Dear Golden Road,

It’s not you, it’s me. You have treated me great over the past four years, and when I said we’d be together forever…well, I’m afraid that can’t happen anymore. This morning, I got a letter from your new man, AB Inbev, and I guess the rumors are true.

If I knew you wanted to be in an abusive relationship, I guess I could have tried harder. I could have offered free beer to beer bars to snatch a tap handle or two*. I could have tried to turn the local supermarket beer aisle into a corporate mess. I could have spent millions lobbying congress and urged wholesalers to ‘stay loyal’. I even could have tried to purchase distribution in states to limit craft beer on shelves.

That new guy of yours is quite a jerk.  I get it, though. That money is too good to pass up.

Now I’m sorry to say that we’re over. When I see your billboards around town, I’ll look away and try not to think about the good times when you donated beer and time to Firkfest and the Fest of Ales. I’ll no longer drive down Orangewood by Angel Stadium on my way to work, as it will simply be too hard thinking about what could have been. Giving you time is giving them time, and I can’t support that.

A wise man once told me if you happen to ride a clydesdale down a golden road, make sure to hire a good poop scooper. I’m not sure what he meant until now. Hire the best pooper scooper Inbev’s money can buy. And you scoop that poop long and hard, friend.

Just a puritan in a Nathaniel Hawthorn book,

OCBeerBlog

*allegedly