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When it comes to beer, sometimes less is more

I’VE BEEN TRYING TO lose weight and become a little more fit, and for me that meant cutting back on beer for a little while.

As everyone knows, alcohol equals empty calories. There is also the additional havoc it can wreak on your blood sugar, causing you to snack on carbs after a few beers. So I have been keeping my beer intake in check for a few months. So far, so good.

I have done this in the past, but this recent bit of discipline also opened my eyes to another possible benefit: I’m enjoying each individual beer more. It’s axiomatic that we appreciate things that are rarer, and sometimes take for granted the things that are commonplace. So it makes sense that if we deny (or restrict) our consumption of a product, our minds might treasure that product more.

For example, you can only get Trader Joe’s Candy Cane Joe-Joes (a delicious cookie) during the holiday season. This makes them a real treat when November and December roll around. The same goes for heirloom tomatoes or corn on the cob in summer. There are plenty of other examples, but you get my point.

I also have noticed that my palate seems to have a renewed sense of purpose. I think this is because if you drink a lot of different styles, your palate can become fatigued in one way, but if you tend to hammer home one style (like IPAs, for example), your taste buds can get beaten down in a different sort of way.

But if you have, say, two IPAs on Thursday, then take a

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