Boozin’ Blog

Rheingold beer is coming back. If it seems like we already went through this fairly recently then you might be getting this classic, pale lager mixed up with any of the other classic, pale lagers from the good old years that have enjoyed revivals recently like Schlitz or Pabst. Or you might be remembering the last time that Rheingold came back then went away again.

Back in 2005, Drinks Americas Holdings LTD bought the brand and this summer they relaunched it. They also put together an interesting website complete with old jingles and commercials for the beer. The beer is being brewed by Lion Brewery in Pennsylvania and mostly be sold in the New York area.

The mascot for this reborn beer is the pigeon. Apparently some focus group types feel that this bird exemplifies New York and will make a fitting symbol for the beer. I say, good luck with that.

I’m not really sure what to make of these revival beers. A lot of them died so long ago that most of the regular beer drinkers never got to the try the original. If they sell, its not from personal nostalgia but more from second-hand nostalgia. Maybe we saw our dads drinking the stuff back when we were kids. But is that really enough to get a brand off the ground?

PBR is the poster-boy for nostalgic beer brands. It has surprised everyone, perhaps even the brand’s owners, with its success. Hipsters embraced the beer - as much from a back-lash against the sometimes snobby craft beer movement as from nostalgia. But, other brands haven’t been quite so stellar. Still they sell. I guess one should never underestimate the markets sentimentality for beer.

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Which one of these doesn’t belong: free weights, personal trainer, elliptical machine, boot camp fitness class, vodka cocktail. According to David Barton of David Barton Gym, all of those things fit together quite nicely.

The trendy health club chain has started serving vodka cocktails because “It’s a little weird to serve bourbon or Scotch,” and “tequila might seem out of control,” according to Barton.

Riiight. Now, I’m no model of fitness. The most exercise I get in a typical day is climbing the stairs from my bedroom to my office but even I know that this is a little wrong. I used to make fun of my wife’s gym because it has a Starbucks - nothing says good health like super sugary, extra cream coffee drinks - but Barton definitely has that beat.

I’m not saying that health conscious people shouldn’t have a drink from time to time. But a gym serving vodka seems to perpetuate the misconception that vodka and other white types of booze are a dieter’s choice. Distilled alcohol of any sort is ridiculously high in calories. Plus, most cocktails are loaded down with sugar, which means more calories.

Everything in moderation, right? But, for Bacchus’s sake, let’s keep booze and workouts separate!

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First, they deep fried pickles but pickles aren’t a big part of my life so I let it pass.
Then, they deep fried candy bats but I don’t care for sweets so I wasn’t concerned.
Next, they deep fried butter but I decided only the passively suicidal would eat such a thing so I ignored it.
And, since I did nothing to stop them then, now they’ve deep fried beer and I realize it’s too late. All is lost.

Okay, maybe that’s a bit melodramatic but still, fried beer? Why? And, after letting that sink in for a moment, how?

How is easy to answer. It’s a secret. Mark Zable spent the last three years trying to find a way to fry beer and he’s not about to blab. His solution is a ravioli looking piece of dough with a bubble full of beer. Apparently, when you bit into it you find perfectly normal, albeit flat, liquid beer on the inside.

Mmm, hot, flat beer served one teaspoonful at a time in dough. Does it get any better?

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Anyone who has ever punched a clock has got to admire Steven Slater. In case you just woke up from a coma, he’s the flight attendant who recently decided that he was fed up with customer service and flipped out on a JetBlue flight. There are some conflicting stories about what led up to his magnificent melt-down, but what everyone agrees upon is what happened once he got on the plane’s PA system.

“To the passenger who called me a motherfucker, fuck you,” he announced. Now, c’mon, right there. If you’ve ever been in a position where you had to represent your employer to the general public, try and tell me that you didn’t fall in love with Slater at that point in the story.

But it gets better. He grabbed a couple of beers, pulled the emergency lever on the plane and slide down the inflatable slide that he’d activated. And later, when the police showed up at his house, he was celebrating his personal day from hell/triumph with drunken sex.

The story is dying away but, one more gasp of it appeared at TMZ.com yesterday. Apparently, the two beers he grabbed were Blue Moon. Why is this important? Well, it’s not really. Except that it amuses me and it’s great publicity for Blue Moon.

A brewer with balls would grab onto this little fact and make something of it. I mean, to be the choice of America’s favorite folk hero of the moment, how could you not jump on that? Blue Moon advertisements should feature a picture of a grinning Slater toasting with a big glass of the beer. But, they won’t.

As you may or may not know, Blue Moon is brewed by Coors - well, MillerCoors’s new company Tenth and Blake Beer Company. Yep, it is a brewery owned by a company owned by a national corporation co-owned by an international organization. That means lots and lots of lawyers wrapped in layers of bureaucracy which means no sense of humor and certainly no balls.

So, instead of grabbing this moment and joining in on the fun, Blue Moon issued this statement to TMZ: “We have not been asked nor do we plan to promote our brand in this manner for the sake of publicity. There were some very serious allegations made surrounding this incident and our company is not in the business of trivializing public safety for publicity or potential financial gain.”

Yawn! Clearly, the company itself is as boring as its beer.

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What’s the first thing you do when you get home from work? Kick off your shoes, make some dinner, check the mailbox… An important part of getting home for me is reaching in the fridge and grabbing a beer. It’s what most of us want after work regardless of what we do for a living.

Imagine if work for you meant months long deployments to foreign countries where people are shooting at you. And that getting home means 30+ hours of travel. How much would you want a beer at the end of THAT workday?

But, for one soldier, a beer wasn’t in the cards, at least not as long as he was in uniform.

See, Sapper Anthony Walls is part of an Engineer Regiment and spent the last four months building a road in Afghanistan. When he finally got a few days off he headed home to spend them with his family.

His first stop, once he arrived, was at a supermarket for a few beers. When he took them to the cash register to pay, the clerk refused to sell them to him. This had nothing to do with the law, it would have been perfectly legal for him to buy the beer, and it’s not the store’s policy. This was just about a clerk not wishing to sell beer to a man in uniform. Her manager was called over and he backed her up, telling Walls that there was nothing he could do.

I thought that we’d gotten past this kind of stupidity. The newspaper article doesn’t explain why the clerk didn’t want to sell beer to Walls so I can only assume it was one of two reasons. Either she is opposed to the war in Afghanistan or she has an irrational phobia of uniforms. If it’s the former, she needs to take her objections up with the politicians. If it’s the later, she probably needs to see a psychiatrist. Either way, leave the soldier alone and sell him his damn beer!

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Maybe it’s because my approach to the news is booze-oriented, but it seems to me that politicians and lawmakers love to default to overkill when it comes to alcohol. Don’t get me wrong, I think that it’s good to have regulation on drinking age and such, although I may disagree with the current levels. Alcohol is an adult beverage and should be treated as such. On the other hand, those of us who legally enjoy alcohol are adults and should be treated as such.

Here’s what set me off this time.
Back on Labor Day, 2008, an “alcohol-fueled riot,” whatever the hell that means, on a beach in San Diego led to a permanent ban to drinking on the beach.

Let’s think about this. A one time incident where, presumably, a number of laws were broken by a few ill-behaved people led to a complete ban of alcohol. Isn’t it enough to arrest and punish these people based on the actual laws that they broke? Whether I’m drinking or not, I know that I’m not supposed to strike or otherwise physically hurt those around me. But now, thanks to these few people and the overreaction of lawmakers, no one can drink on San Diego’s beaches. There’s no way to scientifically prove this but I imagine that 90%+ of the people who historically drank on the beach were peaceful, law-abiding citizens.

But let’s move on. The ban is in place. But the author of the law forgot to include the water. Yup, it’s illegal to drink on the beach but not on the water. So, a new San Diego tradition was born - floatopia parties. Drinkers would gather in the water, often on inflatable floaty things and enjoy their booze. Although not illegal, this is still a subversive act so, as one might expect, it attracted a wilder crowd.

Whenever an unreasonable law like the beach drinking ban is put in place, people will react this way. Rule 1) people will drink. Rule 2) lawmakers need to find a way to live with rule 1. Exhibit A - Prohibition.

Now we have a clutch of floating drinkers. Since they’re out in the water and have to remain there, they have nothing much to do but drink, meaning they’re going to drink a heluva lot more than they would if they were on the beach enjoying a barbecue, playing volleyball, whatever. They’re drunker and wilder and clearly something must be done. They disrupt others’ enjoyment of the beach and, of course, someone had to bring up the issue of broken bottles. (Why is this always brought up? I almost never see a broken bottle when I’m out drinking, subversively or otherwise. It’s like they believe that broken glass is somehow integral to drinking.)

Does anyone consider lifting the beach drinking ban? Of freakin’ course not! No, we need tighter regulations. Now, the council has banned drinking in the water.

What’s the reaction going to be? Hard to say but the usual course of things under circumstances such as these is drinking really hard liquor secretly. I can foresee college kids arriving at the beach, slamming back way to much vodka in the car and then stumbling out onto the beach. Would you rather share the beach with that bunch or the family with a mom and dad who like to have a beer or two while they watch the kids play in the surf.

I realize that I’m participating in the same hyperbolic conjecture that leads to these silly bans but, if they can do it so can we!

San Diego City Council, lighten up. It’s time to look at the restrictions that caused the problem rather than imposing more restrictions.

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My last post was about a beer commercial. This set me off on a time wasting bit of youtube surfing as I watched a bunch of beer commercials.

My default position is to bitch about beer ads. The worst are those that are selling a life-style that in no way is realistic or even possible. When I drink a beer the only thing that’s going to happen is that I will feel refreshed, I’ll experience some very pleasant flavors and aromas and I’ll get a little bit buzzed. That’s it. I won’t gain new friends, a party won’t break out, and no pretty young thing is going to suddenly find me more attractive.

The best beer ads are the Sam Adams ads. In each ad, there is just a little bit to learn about beer or the brewing process. Jim Koch, while clearly a great promoter and seemingly a little full of himself at times, is doing an excellent job of getting the word out about good beer.

But, I’m not always judging beer ads. The truly funny ones, that manage to stay out of the toilet, are great. I realize that this is inconsistent and I’m okay with that. There is no more gained from a funny ad than a life-style ad. I like to laugh, though, so who cares. Here are some personal favorites:

And it’s not just beer ads. Here’s a particularly nice whiskey ad. Cheers!

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It all started back in college, as do most stories about beer pong. Apparently, Scott Tipton and Christopher Kolb were pretty good beer pong players. Good enough that a Danish film crew wanted to catch their mad skills on tape and use the footage in a Carlsberg commercial.

Tipton and Kolb agreed but only on the condition that the commercial never air outside of Denmark. Apparently, the Internet phenomenon had escaped their attention.

You might be wondering why they would want their pong playing powers to be kept secret. Tipton, a law student, was afraid that potential employers and his conservative grandparents to see it. Because, apparently, law firms and grandparents are unaware that college kids drink beer and play beer pong.

So, the agreements were made and the commercial shot. That should have been the end of that. And it was until Kevin Nealon had to stick his nose into it.

You may or may not know that Nealon hosts an annual cable TV show that features funny commercials from around the world. In 2008, the show featured the now infamous beer pong commercial. I shudder to think of the shock that Tipton’s grandparents felt when they saw their dear little Scotty playing beer pong in the footage that aired “relentlessly” on TBS.

Naturally, being a lawyer and a douche, Tipton, along with his closeted beer pong buddy Kolb, is now suing the TV show and TBS for the damage it did to their reputation.

I could rant about the fact that if someone is filming you, for whatever reason, you can expect the footage to soon be available worldwide in this age of the YouTube. I could make a few lawyer jokes. I could mention that I wouldn’t want to work at a company that has a no-beer-pong-ever-policy.

But, I won’t. I’ll just say this. If Scott Tipton or Chris Kolb ever offer to play you in a game of beer pong, refuse. Not just because they will probably be looking for an angle to sue you later, but because they are apparently ashamed of the game and we just can’t that type playing it, can we?

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I think what I like best about this story is the entrepreneurial spirit of it.

Here’s what happened:
A homeless man who, apparently had once worked there, learned that the Valencia Club was closing. The Club’s liquor license had come due and, rather than renewing it, the owner decided to close the place and walk away.

Well, that just wouldn’t do for our homeless hero, Travis Lloyd Kevie. He decided to reopen the bar. He bought a six-pack of beer across the street, broke into the Club, unlocked the front door and put an open sign in the window. Business was apparently good because within just a few days he’d accumulated quite the stash of booze behind the bar and money in his pocket.

Now, this is where the story turns from “that guy’s got balls” to “that guy’s got a big brass pair.” The local paper decided to run a piece about the Club’s reopening and Kevie was just too happy to oblige. The article ran with a picture of the new “owner.” A local police detective, who apparently knew Kevie in a professional capacity, recognized him and decided to check the place out.

So, the ruse was discovered that the Valencia Club is once again closed. It’s a shame. I’d have liked for Kevie’s enterprise to last more than just a few days. Regardless, he still wins the “big brass ones” award for this month.

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What’s your favorite drinking term? Soused, lit up, smashed, shit-faced, pissed all leap to mind.

Of course, around here we’re partial to the classic word booze. It’s concise and works equally well as both a noun and a verb. As a noun it refers to any form of alcohol from cider to rye. Personally, I tend to think of spirits when I use the word instead of undistilled alcoholic drinks. As a verb, it makes a fine base for words like boozing and boozer. As a synonym to boozer I also like the somewhat antiquated rummy.

Speaking of old terms, there’s always the classic wino. My grandfather, who was born in the ’20’s used to say that someone who was drinking was getting high. And don’t forget the somewhat curious but still classic getting stiff. Going on a bender fell out of usage for a while but seems to be on its way back.

Most of these are American terms. The Australians have us beat on creative boozing words. According to Koala Net’s Australian slang dictionary, a drunk Aussie can be described as off his face, as full as a goog, having a gutful of piss, rotten, and having the wobbly boot on. Beer is known as grog and it often comes in a pot or a butcher, both words for a glass.

What’s your favorite boozing word?

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