ACQUIRING A TASTE

I am a coffee drinker.  Have been since I was 15 years old and was introduced to it in Puerto Rico on a trip with my parents.  Coffee Batistas weren't really a thing back in 1981. There wasn't a Starbucks on every corner or inside supermarkets.  It was an immediate affinity for coffee from the first taste of that strong Puerto Rican coffee mixed in equal portions with real scaled whole milk.  Without the benefit of coffee menus or knowledge, it was a Cafe Breve' in its infancy.  And, I loved it from the first swallow.  I did not have to re-taste it, be talked into it or even think through my opinion of it.  It was instaneous.  I loved it.  Now through the years I have developed a love/hate relationship with coffee.  Both from a connoisseur stand point, and that my system has a bit of an intolerance for it if I consume more than a cup or two a day.  Over this lifetime of loving coffee I have had moratorium periods.  Times where I gave it up for a season, a few months and once, even a year.  But I always come back.  I have been in line at the grocery store with a bag of coffee and the checkout person will comment that they love the smell of coffee but don't like the taste.  I've heard coffee drinkers tell non-coffee drinkers, "When are you going to learn to drink coffee?  You'll drink it when you finally grow up."  Taste is subjective but mostly immediate:)  My immediate love of coffee did not transfer to beer.  I hate beer.  There has yet to be a beer that after a sip I say, "Wow, that is great!  Give me more!!"  The opposite occurs constantly.  If in a situation where my husband is having a beer at a restaurant or with friends I will voluntarily try it.  Deep down I am hoping that particular brand will be the one that wins me over.  I have tried to deduce my dislike of the taste of beer to just not quite yet finding the one that suits my fancy.  Yesterday at some friends' house I once again tried a sip of my husband's beer - some sort of Octoberfest something or other.  With a room full of friends I blurted out, "Yuck!  That is terrible.  How can anyone say they like that?  Really come on.  If I had to drink that for pleasure I would have no pleasure in my life!!"  It tasted like I imagine shit might taste.  They all roared in laughter as one of them replied, "You have to acquire a taste for beer!"   If I have to acquire a taste for beer that is a tall order that I will never be able to fill.  If I have to acquire a taste for something when there are other things I love immediately something is out of kilter with beer drinking.  Acquire a taste.  For beer?  I hold to the either you like or not school.  Beer no!  Coffee yes!!