This squirrel feels your pain.

I often say there is a beer for every occasion. Formal, informal, celebratory, consoling. A number of times I have written about matching beer with occasions, such as the recently passed Valentine’s Day. I have done it enough that my editors at Planet S and Prairie Dog got a bit tired of my beer as relationship glue themed pieces and issued me a challenge last month – write about beer for getting dumped. What beer do you drink after your relationship breaks up? I’ll admit that one was a doozy.

However, after some thought I came up with a series of beer to go with the five emotional stages that occur after a bad break up. You can read the results of my effort here.

For the record, the five stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. I suggest a couple of beer for each stage. I won’t go through all of them here, but can give a bit of an overview. For example, how about Paddock Wood Loki for the denial stage? or Barking Squirrel for anger? I mean, have you seen the look of the squirrel on that can? Steigl Radler, with its 50/50 mix of beer and juice seems ideal for the bargaining phase. Depression is best served with Great Western’s CFL Beer, simply because you will be in  no shape to go out in public, so you might as well watch football. Finally, after processing and coming to terms with the reality of you life, I lead you through a series of beer to get  you back in the saddle again, ending with Ommegang’s Rare Vos as a celebration of your re-emergence in the world.

Maybe it isn’t a good idea to suggest alcoholic beverages to someone suffering from a bad break-up. But, heck, if you are going to drown your sorrows, you might as well do it with good tasting, quality craft beer. And if you think it is all in bad taste, blame my editors!