I never knew much about beer. But I was willing to learn.

You may have read my earlier account of how, when I was a freshman in college, UCR, I did the Great Beer-Off with my roommate. I wanted to face, confront, and overcome all the temptations I would face in the larger world now that I was away from home and on my own. I also wanted what I thought of as “the college experience.”

So we bought ten beers, lined them up, started drinking, and took notes.

We tried acting like what we thought wine connoisseurs would sound like drinking beer, writing in their Wine Journals, raising the eyebrow, referring to the south end of the vineyard, which in this case would be the hop yard, if these beers were hoppy.

We did not spit out a mouthful to clear the palate. We drank every drop.

After the second beer, our reviews got shorter, began to slur, we began to blur, never got past six or seven. We were in beer heaven, never got to ten.

As I’ve said before elsewhere, the best beer of my life was monk-brewed in a monastery in Salzburg, falling from an endless fountain as steins were passed under and filled and fresh and you drank it in the garden.

So I have high standards and high expectations.

Which is why, when asking for recommendations, I tried Heineken with its self-promoted reputation as the “World’s Best.”

I agreed it was good. But then I found Grolsch. It came from up there in the northern end of Europe, near Heineken. It came in those flip-top heavy green glass bottles that you could re-use. In my youthful arrogance, I proclaimed Grolsch the “best beer available in America.”

Then of course there were the dark beers. Some people preferred them. There were pubs with Stout and Porter. And you didn’t have to be Irish to drink Guinness. That was dark, with the richer heavy flavor that hinted sweet, and the slightly higher alcohol content that hinted Australia.

So I liked dark beers too. I decided, if you were going to drink beer, you didn’t have to confine yourself to just one kind. I thought of myself as continental and universal international.

So when there were workmen at the house, either for the roof, or plumbing, or plaster or painting or in the garden pruning the tree tops, whatever it was, they were usually a friendly competent hard-working gang from south of the border and I asked the foreman, “What’s your favorite beer?”

He said, “Negra Modelo.”

I had seen it on the shelves next to regular Modelo, so I got some and tried it.

I had already gone through the expected series of Mexican beers available in Southern California U.S., and immediately pronounced Negra Modelo as “the best of the Mexican beers.”

So now I’m getting ready for my story about Negra Modelo.

I was gone somewhere with the car, probably working in the storage units to find the ordered books I was selling as Sterling Books of Altadena, one of the international ABE booksellers when they were the thing and all the rage to buy books through the mail.

Shirley was left at home to be the owner presence as a crew worked on the trees. She wanted to do something nice for them to show appreciation. Some people put out water or coffee. She thought beer.

I don’t think she thought of the possible consequences, a loss of motivation to continue working, or jeopardizing climbing upper branches to top the trees, it was just something nice to do.

She was always nice to almost everybody, and because she could still walk, she walked over the few blocks to the market, bought a case of Negra Modelo, and had to buy a little wire wheeled shopping cart they had for sale on the top shelf, and lugged the beer home.

She distributed it to the hot sweating lunch-break workers, very grateful for beer.

One said he would take his home to drink later.

I don’t know what they were used to drinking, I think something lighter and cheaper. She told me how one came up to her a little unsteadily, thanked her, and said sheepishly, “It’s so strong!”

So that’s my Negra Modelo story.

I’m out of drinking practice after my operation, and, with Shirley gone, I have less reason to spend money on nonessentials.

But my Daughter likes beer, knows more about it than I do, has grown up beyond the constraining poverty of my own early youth which has overshadowed my own life, she has traveled the world and knows more than I ever will about so many things. She likes a good beer, and I sometimes jokingly call her a beero, and she jokes back that I’m a peeug (pig), because I can still eat alarmingly.

I still try beer on occasion, she likes Negra Modelo well enough, and so I conclude my Negra Modelo story, leaving it open-ended.