My second encounter with free beer last night and first with a confused reaction when I turned it down… I’m playing in a band at a local event in a couple of weeks time. Part of the deal is that we get free beer. The person organising the band collared me at rehearsal to confirm drinks orders and said to me “Harveys?”.

“Oh, I’m not drinking at the moment, so I’ll just have a Coke please”.

I have no idea why I asked for a Coke – I don’t even really like it, but I panicked…

“It’s free, so you can have beer, that’s fine.”

“I know, it’s just I’m not drinking alcohol right now.”

“Oh. Ok…”

Confused look. Clearly they wanted to know more, but didn’t feel like they could ask… It is just so normalised to drink alcohol. Even if you’re driving, like most people will be for this gig. And turning down free beer? That’s just weird.