(continued)

It would be easier just to ask a moose.

In the Northwest, people take beer seriously, and microbrews more seriously. Microbrews are a local symbol of hand-made craftsmanship, with a wider appeal than a macrame candleholder or even a hand-carved hourglass filled with Mount St. Helens' ash. Just like consciousness, it rises up from the indigenous grass roots -- or at least the hops' roots. Like other, more controlled substances, it's organic, non-corporate, and can create a powerful urge for pretzels. And unlike the Northwest's other local homebrew, espresso, you can drink two without staying awake and bug-eyed until the end of the rainy season.

And if you pride yourself on your water quality, your rolling fields and the relaxed nature of your social situations, beer becomes a logical sectional symbol. In the Northwest, we have no local tradition of egg creams.

Most national beers carry only a company name, but Northwest microbrews bear personal stamps of identity: Terminator, Pyramid Ale, Berryweizen, Ruby Tuesday, and -- at least for the moment -- Moose Drool.

But now, even in the Northwest, big-beer pressures bubble up from all sides. In Portland, Kurt Widmer of the Widmer Gasthaus, a microbrewer who started out in two rooms that smelled like a fraternity house early Sunday morning, has just sold 27 percent of his company to Anheuser-Busch for $18 million. Everybody is happy for him, and it would be selfish to resent sharing the brew with the rest of the country.

But suddenly, he's a macromicrobrewer.

Between buyouts and trademark suits, the microworld is looking a little less yeasty these days, even here in the Northwest. The prospect requires the comfort of a pint of something local, maybe something with blackberries.

Because it's a sign that in yet another arena -- in this case, a beer hall -- the generation of the '60s is emerging sadder Budweiser.