Readers welcome to suggest new beer for Slouch

Among the seven or eight monumental mistakes I’ve made in my tortured adult life – outside of the occasional matrimonial gaffe – none was bigger than embracing Shiner Bock as my beer of choice to replace the late Rolling Rock.

Shiner Bock turned out to be a little too elusive, a little too expensive and a little too Quentin Tarantino.

The relationship between man and beer – particularly with the backdrop of sports on TV – is a quintessential element of the post-Marshall McLuhan, neo-populist American experience.

Nothing defines a U.S.-born Homo sapien more than his choice of beverage.

“You are what you drink,” Alexander Hamilton famously told Aaron Burr once. Burr preferred a brew that tasted great, Hamilton preferred one that was less filling, and on July 11, 1804, Burr shot Hamilton to death in a high-noon duel outside of a midtown Manhattan Hooters.

I was first exposed to Rolling Rock by the 1978 movie, “The Deer Hunter.” Coincidentally, about a week after I saw the film, I noticed Rolling Rock ponies in the liquor store and bought them for a weekly card game, and it became our unofficial home beer.

For more than a quarter century, I depended on Rolling Rock. It was my longest-sustained relationship – by at least 19 years – and arguably my most rewarding. Brett Favre has started 237 consecutive regular-season games as an NFL quarterback; I watched 479 consecutive “Monday Night Football” games with a remote in one hand and a Rock in the other.

And, then, on Black Friday, the green bottles were forever contaminated.

Anheuser-Busch, as many of you know, purchased Rolling Rock on May 19, 2006 and moved it out of Latrobe, Pa. This would be like Sumner Redstone purchasing the Roman Catholic Church and moving it out of Vatican City.

I was left high-and-dry. How shall I say? I was hopping mad.

(Column Intermission: I am proud to announce that Toni, a k a She Could Be The One III, has become my latest wife, pending psychological testing. Against all odds, we were married on a steamy Las Vegas evening in the middle of the Rio poker room in front of a horrified gallery. There were no survivors.)

Anyway, responding to a reader suggestion, I made the switch from Rolling Rock to Shiner Bock.

In retrospect, I would’ve been better off pouring Red Bull down my shorts and cracking my head open with a Tim McCarver signature baseball bat.

I am now searching for another beer and will enlist my smarter readers to direct me. The new brew must pass my ‘ABCs’ of standards:

Availability. It can’t just be sold in some tri-county area of North Dakota. Couch Slouch has to travel a lot. And when I’m on the road, I don’t want to have to fall back on Michelob or Miller Lite.

Buyability and bowlability. Is it affordable and is it lane-worthy? I need a beer that doesn’t dent my champagne budget and I need a beer to complement my 147 game at the AMF Bowling Center.

Compatability. I want a versatile brew. I want a beer that goes well with peanuts and popcorn and with grilled salmon and coq au vin. I want a beer that can taste just as good before breakfast as after dinner.

So please send in your selections. I will print the best of the recommendations – maybe even instruct Shirley to open up the $1.25 coffers to each reader who makes the column cut – and I will taste-test the candidates. If I have to, I’ll taste-test them all twice.

With any luck, I’ll be sober enough in a couple of weeks to write a follow-up column and announce my new companion beer. Hopefully, along with the new better half – she’d better be able to cook!!! – this will be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Ask The Slouch

Q. How do you figure the NBA and FBI investigation into referee Tim Donaghy will end up? (Brian Cato; Columbia, S.C.)

A. I’m a sentimentalist at heart, so I’m guessing this baby leads straight into Pete Rose’s den.

Q. With respect to the Michael Vick dogfighting case, or any other criminal investigation for that matter, does the jurisdictional reach of NFL security trump that of the federal government? (Scott D. Shuster; Watertown, Mass.)

A. Yes it does.

Q. Since Hank Aaron’s homer record is probably out of your reach, are you shooting for Mickey Rooney’s marriage record? (Dink Hodges; League City, Tex.)

A. Rooney’s numbers are inflated – he’s lived in Hollywood since age 6.

Q. When Barry Bonds ends up breaking Hank Aaron’s record, will it be recognized in the same manner gay marriage is? (John Meaux; Beaumont, Tex.)

A. Pay the man, Shirley.

Q. When I get vacation time, I usually like to lie around, drink beer and watch TV. I’d be interested to know what in the world you did on vacation to change your regular routine. (Kelly McKeon; Sagamore Hills, Ohio)

A. Listen, pal, I just got married, observed a brief honeymoon period and started a new, perilous life. You call that a vacation?