For New Year’s Eve, you might intend to party. Many of you might intend to drink. If you do, I have a suggestion:

Drink for quality, not quantity.

If that’s already your goal, cool. But if the way you know how to party is to drink a lot, rather than to drink what’s good, then you don’t know what you are missing.

I’d rather drink one good beer with a nice barley-and-hops taste than a six pack of light beer that tastes more like yellow water than it does manly man beer. I swear, some beer companies are racing to have the product that tastes the least like actual beer. That way, young people can say, “I am drinking a beer,” and not have to acquire the acquired taste of beer, which, yes, is supposed to be bitter. That’s the hops.

Then those young drinkers grow up and never learn to drink real beer. They never discover quality.

I call that bad light yellow beer “hay crew beer.” Hay crew beer comes in big bulk buys, too.

If you are one of those bad beer lovers, then this New Year’s Eve, try drinking real beer. Walk past the deals for bulk buys on cases and go to the six packs and four packs. Good beers come in many colors, from bright yellow to dark brown.

Microbreweries have dominated the quality-beer market in the past, but a trend toward good beer has changed American beer drinking. Major brewers have made shipping deals with many microbreweries so good stuff can get on the shelves.

In the local stores, I like Red Hook ESB, Fat Tire Amber Ale, Summit Extra Pale Ale and Schell Snow Storm. I want all brewers, big and small, foreign or domestic, to offer good beer, and all stores and restaurants to offer good beer, too. Many major brewers have rolled out better beers lately. Anheuser-Busch now offers American Ale. Miller offers Leinenkugel’s and its array of beers. Coors produces Blue Moon. Any of the Sam Adams beers are good, too.

You deserve it. Your taste buds deserve it. Welcome to 2009. Welcome to adulthood. Drink good beer on New Year’s Eve.

OK, now for you wine drinkers. Drop the white zinfandel this New Year’s Eve.

White zinfandel is fine if you are just barely beginning your trek into wine. But c’mon. If you’ve been drinking wine for more than a year, you should be past that one and on to the good stuff. Forget the champagne, too. You’ve done that before.

Explore! You only live once.

I realize people have different taste buds — men like tannins more than women, usually — but if you are stuck on white zin, you don’t know what you are missing. Try Riesling, chardonnay or gerwertztraminer wines. Actually, the gerwertztraminer is what you should go for. It’s not as super sweet as Reisling and not as buttery as chardonnay. It will help transition you into other wines. You soon develop a taste for the white wines and want to try some reds.

When you do, go for pinot noir. It’s good with food and all, but it also it great just for drinking and it isn’t as tannin-strong as some other reds. Pinot noir is said to have soft tannins. You can try petite syrah, too.

You’ll get your foothold in the reds and soon make your way to syrah, merlot and eventually to the big bopper, the grand poobah of wine, cabernet savignon. You might even buy a good one, store it for seven, 10 or 15 years, then blow the dust off the bottle, pop the cork and be absolutely shocked at how mellow the tannins have become.

Then you will have graduated to the true enjoyment. Your taste buds will thank you. Your mind will, too.

What are tannins? Tannins are that really overpowering, eye-popping taste in young red wines that sometimes render them undrinkable. When they age, that taste is there but mellowed. They go from bitter to silky. The flavors of the grape in the bottle become more complex.

So on this New Year’s Eve, forget champagne. Take the next step in your tongue’s relationship with wine. Be daring.

The Vikes are in!

Hey, I know it hasn’t been exactly a pretty season. Some wins have been ugly. Some losses have been weird. The play calling and clock management have been questionable. The turnovers have been maddening.

But apparently the Minnesota Vikings have patched together enough pluses to outweigh the minuses. They have some defenders who can tackle. They have some receivers who can catch. They have some running backs who can run. They have some linemen who can block.

And, boy, do they have a kicker who can kick! Ryan Longwell has the bleeders of purple and gold smiling this week.

As you can tell, I provide keen insight into the Vikings. They captured the NFC North title Sunday. That means we did better than the Green Bay Packers, the Chicago Bears and the Detroit Lions. OK, it’s not saying much, but we’ll take it. Ten wins, six losses. We haven’t felt this good since 2000.

Tribune Managing Editor Tim Engstrom’s column appears every Tuesday.