Craft brews at WalMart (and somewhat related news)

Laura Gunderson reported in the Oct. 21, 2011, Oregonian that "Former Walmart exec says the retailer plans on more craft beers."

First organic food, and now craft beer: It seems as though social pressures & gradual societal changes are incrementally influencing the ubiquitous behemoth that is WalMart.

This is good news, but does this mean that those of us who purposely avoid WalMart should start shopping there? Do these kinds of changes make-up for their lamentable relationship with organized labor?

Gunderson's article also mentions that 7-Eleven has contracted with City Brewery of La Crosse, Wisconsin, to produce a 7-Eleven house brew. I haven't had it yet, but it certainly seems an interesting idea.

On a somewhat related note, I just poked around the Internet a bit and found that the Gordon Biersch Brewing Company of Palo Alto, California, contract-brews beer for both Trader Joe's and Costco. I've tried and enjoyed the Trader Joe's-labeled beers, but haven't had the Costco beers yet.

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My take on Budweiser vs. real pilsner

Budweiser is by far the worst beer I've ever had, for at least two reasons. First, it tastes bland and uninspired. Second, Anheuser-Busch, the company that makes this beer, has the audacity to use the advertising campaign that characterizes this beverage as the "King of Beer." (Using this campaign, they're banking on the fact that a significant amount of the beer-drinking population is daft enough to fall for it and, unfortunately, they've been right about this for many years.)

We recently held a pilsner-style beer tasting at our house, and I recently posted the results of this tasting. At this tasting on January 22, 2011, I didn't have time to taste these beers myself in any systematic fashion, but over the past week or so I was finally able to do so. This post presents the results of my own pilsner beer tasting . . .

Budweiser vs. real pilsner

Budweiser sucks.

Or, at least, this was my hypothesis when I brought together thirteen friends and family members for a blind pilsner taste test on January 22, 2011.

The Vibe.

I had been thinking about hosting such an event for a few years now, but kept finding opportunities for postponement.

I discovered in 1991 that beer meant more than BudCoorsHammOly when I first tasted Paulaner Hefeweizen while stationed in Gaeta, Italy, with the U.S. Navy. My friend PJ and I used to frequent a small pub in Gaeta [PJ: help me recall the name! Update Feb. 13 2011: Bar/Cafe Uno, V. Europa. 20, Gaeta]. The proprietor, Mario, was from Bavaria originally but married an Italian woman and was then living in Gaeta. I distinctly remember one day Mario serving up a tall glass of Paulaner with a lemon slice. I took one sip and was thrust instantly into an entirely new world.

Until that moment in Mario's pub, I equated beer with the highly-carbonated, straw-colored, slightly-bitter soda water that I had been drinking legally (in Europe) for about a year and had drunk other-than-legally in high school. The Heineken, Bira Moretti, and similar styles in Turkey, Morocco, Greece, and the other countries I visited weren't appreciably different than the Hamms, Coors, and Olympia that I ~sampled~ in high school.

After Paulaner had changed my worldview forevermore, I had the good fortune of going home to Oregon, where the microbrewery movement was really starting to pick up speed. After serving my country honorably from the age of 17 to 21, in 1994 I finally received my discharge at an age that I could drink legally in my own country. I had volunteered to die for my country and had been drinking legally in other countries, but once I had turned 21 I was finally able to drink legally at home [one of these days, in another post, I'll rant in excruciating detail about this silly dynamic].

For nearly two decades now, I've been an unrepentant Beer Snob, evolving beer connoisseur, and fledgling beer geek. I regularly snub my nose at American Style Pilsners. I consider Budweiser and Bud Light so bad that I won't even drink them if they're free [Seth can attest to this], and I'd gladly go without beer in any form than drink Pabst Blue Ribbon on a consistent basis (in spite of the ridiculous ongoing PBR billboard campaign here in Portland and elsewhere. Note to Pabst: this campaign is LAME).

However, I do possess just enough self-reflective ability to wonder if I'm full of sh*t. Is Budweiser really the worst beer in the known universe? Continue below the fold to find out . . .

Hiding the beer from Mom

Tom Scocca has provided a fascinating interpretation of a topic that has baffled me for quite a number of years: Why macrobrewery beer commercials (from the likes of Budweiser, Coors, etc.) are so ridiculously asinine. The way Scocca outlines it, many of these beer commercials (for the past twenty years or so, in my experience) revolve around the following two-point narrative:

1. Beer—cheap, common, domestic beer—is a rare commodity that drives men mad with the desire to have it, at any cost.

2. Women are the great obstacle between men and the fulfillment of this desire.

"Taken literally," Scocca writes, "this is baffling" because "beer is cheap and easy to find" and "many single adult heterosexual men seek out female company when they're drinking."

Why do the big American Lager breweries perpetuate the same two-point narrative, then? Scocca asserts that they do so because their target audience is sixteen-year-old males:

The girls [in the commercials] aren't really girls; they're Mom. And Mom is the first hurdle in the thrilling obstacle course that makes up the world of the teenage beer drinker.

The big American Lager brewers perpetuate this dynamic purposely:

That's what the beer commercials are going after—the enthusiastic desperation of the underage drinker.

Fascinating.

The comment thread on Scocca's post is also worth reading.

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Hop harvest 2010

I harvested our hops today!

Banal writing about beer

This article at Slate.com is a smarmy, uninformed, and, ultimately, frustratingly droll piece regarding the so-called relative places of beer and wine in American culture.

It isn't until the third from last paragraph in the piece (regarding how the development of one type of beer--bland American-style pilsener--went hand-in-hand with the development of industrial technologies) that I agreed with anything the author writes. I guess this proves that one need not really know anything about what one is writing about in order to get something published. In this way, the article is also a great example of constructing a straw man to dismantle subsequently with half-considered, generalized banalities.

Oy...

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Beer Mapping Project. Yum.

Portland Beer Mapping Project.

So many colorful dots, so little time.

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Science Friday Archives: The Evolution of Beer

(history + genetic science)beer = Fun!

Science Friday Archives: The Evolution of Beer

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Another empty pint for the holidays

This weekend is the 14th annual Holiday Ale Festival. This weekend also marks the 4th consecutive year that I've neglected to go to the festival because I just didn't plan ahead and have many other things to do. However, winter beers are among my favorites (so malty and hoppy and warming!), so I'll have to try to make this a priority for next year. Perhaps making this blog note to myself will help me remember to do so?

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