If you’ve got a train commute or want to kill some time in your cube, download beer scribe Evan Rail’s “Why Beer Matters,” a 17-page essay that explores beer’s most compelling elements.

An American writer in the Czech Republic (he’s taken a few dips in beer for DRAFT), Rail started noticing that “beer mattered” when his readers began asking him about breweries and beers; he realized that the stuff didn’t just exist quietly–people wanted to learn more. Rail credits beer’s merit to its relatively immediate nature, and its abilities to both express a sense of place and history, but most convincing are this thoughts on beer’s “democratic” nature. You can’t argue that a beer habit’s not considerably cheaper than wine; couple that with its availability, and beer’s both a drink and a hobby almost everyone can get behind. But, says the author, it’s not just beer’s affordability, “But rather its accessibility, the fact that the beer world is one where… everyone’s opinion is equally valid, where there is no equivalent to Robert Parker or ‘The Wine Spectator”s James Sucking: not Garrett Oliver, not Stephen Beaumont, and not Roger Protz. Not even the most important beer writer of our time, Michael Jackson, ever enjoyed the kind of sway that Mr. Parker and Mr. Suckling hold over their industry.”

We tend to agree; the best thing about beer is that 100 people can try one beer and have 100 different, perfectly valid opinions they feel strongly enough about to type them out, blog about them, and form whole communities (digital and otherwise) around them.

“Why Beer Matters” is an easy read, and refreshingly unifying in the wake of recent bellicose beer snobbery. You won’t jump out of your skin, but you will certainly find yourself weighing Rail’s arguments and connecting them with your own experiences. Download the essay at Amazon.com, and let us know what you think.