, good. That the mission is achieved. So, today we want to talk about five steps to tasting beer like a connoisseur. I thought it was about time that we discussed beer specifically on this show since where it's pints is the first word in the title of Pints with Aquinas. And I wanted you to come on and help us with that. Yeah, happy to. I love beer. It's something I enjoy quite a bit. Tasting beer is not just about literally how it tastes.

You really taste beer with all five senses, if you will. And there's a little acronym that I use to describe this process. And it's AATMF. I don't know if that's even helpful, but it's AATMF. So I'll just go through what that stands for. So A is appearance. What does it look like? Is it this nutty brown color or is it light and bubbly? Is it the color of wheat?

Just what does it look like? Really assess that. Take it apart and analyze it. And you'll notice that, you know, if you drink beer from cans or bottles or whatever, you may not really pay attention. But if you pour it in glass, you'll notice there's a lot of variety. You know, there's unfiltered beers that are kind of cloudy. There's stouts and dark beers that are like as thick and black as motor oil uh you know there's there's lagers and ales that are light and uh clear so there's a lot of variety and uh

it's it's actually kind of enjoyable to assess the different different appearances so that is appearance uh there's and then there's aroma you know just take a whiff of your beer. This is kind of associated frequently with wine tasting. But beer has a distinct aroma to it as well, and it actually has a lot to do with the experience of the taste of it. So an IPA or something that's quite hoppy, you know, this kind of pine needle, citrusy scent to it. You know, whereas a lager might, or a dark beer might taste more, or may smell more like, you know, a loaf of bread.

So appearance, aroma, and then T stands for taste. What does it taste like? Is it bitter? Is it sweet? Is it really malty? So there's different aspects there, and obviously that's the part we think of when we think of tasting beer, but it's only one of those five steps.

So then M stands for mouthfeel it how does it feel in your mouth and some you know this is something that's easy to miss but it actually there's there's definitely subtle differences in the way a beer feels in your mouth so for example a um there's beers that taste you know very creamy and very smooth in your mouth and then there's others that are really heavy and it's like you know a doppelbach where it's where it's almost like drinking you know this thing uh bread bready beer and um you know really you know high calorie beer and uh so mouthfeel is is important um so appearance aroma taste mouthfeel uh and then finally the finish you know a lot of beers will have a distinctive aftertaste that it leaves in

your mouth uh you know sometimes it'll be distinctly different than the initial taste of the beer at first it might you know taste really malty and grainy, and then at the end, you might get a hit of hops there at the end. So it really just depends. It's worth paying attention to that. So that's just a brief rundown. I've got an article on my website called Five Steps to Tasting Beer Like a Connoisseur.

And it kind of breaks down these different points and develops them a little bit. So I hope that helps you enjoy your beer a little bit more and see it from a different perspective. You know, that's really good. We should treat all of our food like that in a sense, shouldn't we? Because we get used to just consuming. We don't even stop to think, to smell a dish of food that's been placed before us, right? Or even when eating vegetables or meat to think to ourselves, like, what is this tasting like? We barely put our knife and our fork down between each bite. My point is, this isn't like just a snobby way to drink beer.

This is just a way to appreciate the good things God has given us, as opposed to just, you know, throwing them down the gullet and not taking the time to appreciate them. Exactly. Yeah. So, there's this big movement right now, and it's all about this mindfulness or whatever. And it's kind of a buzzword in certain circles, you know, mindful this, mindful that. But really, what I take away from that is it's about paying attention, paying attention to what's in front of you. And I think it really does make a difference. I mean, we can't be grateful for things that we're unaware of. And, you know, in our fast food culture, you know, we're sipping sodas on the run and eating french fries and stuff. And yeah, we don't pay attention.

But what you'll find is that when you do and when you really savor the things that you have, first of all, you appreciate them more. And you're more grateful for them. And you're more likely to return thanks to God for the gifts that He's given you. And for a while, there was also another movement. It may still be popular. I don't know. But this idea of slow food.

You take your time. You enjoy your food over a conversation. And maybe your meal stretches to two hours or whatever. But you'll find that those experiences are much more rich and enjoyable. And do you tend to be a microbrewery fan? Maybe answer that and then tell me some of your favorite beers. Yeah, wow. So I definitely prefer local breweries, breweries that are smaller. Not so much because they always have better beer although they usually do but just because i like supporting local business and i and i think one of the things

is exciting to see is that there is a strong movement within beer culture for the small and local as opposed to these big corporate giants and i think that's that's a really exciting encouraging development because we're in such a you know mass-produced culture um to find people who are finding creative ways to stand apart from the crowd is always it's always fun it's always fun to discover you know we moved to oklahoma um about a year ago um and i've been um learning all the local beers around here um and i've been learning all the local beers around here and there are breweries that are unique to this area so i definitely prefer those micro breweries as far as my favorite beers go a lot of them are heavier like scottish scottish ales um or uh there's a there's a great brewery called innocent gun it's from scotland um they're one of my favorite breweries um there's one uh in

michigan that i really like founders breweries uh they have one that has kind of that i really like um it's a little bit uh inappropriately named but it's called the Dirty Bastard, but it's an excellent beer. It's Scottish, wee heavy ale. And obviously the monastic breweries are awesome, the Trappist ales.

One of the other monastic breweries I love is the Benedictine Monks of Norcia in Italy. We live near an abbey here in Oklahoma, and I would love it if they started brewing beer. That would instantly be my favorite beer. But unfortunately, they don't do that. I reckon you should start it, Sam. I think you should start it.

You can be the local brewer for the abbey. Yeah, the state of Oklahoma. Wouldn't that be great? But yeah, so I really like the Scottish ales. You know, there's this warmth to them and, you know, they have a lot of character. Belhaven Scottish is another one of my favorites. Very cool. Well, thanks so much for being with us and helping us understand how to drink beer like a connoisseur.

God bless you. Well, thanks so much for tuning in to this edition with Pints with Aquinas. I am so thankful to all of you who tune in week after week, and I want to thank you very much for supporting the podcast. Many of you do. We have almost 200 patrons. If you go to patreon.com slash PWA, you can learn how you can support Pints with Aquinas

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would you please go to Pints with Aquinas, click support, and learn how you can begin supporting the show. Thanks so much for tuning in. God bless. To carry you. And I would give my whole life. To carry you. To carry you. And I would give my whole life. To carry you.

To carry you. To carry you. To carry you. To carry you to carry you to carry you to carry you I took you in Too many grains of salt and juice Lest we be frauds or worse, accused Hollow me to deepen the news Whose wolves am I feeding myself to Who's gonna survive

Who's gonna