Ellington

Between my freshman and sophomore year of college, I lived in Harlem, owned a MetroCard, ran in Central Park everyday and found out quickly that I didn't need a fake ID to buy beer—as long as I projected enough New York ennui to convince those around me that consumption of alcohol was the least of my concerns.

Enter Ben Bearnot—college friend, native New Yorker and lab intern at Columbia University. Ben was friends with the son of the U.N. ambassador of Ireland, and for some reason (I think it was someone's birthday) Mr. Ambassador was taking Junior out on the town. Junior called Ben, and Ben called me. It was a school night, but Ben's offer was irresistible, so I signed up for the boys' night out. Sometime around 8 p.m., I found myself looking out across New York City from one of the higher floors of a fancy Trump-owned apartment tower, wondering what the hell I had gotten myself into.

The night's events are a blur. Our birthday parade was primarily Irish- and beer-themed, though punctuated at one point by belly dancers. Somewhere around 3 a.m., we stumbled into what was billed as the oldest bar in New York City—fittingly, an Irish pub. With the floor covered in an inch of sawdust and the walls covered in rusty pub-appropriate décor, I couldn't dispute the pub's age. I leaned elbow-first to the bar, and looked the other way (my recently learned bar-expert stance), awaiting the attention of the gruff bartender. When he looked up at me from the mug he was cleaning, he had one small question: "Light or dark?"

I looked drunkenly around the bar for any indications of the beer they sold. The bartender asked me again, "Light or dark?" He gestured to two pairs of mugs—one with a deep amber tone, the other a honey yellow. After a quick glance around the bar, two things became apparent: (1) They sold beers in pairs, and (2) they had only two kinds of beer: light and dark. For a moment, my eyes were opened to these Zen-like impossibilities. I slurred some answer across the bar and continued my death march to dawn. I don't even remember if I picked light or dark that night.

I am cursed to revisit this dilemma at every bar, every liquor store, every beer section in every grocery store. Nowhere in Jackson is it more poignant than at Fenian's—corner of Fortification and Jefferson—which never fails to impress. Fenian's wins points for its mysterious boxty, its stout cheese, its dependably warm atmosphere and its time-softened wooden everything. The dilemma at Fenian's lies —for me—between a pint of Bass Ale and a pint of Harp. The former has medium body and a savory, almost metallic flavor. The latter has a little hoppy bitterness to it, and a crisp, refreshing finish. They're Irish and British "old faithfuls" at Fenian's, and right now they are my light (Harp) and dark (Bass) when I step up elbow-first to the bar and pretend like I know what I'm doing as I mumble an order across the bar. Years spent contemplating the dilemma, and I am a little better at reading the character of beer that will accompany my mood on a particular evening, but often I find myself stranded—shuffling from Bass to Harp to Bass again in the sawdust floor of my mind. After all, it is that first taste that will set the tone for the evening—after a few drinks it's all just different shades of Bud Light, anyway. The dilemma is a nervous fork in the road revisited at every bar, every liquor store, every beer section in every grocery store.

It's reassuring to remember—via the occasional beer-tinged flashback—that at that bar in New York (McSorley's Old Ale House, established in 1854) and, by extension, at pubs everywhere, we've been revisiting the light versus dark dilemma for quite some time.