Belgian beers in general can be so lovely. Of the three big brewing traditions, the Belgians seem to have the most variations. The Germans with their lagers and hefes, and the Brits with their various ales are both very strict with regard to rules for ingredients and methods. The Belgians, however, went crazy with their ingredients and adjuncts and methods. They are also the culture whose monasteries make some of the best beers in the world, the Trappist ales. Those are pretty tightly regulated, but so are any other culturally significant historical products like Parmigano Reggiano…

One of the best beers I’ve ever had, bar none, was a saison I brewed myself from an extract kit I got from Northern Brewer. It was amazing. It was unlike any beer I’d ever had before. It was malty, slightly hoppy, and I used some coriander seed during the boil. Absolutely lovely.

Try a Lambic.

There’s a reason they sell it, dude. The fact that a brewery sells rum and soda is because they realize if you don’t like beer, but your friends do, you might not tag along, and they wouldn’t get an opportunity to sell you anything!

Different people have different tastes, and some folks are just not going to like certain flavor profiles.

Within beer though, there is so much variety, I’d be shocked if there wasn’t at least one beer out there that you’d thoroughly enjoy. It’s just not likely worth the effort of finding that one.

This almost as bad as that international competition where when the Kazakh person won gold in their event, the organizers played the national anthem from Borat instead of the real national anthem of Kazakhstan…

They were pissed…

https://www.npr.org/2012/03/23/149244038/ceremony-plays-borat-kazakhstan-anthem-by-mistake

Well that’s my point. Maybe I’m too willing to give older folks the benefit of the doubt, but we don’t know anything about these folks besides political affiliation and that they have a trans grandchild.

I mean, I grew up in a conservative household. In 1997, trans healthcare wasn’t a consideration. It wasn’t an issue in 2007. If it’s not an issue, I guarantee that it wasn’t on most voters mind. The vast majority of the ardent champions for LGBT rights in elected office right now were part of the majority that were against marriage equality at some point of their political career.

Disparaging people for growing, regardless of the reason, is counterproductive.

Would you rather the grandparents had shunned the grandchild? What use is gate keeping correct decisions?

If some place has crazy sock day, they’re talking about people wearing bright loud print socks or something super outlandish.

The crazy socks in the photo are the socks they give you when you’re admitted inpatient at the mental health hospital.

Yes.

You strike me as someone very close to people who don’t share your same views on a lot of topics.

So your manager, in a retail store, that presumably exclusively sold non-flat-earth items, caved to a whack-job who wanted you to be fired because you wouldn’t waste your productive work time listening to his whack-job bullshit (closing is almost always more than turning the lights off and locking up), and actually fired you?

Sounds like the manager did you a favor. He did have a choice… standing up for his employees agains unreasonable nonsense like that.