Tough luck, martini drinkers. Your portfolio took a dive yesterday.

Difficult as it is for Joe Sixpack to sympathize with you crash-and-burn stock investors (my 4 percent CD is looking pretty good right now), it is my duty to help you back from the ledge after yesterday’s precipitous drop on Wall Street.

So listen up: If you’re going to make this month’s lease payment on the Jag, you’ll have to give up the Ketel vodka and tonic and switch to something that befits your newfound social status.

Namely, beer.

First, it’s a malt beverage that comes in 40s and sixpacks – not $30 bottles filled with distilled potatoes.

Second, it’s cheap. You can pick up a bottle of Schlitz Malt Liquor for $2. You’ll recognize it easily: It’s the one with the charging bull on the label.

Drink it fast, and you might forget how much you lost yesterday.

If the bull market is truly gone, it would only be fitting to grab one of the several ursine beers in the deli case.

The easiest to find is Grizzly Lager, a lackluster Canadian brew from Ontario, which – in the words of “The Beer Lovers Rating Guide” – has a “heavy, obtrusive odor” suggesting that one “forego the possibility” of having your meal “spoiled by this beer.” Drink it on an empty stomach while you watch the stock ticker on cable TV today.

Panda Pilsner, from Shanghai, China, is a bit tastier and somewhat more appropriate for the occasion, considering how those bearish Asian markets mucked up your bottom line.

Sadly, the American dollar can afford only a few bottles of this imported brew. Better to spend it on a domestic but tasty Stegmaier from Wilkes-Barre or Yuengling from Pottsville. Both are affordable, and your purchase helps the local economy.

I’d recommend Poor Henry’s of Philadelphia, if I thought it would cheer you up. Maybe a slug of Victory from Downingtown will make you hopeful that you haven’t lost your meager life savings.

Still thirsty? Fill up your cooler with some of these other investor favorites:

• Gold Stock Ale when you switch to precious metals.
• Old Knucklehead the next time someone says, “I told you so.”
• Hair of the Dog tomorrow morning.
• Alimony Ale when your ex takes a hike.
• Dead Guy Ale when the Dow – and you – take the next big plunge.

-30-