What is all this high praise for beer? It's enough to make a girl hopping mad.
First it was fellow columnist Doug Conway singing the praises of the amber liquid and claiming it is mankind's greatest invention.
Then Brian Kelly weighs in, expressing his predilection for the bitter brew, albeit taking it to task for its macho image.
True, there are many women who love a beer; I'm just not one of them.
Wine is my delight: give me a crisp white, a sultry red or a clutch of tingling bubbles any day.
And there are many notables of a similar mind. George Bernard Shaw declared, "I'm only a beer teetotaller, not a champagne teetotaller", while Galileo described wine as "sunlight held together by water".
Robert Louis Stevenson called it "bottled poetry" and Victor Hugo put the Almighty in context, saying, "God made only water, but man made wine".
WC Fields protested: "What contemptible scoundrel stole the cork from my lunch?" and John Maynard Keynes claimed his "only regret in life is that I did not drink more champagne".
I am in esteemed company. But perhaps the opinion of a lady, Madame Lilly Bollinger, more accurately reflects my feelings: "I drink when I'm happy and when I'm sad. Sometimes I drink when I'm alone. When I have company I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it when I'm not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise I never touch it - unless I'm thirsty."
Which sounds a tad excessive, but then the French have a proud vinous reputation to live up to.
They also enjoy the health benefits of the French paradox, whereby they indulge in a high fat, high cholesterol diet but experience low rates of heart disease, a phenomenon attributed to their love of fine wine.
The health benefits of wine have long been recognised. As far back as 450BC, Hippocrates used specific wines to purge fever, disinfect and dress wounds, as a diuretic or for nutritional reasons.
But as with anything, moderation is the key. Regular moderate drinking of wine is believed to impart some benefits - reducing anxiety and tension, providing energy, aiding digestion, and preventing coronary disease and some forms of cancer.
There is also evidence it may delay ageing and preserve cognitive function.
All of which makes me feel very good as I sip on my obligatory glass and a half each night.
Interestingly, beer has been shown to provide similar health benefits, the difference being beer drinkers tend to consume more than the recommended daily allowance and rarely sip water between schooners.
But back to the French and their wine. In the 1980s they became so irritated by the New World's purloining of their appellations - Californian chablis, Barossa burgundy and champagne from almost anywhere - that they conspired with the European Commission to ban the sale of these wines in Europe.
The New World vignerons quickly began identifying their wines by grape variety, which has gone down very well with winos.
Along the way the New World winemakers have also had a few laughs at France's expense.
In South Africa, Charles Back has formed the Goats do Roam Wine Company, which produces labels such as Goats do Roam, Bored Doe and Goat Roti.
Our own Wolf Blass was a bit more risqué with his '80s sparkling red called René Pogel. Try reading the name backwards. When the joke got out, Blass was forced to withdraw the wine from sale.
A grape sense of humour, but one the beer fraternity would also appreciate.
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