TIFU by uncovering a dark family secret

Alright folks, this is a tale about Heineken beer.

This beer has always been a staple in my family; some of my earliest memories of my father are him drinking from that iconic green glass with my uncles.

My grandfather was a stereotypical strong patriarch of the family - he never drank, but he would spare no expense buying rack after rack of Heineken to keep everyone satisfied at every family event. He passed many, many years ago, but the tradition has been faithfully kept ever since, both as an homage to him and to all the wonderful memories we've made with Heineken in hand.

My very first beer was a Heineken. I hated it. I've given it plenty of chances since, but every one I've ever had tastes stale and watery. I could never understand why my whole family happened to love them. Probably a matter of sophistication. I never told my father because it would've broken his heart. In fact, like a dutiful son, I would always drink one or two to join in with all the other men and the enjoyment of their beloved beer.

A few days ago, my father was hosting an event and entrusted me to provide the drinks. I figured, hell, people have been downing the same old beer at these things for 40 years - let me get some other brews in the mix. I bought plenty of a few different brands that I love - Sam Adams, Dos Equis, Guinness, Bud Lime - and only one single six pack of Heineken. I snuck everything into the cooler so no one would figure the small proportion of Heineken in the mix unless they counted, and sat all day marveling at my own mischief.

The day turns to night, and at the end of the party I look in the beer cooler - to my satisfaction, every single beer is gone... except, wait a minute, the six Heinekens! Very strange.

I told my dad there were some Heinkens left over (bear in mind, he didn't know what I had done, he probably figured a bunch of other ones had been consumed). Dad only drinks for special occasions, so he suggested we give them to my uncle, an infamous lover of the beer. But he had already left, so we found his son and went to give it to him to deliver. The smile immediately left his face when we told him the plan. His eyes went straight to the floor, and despite being a grown man of almost forty, I heard fear in his voice when he said it:

"Guys, I gotta be honest with you... my dad can't stand Heineken."

We laughed because we figured it must've been a joke, but he kept staring at the floor. The smiles left our faces. We suggested he take it for himself, but he admitted he also didn't like Heineken. "Well, I'm not gonna drink it!" my dad said. "What? Why not?" Yeah, you guessed it, he hates Heineken as well. At this point, I admitted that I shared their opinion, and told them what I had done that day. Slowly, the realization of what was going on dawned on all three of us.

We went around frantically to all the people at the party asking for their input. Every. Single. One. Hates Heineken. Young and old, father and son, blue collar and white collar, American and foreign-born. Not a living soul actually likes the beer. They all just bought it because they thought another guy wanted it.

People were distraught. We've all spent so much money buying this overpriced beer for decades because everybody just assumed the other guys liked it, and everyone was too polite to say how much they didn't. All those fond childhood memories of my father and my uncles sitting on the porch are now tainted with the knowledge that Heineken objectively sucks.

In ceremonial fashion, the final six were dumped in the backyard, the bottles tossed in the woods - the last of their kind to be seen in our household. It felt eerily like a funeral.

On the bright side, everyone will actually enjoy their drinks at family events from now on...

Tl;dr: I strayed from buying the 40+ year traditional family beer brand for an event and accidentally uncovered the fact that everyone always hated it, but no one wanted to be the one to admit it.