Back in the fall of 1993, Barbara got her first real job in the journalism business. In Battle Creek, Mich. Not necessarily an auspicious place to start your career, but hey, a job is a job.

On one of our first nights in BC, we went to a local pizza place for supper. Looking at the menu, I noticed a beer I didn't recognize. I asked the waitress about it, and she said it was something local. So we each got one. After one taste, we kinda stared at each other with smiles of amazement. Then we ordered another round.

Ever since that night, I've told anyone who will listen that Bell's Amber Ale is the best beer in the world.

Before I moved to BC, I'd never tasted any Sierra Nevada beers and my idea of a quality import was Guinness Extra Stout (which I still like). Beer culture in Michigan back then was light-years ahead of Missouri, and I found myself tasting all sorts of great beer. But the best stuff (be it the Amber or otherwise) seemed to come from Larry Bell's brewery twenty miles away in Kalamazoo.

After 13 years of increasing beer sophistication, I can't really say that Bell's Amber Ale is even the best Bell's beer, much less best beer in the world. But it is safe to say that first bottle of Bell's is what truly awoke the slumbering beer beast within my soul. Every time I taste a Bell's Amber a visceral rush of pleasure washes over me. And it is a great beer. Barbara spent a decade tasting other ambers until she finally realized that Bell's made the only good one.

A few years ago, Zymurgy magazine polled its readers as to the best beers (individual brews, not the entire brewery) in America. Bell's and Dogfish Head (out of Delaware) placed the largest number of beers in the final results. Both are realtively large "micros," and both make some of the most unusual beers in the world. Both are also among the fastest growing breweries in the country--good beer combined with solid business acumen can make for a profitable and expanding brewery. All this is to say that I am not alone in my admiration of Bell's (and, most certainly, Dogfish Head). If you make good beer, people around the country will take great pains to get hold of it.

I had but one regret when we fled BC for Florida in 1994: Bell's wasn't (and still isn't) available in Florida. So I took three cases of stuff down there and doled myself Ambers at a dolorous pace.

Ever since then, whenever we have visited friends in Detroit or Chicago or stopped by my parents' house in Kansas City (where Bell's has been available for about six years), I've picked up some beer to take home. I once boarded an airplane carrying two cases of beer and twelve bottles of barbecue sauce in two gym bags. By the time I got home, the weight had destroyed both bags... but the beer and sauce were just fine.

Last May, when we were up in Detroit visiting, I read that Bell's had built a new brewery, increasing its production capacity by leaps and bounds. By then, Bell's was available in parts of Pennsylvania but no further down the eastern seaboard. Surely, though, this new brewery meant that I might soon be able to saunter over to my favorite local beer store and pick up some Bell's.

And yet, while working with Pop the Cap I'd heard that North Carolina was the favored expansion point for many great American breweries, including Bell's. I made the rash pronouncement that if Bell's moved into NC without coming to DC, I'd move back the next day. Last week, I saw that Bell's was, indeed, moving into North Carolina.

Luckily for my family, Virginia and DC were part of the same expansion. Not Maryland, but then, I don't buy beer in my own state for a wide variety of reasons. So no matter. I called up my local shop, Chevy Chase Wine and Spirits in DC and asked when they might be getting some Bell's. The asnwer was Friday. As in last Friday.

I couldn't get to the store that day. And after all, they were getting sizable quantities of four Bell's beers (the Kalamazoo Stout, Cherry Stout, Third Coast Old Ale and Two Hearted Ale--an IPA of sorts) and they'd have plenty Saturday morning. Right?

No. I got there at about 12:30 Saturday afternoon and claimed the last 10 bottles of the Two Hearted. And ordered a case of the Amber--I didn't want to miss out on the first shipment of my favorite beer. The beer guys at the store expressed some--though not much, as they were quite familiar with the Bell's legend--surprise at how quickly the word had spread. Beer social networks are something like church phone chains. They're kinda haphazardly organized (if organized at all), but news tends to travel quickly nonetheless. Needless to say, there will be plenty of Bell's heading to Chevy Chase Wine and Spirits on forthcoming trucks, though there's no guarantee as to how long it will stay on the shelves.

So this year, with all there is for me to be thankful for (the election, the Stanley Cup, the continued wonders that are Max and Sam, a year in DC, etc.) I'm first and foremost giving thanks for the fact that, after a 12-year wait, I can finally buy my favorite beer in the place where I live.

Some folks might find my priorities somewhat misplaced. And maybe local availability of great beer isn't one of the most important things in the world. Maybe there are things that ought to occupy more of my attention. Maybe...

Maybe nothing. Bell's is in town, I'm giving thanks and if you don't like it, you can drink whatever you want with your turkey. I'm having some Bell's.

Jon Worley's ideal Thanksgiving dinner would consist of ribs, greens, acorn squash, cheese (blue and otherwise) and wheat berry hard rolls paired with plenty of Bell's Amber Ale. Dessert would be cheesecake (plain) served with a glass of Belgian beer (a brown might best set off the richness of the cheesecake) and a shot of good bourbon. Then he'd skip the football and sleep for two days.