Ben Franklin supposedly said, “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to prosper.” Some theologians might beg to differ, but I happen to agree. I love beer. I love tasty beer that is not the typical domestic beers such as Bud Light and Miller Lite or other weak and watery swill the American market might tolerate. (Did that sound judgmental?)

From chocolate stouts and dark porters to bitter ales, the world of beer is broad and beautiful, and I’ve recently begun exploring it as a brewer myself. My adventures in homebrew began in November, and last weekend I bottled my fourth batch.

It’s been a lot of fun. So far, I’ve stuck to recipe kits purchased in the Twin Cities and at Albert Lea’s new brewing supply store. I’ve learned a lot, including that the brewing process is longer than you might think.

Two weeks is generally required from the time you boil the wort to the time your beer is ready to bottle. After bottling, you need to wait at least an additional two weeks — sometimes much longer — for proper carbonation and maturation.

For me the wait has been challenging.

I was weak and tapped into my first batch five or six days early. My brother was in town over the holidays, and the two of us couldn’t help ourselves. The British-style pale ale we sampled was drinkable, but it was clearly not ready. After another two weeks, it was fantastic.

Patience is not something that comes naturally to most of us today. What’s the point? We live in an immediate gratification society. Any “news” can be had at the touch of a finger through texting, calling or Googling.

If we want something, we want it now, and through the magic of credit cards we can usually have it. Rather than sticking with the starter house until we can afford something larger and more expensive, we stretch ourselves and get into trouble. Patience is indeed a virtue, and like most virtues, it can sometimes feel unnatural to practice it.

While it doesn’t come naturally to me, I am able to appreciate the bliss patience can produce — the beauty of an extended courtship while you wait to learn whether your love feels the same about you, the innumerable “what ifs” our youthful minds entertain as we envision adulthood, the longing to finally sink your teeth into that succulent cheesecake whose taunting aromas toyed with your emotions all afternoon while rising to maturity right there in your own kitchen. The beauty of fruition requires the torture of waiting.

Patience.

During my junior year in college I studied abroad, and the summer before I lived alone in a small town in central Wisconsin. I happened to land a good job there, but I had no friends even close to my own age near me. I lived alone and spent almost all of my free time by myself, dreaming of my upcoming journey to the Mediterranean, of wandering around the Acropolis in Athens, of standing in front of the Pieta at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. It seems funny now, but the anticipation was at times excruciating because my social life was so absent.

Perhaps the wait for my trip wasn’t a true act of patience because I had no choice but to be patient or drive myself crazy. I couldn’t do anything to hasten September’s arrival. But that summer provided other opportunities to practice patience.

It was the early ’90s — a time when cell phones and the Internet didn’t exist for most of us. My girlfriend (who would later be my wife) was five hours away, and we agreed to call each other just once a week because long-distance rates were so expensive. We had scheduled our calls for Sunday nights. By Tuesday I was dying to call her, but the waiting made those Sunday-night conversations even better.

I remember coming home from work and looking immediately for the blinking light on the answering machine, hoping she was experiencing the same torture I was and that she’d given in and made the call a day or two early. She typically hadn’t.

Instead of calling more frequently, we wrote letters — lots of letters — which allowed us to share things and grow in ways we probably wouldn’t have otherwise. Seeing each other after all of this waiting was absolutely wonderful.

Patience is indeed a virtue, and yet it’s not something our culture is very good at nurturing. We simply don’t model it very well. We want our entrees to be served in McDonald’s-like speed, our calls de amour to be returned immediately, our president to accomplish four years of goals in just 12 months.

But in love, politics, and beer, things generally go better with patience.

I’ve decided to change Franklin’s aphorism about beer to this: “Brewing a good beer is proof that God wants us to practice patience.” And as I wait for my Lawnmower Wheat de Saison and my Amped-Up American Ale to be ready, I know patience is a good thing.

Jeremy Corey-Gruenes is a member of Paths to Peace in Freeborn County. He lives in Albert Lea with his wife and two young daughters.