C.S. Lewis and nearly all the rest of his Christian friends liked to drink a lot of beer. With the publishing of The Screwtape Letters, Lewis, who had been previously only known in small literature circles quickly became well known in churches across Britain and especially America. He started to get a lot of fan mail. Along with these came letters criticizing him for daring to follow Jesus AND still drink beer. The horror! He replied:
“I strongly object to the tyrannic and unstripctureal insolence of anything that calls itself a CHurch and makes teetotalism a condition of membership. Apart from the more serious objection (that Our Lord Himself turned water into wine and made wine the medium of the only rite He imposed on all His followers), it is so provincial (what I believe you people call ‘small town’).’
-from the Letters of C.S. Lewis, p. 262 (Inklings p.185)