by Ethan Johnson
November 2, 2008

A customer walks in, wanders around, and I am compelled to ask, "can I help you find anything?"

"Yes," he says. "Is there anything else that tastes like Boddington's?"

Boddington's is "pub ale" from England that I had recently tasted at home and was completely grossed-out by. It's creamy, which would seem like a good thing, especially for a beer n00b who wants to start slow. But "creamy" was "like a meringue" that was sour, bitter, nasty, you name it. I actually had to spoon the foam off of my glass to taste the underlying ale, which underwhelmed me to no end.

"Hmmm, it's really creamy," I said, hoping to get the customer to provide more clues as to what convince him that another selection will pass muster.

"It sure is," he replied. Full stop.

After some hemming and hawing, I got the customer to explain that his wife doesn't like that Boddington's is "expensive" relative to other beers. He figured if he could cheap out but retain the taste, that would be a fair compromise.

I didn't want to make "yuck" faces at him, so I said the magic words:

"When it comes down to it, in my experience, there's nothing like a Boddington's."

He happily agreed and bought a 4-pack. He bought his wife a $10 bottle of Belgian ale and concluded that it was fair dealing.

Some day, when I am at President's Club celebrating hitting my $39 billion quota, I'll look back on this moment and know that it is when I realized my bright future in sales. <EM>

(The Adventures in Beer index may be found here.)