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Canadian friends once, before the great micro brewery rush, which as an aside was great for a while, but has devolved into “let’s see if we can make a beer that’s peach flavored with chocolate undertones mixed with parsnips!”, I digress….

These Canadians assured me in good humor that American beers were like making love in a canoe – F* close to water. Alas at the time I could not disagree. The American lager beers of my youth were really just a way of delivering alcohol into your system, with some fizz and food coloring added.

There isn’t 1400 pounds of beer in that carton, or the truck would be sitting quite a bit differently.

Back in my yute, PBR was a cheap working man’s beer, and nobody we knew would willingly drink it (and man, we guzzled some real swill. Kingsbury, anyone?). Fast forward to today, and it is some kind of hip, trendy drink for the hipster crowd. The power of marketing, eh?

Craft beer has just gone too damn far out for my personal taste.

I can personally witness to the existence of Cherry flavored Beer, Peach flavored Beer, and The horror, The HORROR Cucumber flavored Beer. I can only attest to the taste of the cherry variant – I carelessly and thoughtlessly grabbed a beer from a friend’s fridge one night (having been offered the privilege to do so at will) and got an entire mouthful before I wondered just what the sweet hell I had done to myself.

As for cucumber, well, I can’t even imagine. I am sure there are worse out there, but there are already too mny things that scare me for me to go searching for more….

Prickly pear, cherry, grapefruit, strawberry, chocolate ( and these maniacs do this to perfectly good stout!), banana bread for heaven sake!

A million types of IPA.

And you can’t find plain old Michelob any more, now it’s all light and ultra light and ultra light gluten free non GMO.

I’d like a Guinness please. The

Guinness is too…I dunno…black for me.

I like ruby red beers. I wish there was a name for them.

Ruby Redbird 😛

https://shiner.com/beer/ruby-redbird

Wow! I’d never noticed 1776 is 37 times 48. . .so how do you suppose they are arranged in the box? Because those numbers don’t quite fit into easy rows and stacks. . .

My son is a master brewer and just returned home to Colorado after spending 5 years in NE Iowa starting and running a brewery for a brewery/restaurant combination. They had maybe a half dozen commercial beers and about 40 which he invented.

That part of Iowa is highly Scandinavian. Based on a joke of mine, they started posting a Lutefisk beer on the menu board. When someone would ask for it, they would apologize and say it was out, and that whenever he made a batch it was so popular it sold out almost immediately.

In his last year there, he actually came up with a Lutefisk based beer. It was surprisingly popular.

Subotai Bahadur

“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy”
– not Benjamin Franklin

Back in the day we drank San Miguel Pale Pilsner or Mateus rose…HMTQ’s fav tipple and I assume a finer quality than what we could afford.

Now I enjoy a cold Nastro Azzuro or the big reds from Prospect 772 Wine Co. in Angels Camp of froggy fame. If you’re visiting the California Gold Country check out the wineries. Younger vintners have been leaving the Napa area for the last decade or so and planting in the Sierra foothills and making some really good affordable wine, especially full-bodied reds and Tempranillo.

Iron City beer was the “le plus ultra” of “special” beers when it was brewed downstream from the steel mills in Pittsburgh, PA…

@ BJM –
good to hear about the younger wine makers. Hope they keep it up.

As for beer, sometimes I like ’em dark, sometimes lighter. Glad there are plenty of good ones to choose from.

PBR is a good American lager. Better body and flavor than any light beer.

It was disdained as a working class slob’s beer in the 70s but has made a strong comeback, particularly among hipsters (who don’t care what it tastes like but like the cachet of drinking a working class slob’s beer).

Perfectly drinkable, smooth, session beer.

Cantharkmycry-

Beer comes 24 cans in a case. Pack it 3 cases across X 3 cases deep X 8 cases tall, with 2 more cases on top. What you’re buying is half a pallet’s worth, around 3/4 ton, wrapped in a pretty box.

Hope you have about 450 Pabst fans at your party, and roughly half a ton of ice. Might want to pick up a few extra bags of chips.

Drew, yeah, ok, but what keeps those extra 2 cases from sliding around? I was trying to think of an arrangement not involving additional packaging, just rows and levels of cans. Don’t think it can be did, but I’m not very good at that kind of visualization exercise. . .

@Dissent555…yeah it’s good news for those of us who can’t or won’t pay Napa’s outrageous prices. Most of these younger guy/gals interned under some of the Valley’s giants, but realized it would take decades to advance to head vintner…so they split for the Mother Lode which sits above the valley fog and below the snow line on stony granite and chalky soils…hot days and cool nights…perfect for grapes.

Imma gonna bore the crap out of you, with forbearance of Her Stoatiness, of course, The town of Murphys is the place to start, most wineries have tasting rooms and the historic Murphys Hotel’s bar can be…um…interesting. On the weekends & holidays an impressive gaggle of Harley iron lines the street outside the hotel. Not real bikers the town ran them out, but they dress the part…their “old ladies” are all biker babe-d up…mostly lawyers, accountants, and dentists…who else can afford a full custom Hog?

As The Family Dog said “don’t miss it if you can”.

And that’s my advert for one of my fav places in California…been wandering those hills since I could walk.