Daniel Shelton might have the world's coolest job. He's a beer importer who focuses on specialty brews. He's got his own company, Shelton Brothers, where he works with his brother. And he travels the world looking for great drinks and then tries to introduce them in the United States.

He's also a lawyer and First Amendment advocate who's currently suing Maine. The state has banned three beer labels - one of which depicts Santa Claus sitting on a beer barrel. Shelton argues that the state has no authority to regulate art, even the art on a beer label.

Shelton has had similar fights in other states. So far, he's undefeated.

Name: Daniel Shelton

Age: 47 (48 in January)

Where do you live? Ware, Mass.

Where did you go to school? Amherst College and Yale Law School.

How did you become a beer distributor? Let's make that "beer importer." The short answer is: Quite unintentionally. The slightly longer answer is that I was looking for some authentic lambic beers from the Cantillon brewery in Brussels after one of my brothers returned from there with beer for all of us to try. A woman in a shop said that she couldn't get any; I told her that my brother knew the brewers and could possibly get some for her, and she replied that I would have to become a beer importer to do that. I literally said, "How hard could that be?!" The rest is long and ugly history.

What makes a great beer? Character combined with drink-ability. The first is hard to define, but it has something to do with distinctiveness and complexity. As Justice Powell famously said regarding obscenity, "I know it when I see it."

What's your favorite beer at the moment? One thing I like about the job is that I can switch out a lot, but there's always something from the farmhouse breweries in Franconia, in Germany, at or near the top of the list. Right now, I'd say it's the unfiltered lager from Bayer, in Theinheim, a farming village in Franconia. The only problem is that, for now, I've got to go over there to get it.

What's the worst beer or least favorite out there? I shouldn't name names. But I will say that it's not something like Budweiser or Miller. Though it's hard to pick one in particular, the class of beers I really despise are Belgians that pretend to be special, handmade "craft" beers but are really mass-produced, sweet alcoholic dreck supported by one marketing gimmick or another.

What's the difference between a lager, porter, pilsner and ale? The primary distinction is between lager and ale, and it's based on the class of yeast used - the first normally producing a cleaner more streamlined flavor, and the latter something more fruity, spicy and open-ended. Pilsner is by far the most widely observed style of lager, which can be wonderful or awful depending on which one you're talking about, and porter is a species of ale (a dark beer made with dark, roasted malts).

What is a Trappist beer? The Trappists are an order of monks who are famous for brewing. There are criteria for defining a "Trappist" beer, but these days anything brewed on abbey grounds seems to qualify. Of the six Belgian Trappist breweries, there are only two - Achel and Westvleteren - in which the monks are actually brewing.

Do you have to be religious to enjoy it? I suppose not, but any real beer lover is in a sense religious, recognizing that good beer is a great gift from a higher power.

Can you recommend a great beer for someone on a budget? Saison Dupont, from Belgium, is one of the great beers of the world, and it's never been very expensive.

How many bottles of beer, roughly, do you have in your house? I count in cases, not bottles, and I'm going to guess that there about 60 or so cases lying about. Most of those cases have a few bottles missing …

Is any beer in a can good? Yes, absolutely. There's a cultural bias, but beer in cans can taste as good as bottled beer, as long as it's fresh. There ought to be more beers in cans.

Your wife is from Germany, how did you meet? I was standing in front of the German beer bar at the Great British Beer Festival in London, toward the end of the evening, blocking her access. Conversation ensued. Amazingly, she decided that, somewhere deep down, this blathering jackass was a good person, which meant of course that she was the one girl for me.

How often do you travel in search of great beers and where do you look? I spend two or three months over in Europe every year, normally. I also have friends in a lot of places who let me know what's going on out there. Lately more breweries are approaching us, which is convenient, but takes the fun out of it just a bit.

How many types of beer do you distribute? We sell more than 150 different beers, in a fairly wide range of styles. We still haven't covered all the world's beer styles yet, so the search continues.

How many in Maine? We've registered about 30 beers for sale in Maine at this point. Only three have been "Banned in Bangor" so far.

How many states do you do business in? My brother tells me that the official number right now is 42. The biggie we're missing is Hawaii, where the problem of course is logistics. The rest that we're not selling in are mostly states in the South, where, sadly, they just don't seem to want good beer yet.

What does the First Amendment have to do with beer? Just about everything. The brewer expresses himself in the beers he makes. We express ourselves with the beers we choose to import. The beer-lover expresses himself with the beers he drinks. The First Amendment protects everyone's freedom of expression.

How many states have you fought over beer label restrictions? It's not really fighting, in most cases. Call it frank discussion. For example, when we approached the state of Washington with a problem, they said, "So glad you showed up! We know these regulations are daft but we couldn't make any changes until someone complained." But we've had "discussions" of one sort or another in about seven states over the course of 10 years.

Do you always win? Well, I don't want to sound cocky, but yes, we do. We don't create and try to sell anything that's fit to be banned anywhere. In fact, the federal government passes on every label we sell, and there's no good reason for any state to be second-guessing them.

What's it like to be a First Amendment crusading, beer aficionado? The big bucks, the private jets, the all-night parties, the paparazzi, the endless groupies, the calls from the president, the pope and other world leaders seeking advice - it all gets boring after a while. Honestly, my dream is to settle down in a tract home in the suburbs under an assumed name and just veg out. But right now there's just too much still to do.

Is that the greatest job in the world? I've never had a better one, at least not since I was a stock boy at Woolco. If Woolco hadn't gone out of business, I wouldn't be here talking to you.