American Mustache Institute followers and the Mustached American community overall are familiar with the scholarly position on goatees.

Dalrymple's praiseworthy goatee

In short, it represents that halfway meeting point between the utter weakness of the clean shaven and the sheer, unbridled power of the Mustached American.

It’s where your wife says, “You know honey, I’m not sure I can deal with the total awesomeness and orgasmic pleasure of a mustache, but maybe a goatee would do.”

Definitively, according to ancient documents, Mustached American archives, the AMI research dept. and Merv Griffin, the goatee is the “Spousal Compromise.”

But there are exceptions to every rule, and we have found one, courtesy of our friends at Build-A-Beard.

The owner and operator of said goatee — a goatee that is certainly worthy of praise — is one Jim Dalrymple of The Loop, who was caught in this photo hounding bicyclists wearing uncessary biking shorts while he was walking to an Apple iPad event.

Dalrymple’s goatee even has it’s own Twitter account and we ask that you give his facial hair excellence the praise it deserves.

Carry on.