I’d Like All My Beer in a 54-Ounce Bottle From Now on

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It’s not that I don’t like drinking beer—I just don’t like the way we drink beer in America most of the time. There’s something inherently lonely about a standard 12-ounce can or bottle; it’s a solitary thing, a single serving of booze tailored to the individual. Taste aside, I think that’s why I’ve found myself gravitating toward wine more and more. A bottle of wine demands to be shared, to be decided upon and poured and consumed by a group, and feels all the more convivial for it. Sharing is caring, after all!

There are exceptions to this, of course. A pitcher of Bud Light split between friends at a bowling alley, say, or the fancy small batch ale in a 750-ml bottle meant to be cellared and sipped and savored. But the most notable and delightful exception I have come across recently was at Babo, a Korean bar in Nashville, where a whopping 54-ounce bottle of Hite is the order of the day. I was at the bar with friends at the end of a long night of eating and drinking in Music City, and tasked with grabbing another round when I spied it on the menu. I almost did a double-take—I mean, I’ve had my share of 40s in my day, but 54 ounces?? I placed my order and returned to the table with a massive, ice-cold, plastic screw-top bottle of South Korea’s answer to Budweiser, four lilliputian glasses, and a goofy, triumphant grin on my face. Now this was living!

Many months later, I asked Tim Song, one of the owners of Babo, about the Big Boy Beer, and he told me about how Korean drinking culture is all about sharing and togetherness, and that they put larger format drinks on the menu to help facilitate that particular style of convivial boozing.

Turns out, that night we Did It Right. We passed the Hite around, pouring for one another with two hands and giggling about how much the squishy bottle felt like a two-liter of Sprite. Toasts were made, glasses were refilled, plates of fiery kimchi and juicy housemade dumplings were devoured. And before we knew it, our Large Adult Son of a beer was empty. We looked at our watches, and then at each other, and decided that we had time to share one more big bottle. Now that’s a way of beer drinking I can get behind.