That’s easy: Coffee. I’d hope to be able to keep a bottle of Crown Royal around for festive occasions, but beer is a seldom thing for me.
Beer makes me pee too much and feel bloated if I drink more than two.
Coffee. The aroma, the taste, the relaxation. Yeah.
I like beer, but I’m pretty picky - I only drink Waterloo Dark, or Rickard’s Red. And beer makes me fart like a motherfuck.
Sure it would. All the caffeine fiends going through withdrawal would make your life a living hell. I’d be among them. All the beer fans would be bitchy and mean. I’d be among those too.
I’ve given this question careful thought and consideration and come to the conclusion that Tom~ is a poopy-head for labeling this question as anything less than profound. It’s more than just the surface question-important in its own right-but it also delves deeper into what are a person’s values. Do they value the comfort of a well-brewed espresso on a Sunday morning or the relaxing release of a fine Porter after a hard day’s work. It’s truly a vexing question of priorities.
The answer is, finally, I’d choose the coffee. Even though I homebrew and absolutely love beer, I could get along without it better than I could without coffee. I sometimes go days without beer. I rarely go a day without coffee.
Coke has 34 mg of caffeine per serving. Pepsi has 37.5. Mountain Dew has 55. Red Bull tops out at 80.
On the other hand drip brewed coffee has 115-175 mg per 8 oz serving. 2 oz. Espresso has 100 mg.
I hope you’re thirsty.
I know the statistics behind the actual caffeine content of various beverages. However, I do not seem to get the visceral “kick” from coffee that I do from soda. I can slug down 3-4 cups of coffee during a long brunch and still feel sluggish and tired, but drink one (diet!) Coke or Mountain Dew and suddenly I’m feeling brighter and ready to deal with stuff. Hell, I can drink coffee after a dinner (Italian restaurants seem to be the big culprit at offering this) and still sleep well. I acknowledge that this is almost certainly a placebo effect or at least something entirely unrelated to the caffeine content, but there you have it - I prefer soda to coffee when I need something to perk me up.
Beer, every time.
At least beer has an effect on me. I rarely drink coffee but, whenever I do, it has to be very strong and even then it is just a hot, flavoured drink. I think I must be immune to caffeine.
Coffee. Ain’t even close. I like the occasional beer once in a while, but I live on goooood coffee. A fine Nicaraguan, Kenya AA, Yemen, Java, etc., is all I ask in life. Well, first thing in the morning anyway.
This is a scary subject.
I mean, I friggin’ love beer, but I NEED coffee.
You know, there are days when I go to bed at night and I realize that the only things I’ve had to drink all day are coffee and beer. No exaggeratin’, dude. Coffee during the day at work. Beer at home. No water, no juice, no soda. Just coffee and beer.
Since I have to choose, I suppose I’d have to get over the coffee withdrawal, and go with beer. Sorry, Juan.
Definitely beer. It’s my favorite part of breakfast. 
Neither.
Neither Pepper Mill nor I ever developed a taste for either drink. We’d walk past coffee shops on the Mall and loved the smell, but couldn’t stand the taste. I suspect my revulsion is based on memories of Sunday mornings at my grandmother’s, where the overarching smell was the sharp, metallic tang of her rarely-washed coffeepot.
Beer always tasted like mopldy water to me. I’ve had friends come up and tell me that I’d just never tried a good beer, then ply me with their favorite hard-to-get beer. At first it was Coors (when you couldn’t get it back East). When I moved out to Utah I found out how low they regarded it out there. Then it was local micxrobreweries. Or English beer. Or real German beer, of which American is a poor imitation.
Doesn’t matter – I hate them all.
Tea and Wine – that’s different. We’ll drink either of those.
What an absolutely horrifying and evil proposition!!!
I drink alot of both, but in the end I think I’d go with a delicious and refreshing beer. There is something to be said for that moment when you take that first sip of beer after mowing the lawn, playing a softball game, etc., that coffee just doesn’t give you.
… crap, it’s only 10 in the morning here… too early for beer…
It was a Saturday like this that led to me posing this question.
Oh my aching kidneys.
These days, I’m doing a lot more wine and liquor than beer, and I only drink alcohol infrequently. So, it’s gotta be coffee.
That is kinda sad, isn’t it?
Communists!
I don’t suppose I could sit on the fence and drink coffee porter, could I?
You just need more practice.
Hmmm. Not a pleasant prospect, either way. Nope, nope, nope. I’d have to go with coffee by a slight margin, though, assuming I can always fall back on my wine and whiskey to replace beer.
Now, if we were to make the choice even more heinous and say it’s between having caffeinated beverages or alcoholic beverages, I’d be hard pressed to choose. Every once in a great while I will give up one or the other for a period just to prove to myself that I can. I really hate mornings, though, and that caffeine jump-start really helps me cope with having to go to work. But I also dearly love my booze. If I had to make the choice, I’d stick with the alcohol – I could train my body to wake up on its own if I had to.
Beer, no question. I don’t coffee at all. It’s a vile, black sludge and a pox on the earth, I say. 
Easy. I love beer. I never drink coffee. Of course, I can’t drink beer like I used to either, but I can live without coffee or even caffeine.
What an evil, evil proposition. Asking me to choose between is like asking me to choose between… two things that are very important to a childless unmarried student. Whatever those may be.
Anyway, I’ve recently been taking the two together in the form of Phillip’s Espresso Stout, from a microbrewery across the pond in Victoria. This is the beer the gods drink, trust me. Not too heavy or smoky, but stout perfection with a slight hint of dark, bitter espresso. Perfection, I tell ya. But the caffeine hit is minimal, so that won’t help too much.
I guess it depends on what was offered. If it’s good coffee versus crap beer (Molson Canadian, Coors Light, Lucky, etc.), no choice, coffee. If it’s good beer versus nasty-ass instant coffee or Folger’s or something, definitly the beer.
And before I got hooked on Perrier water, I was one of those people who’d get up, have three cups of coffee, go through my day having several glasses of Diet Coke, and finish of the night with a couple of pints after work. Consuming no tap water. No wonder my skin has been so much clearer the last couple of weeks.