Upon reviewing my past few columns, I realized I've been chewing on some weighty subjects.

It's time to wash all that serious stuff down with some beer.

Even though a column dedicated to beer would have been more appropriate in the last issue of the Gazette, what with the staff swarming the Indiana Microbrewers Festival with coverage, there's really no wrong time for beer-especially in Broad Ripple, home of the best microbrews in the city.

So with summer bearing down with blast-furnace ferocity, join me in the lawn chair under the shade tree to contemplate the Culture of Beer. And bring a six-pack to share.

If you don't believe there is such a thing as a Culture of Beer, stop by some afternoon at Great Fermentations on East 65th Street, where owner Anita Johnson and her employees sell beer-making supplies to a cadre of hopheads. People stop by to chat, about beer and whatever else, gathering around the shop's in-house fermenter like the pot-bellied stoves of old.

Or chat with Stuart at the Bottle Shoppe at 49th and College. He has lots of recommendations, such as "You know how a six-pack of Guinness makes you feel like you ate a loaf of bread? Try the Coopers from Australia. It's a little lighter on the stomach."

If you're still not convinced, head over to Brugge Brasserie. As good as Brugge's food is, their beer has become somewhat legendary in the Culture of Beer. Two years ago, when Brugge opened, co-owner and brewmaster Ted Miller rightly talked up Brugge's food, saying the beer was "just frills."

Last month, Brugge kicked off the opening of its Terre Haute brewing facility. The Broad Ripple location, it turns out, can't produce enough fine hand-crafted Belgian-style beer to keep up with demand from restaurant patrons and beer geeks hoping to see Brugge beer on their store shelves.

To celebrate the opening of the Terre Haute facility, Ted and wife Shannon Stone-Miller did what any self-respecting hophead would do-they threw a party. Instead of charging admission and jacking up the beer prices, they pitched a tent in the parking lot, hired DJ Rusty and charged a mere $2 for pints. For less than the regular Broad Ripple crowd was paying for bottles of mass-produced American swill a few blocks away, Brugge customers enjoyed good beer and good company on a summer night on the Monon.

The best thing about hanging around people who really, really like beer, though, is that you're bound to laugh and have a good time. Beer people, generally speaking, don't take themselves all that seriously. Beer, unlike any other beverage, seems to speak to people with its gentle hoppy voice and tell them to just relax already.

At the Microbrewers Festival, for instance, some of the best beer I tasted came at the recommendation of a "competing" brewery a couple of booths down. Strangers joked with each other while waiting in line and cheered each other on at the keg toss. While a few people clearly mistook the festival for a competitive-drinking event, the crowd overall was like walking into a party of a bunch of old friends.

It's hard to imagine a whisky counterpart to the Indiana Microbrewers Festival: one tent full of bespectacled button-down types, gently sipping amber liquid while taunting each other with insults like, "I hear James puts soda water in his Woodford Reserve." Meanwhile, outside, the ball diamond at Optimist Park turns into a Harley parking lot and a full-scale melee breaks out when the Jack Daniels tent runs out.

If I sound like a beer snob, so be it. Truth be told, I like all kinds of beer, except for the aforementioned American swill, but that's not really beer, so that doesn't count. Seriously, it's not unusual when circumstances of finance or availability dictate to find me hoisting a Miller Lite. It is, after all, a good car-washing beer-if it gets water in it or gets too hot in the sun, it's no big loss.

Although I could wax rhapsodic for pages on the virtues of beer, my space is limited, and the clock tells me it's almost beer-thirty. So I'll leave you with the wise words of Tom T. Hall:

I like beer. It makes me a jolly good fellow.

I like beer. It helps me unwind and sometimes it makes me feel mellow.

Whisky's too rough, champagne costs too much, and vodka puts my mouth in gear.

This little refrain should help me explain: As a matter of fact, I like beer.