CALGARY, Alberta – In a revelation that has rocked Alberta’s oil patch more than a 17,874,232,981,842.6 nanolitre pipeline spill, longtime senior reservoir engineer Lou Zarr bravely confessed this week to something he’s kept hidden for over 20 years: He doesn’t like beer.
“I just couldn’t live the lie anymore,” Zarr said, tears welling up in his eyes as he stood in front of his coworkers at the bar after their regular Friday shift. The 52-year-old, who has spent two decades in Calgary’s rough-and-tumble energy sector, had long been regarded as a solid guy, a man’s man, and an unquestionable consumer of frothy lagers. But it was all an act.
“For years, I’d just stare at my pint and think, ‘I honestly can’t keep doing this.’”
Zarr’s decision to “come out of the cooler” as a beer-hater shocked his fellow engineers and family alike, some of whom say they suspected for years but were too polite to confront him. “We noticed something was off,” said coworker Ryan Coke, still reeling from the news. “He started wearing pocket squares in very tight-fitting sports coats, and we noticed he’d always bring his own beer to the tailgate parties. I mean, who drinks a 1.75% alcohol Belgian strawberry Radler at a Stampeder’s game?”
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For two decades, Zarr kept up appearances, even pretending to savour the local brews his friends swore by. He recounts the grueling hours spent pretending to enjoy hoppy IPAs, even dry stouts. “The IPAs were by far the worst. It felt like I was drinking liquid pine cones.”
Despite the bravado of Alberta’s oil patch, it turns out many of Zarr’s colleagues were incredibly supportive. “It takes guts to admit you don’t like beer in this environment,” said Tim Binge, P.Geo., a night-shift wellsite geologist who’s worked with Zarr for many years. “We’ve had guys come out as vegan and no one batted an eye, but this? This is next level. But you know what? Lou is still our guy.”
Others, however, weren’t so sure. “Beer is like an engineer’s blood out here,” said Ryan. “What’s next? Someone’s gonna tell me they don’t like hockey and slappin’ asses?”
While Zarr says the immediate response from his team has been mostly positive, he admits that not everyone is taking the news well. “One of the guys asked if I was quitting beer just to drink, I don’t know, some fancy cocktail with an umbrella in it,” he recalls, shaking his head. “I had to remind him, this isn’t about switching to wine coolers. This is about living my truth.”
Zarr’s wife, who had known the truth since their first date, was relieved the secret was out. “Honestly, I’m surprised it took this long,” she said. “He’d come home and brush his teeth after every company BBQ. But it’s Calgary, you know? You tell people you don’t drink beer, and they look at you like you’ve come out of the closet as a gay little person with a disability.”
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In the aftermath of his announcement, Zarr says he’s slowly finding peace. He’s now unapologetically reaching for ciders at company events, and though it’s awkward at times, he’s confident he made the right decision.
“I hope this encourages other engineers like me to come forward. You don’t have to like beer to fit in,” Zarr told 2P News, standing tall, his eyes fixed on the horizon. “We need to create a world where an engineer can drink a margarita at a BBQ and still be considered a hard-working man’s man, or woman’s woman, and not some sort of fruitcake.”
As the oil patch comes to terms with Zarr’s life-changing admission, it’s clear one thing will never change: His love for solving complex reservoir optimization problems—just now, without the lager.