Narragansett Beer

– World Market –

$7 a six-pack / March 2022 Cubano in photo above from The Ridge

Tall-and-skinnies have overrun my Nashville neighborhood, known as The Nations. This does not make the Nations interesting, in fact, one could argue the opposite. But let’s not get into a gentrification debate here. Looking out my second-floor window (clue: I live in one, myself), I can see about a dozen houses. A few of them are pretty old, the rest are almost brand-new. There is no in-between. For probably 40-to-50 years until the past decade, the Nations would have been architecturally frozen in time.

As to the newer properties, whether Airbnbs or owner-occupied, one thing you rarely see is an owner or tenant actually mowing the lawn. Is this a Nashville thing, hiring someone to cut a 60′ x 20′ lot (max) with an uncomfortably loud gas-guzzling tractor when a push mower and a commercial break’s worth of free time might do? Maybe. Maybe it’s the ethos of the New South, maybe Nashville is just too damn hot every month but January, maybe it’s just too economically efficient at $25 a week.

But here’s a better idea for something to do with that $25: Go to your favorite beer emporium (World Market would do quite nicely), and see if they have a couple of sixes of Narragansett beer (and $5 of beef jerky with the change), and if they don’t, ask them to get you some. I’m not promising you the kind of beer you’d drink watching the landscapers from your living room: a Belgian tripel; some fancy West Coast micro-brewery IPA; a Founders; or a Dogfish Head. I am promising you exactly the kind of ice-cold beer you’d want after cutting the lawn yourself.