Beer

[Vercingetorix]

Originally Posted by blamie

I don't know how many of you might live in Louisianna or frequent that area....but I was in New Orleans a while back and I drank Abita the whole time I was there...

They have Abita Amber(my favorite), they have a pale which I think they call Abita Pale, and they have a dark called Abita TurboDog...

I don't know if any of you have had it but its all I would drink while I was there cause I liked it so much...

New Orleans is one of my favorite places, but it isn't a great beer town. At all. I drank a lot of Turbo Dog while I was there. It's like drinking something like Cerveza Imperial when you're in Costa Rica or Kalik while you're in the Bahamas -- in context, it's perfectly enjoyable. Set a bottle of it down on my table right now, when I have a keg of Guinness in the house and a lot of Victory Storm King imperial stout in the fridge, and no thanks. Turbo Dog is decent for a sweetish German-style dark.

Originally Posted by blamie

Five days and you still made it back with beer to spare....weak!!!!

I had the same thought the night before we came back -- i.e., that there was shame in actually bringing beer back. But considering that my original goal was to bring along such an obscene amount of beer that there was no possible chance I'd end staring morosely into the cooler in some quickie mart one night...I decided that coming within a sixer of consuming that obscene amount of beer was respectable enough. Ah well. Next time I'll take FIVE cases.

[Rasputin_Vol]

Originally Posted by SWIL

The Belgians are pretty good with their beer, I agree. But can Bud still call itself "The Great American Lager" now??

Well, I always thought it was a pilsner anyways, not a lager.

[USAF_Vol]

Originally Posted by rbroyles

Maybe I need to rethink this Guinness? Ummm! Well first I've got to choke down this Southpaw. Thank goodness we are having friends over for a cook-out Sat. Guess what they are drinking! Why did she have to get a 12 pack?

You're going to lose those friends

I am home from work about to start my 24 hour break. I see a few millers and 1, I say 1 Sierra Nevada PA in my future.

Money is tight and my wife nixed my beer fundage. I have 3 cans of the black liquidation. I think I will hold onto them for a while.

[Vercingetorix]

Come on man, have one of them with me. I'm sitting here with a lonely pint of the black stuff right now...


EDIT: Withdrawn; I thought better of it. Save them so you can have all three together.

I hope it works out one day that one day I can pull you a pint of Guinness out of my very own tap.

[USAF_Vol]

Originally Posted by Vercingetorix

Come on man, have one of them with me. I'm sitting here with a lonely pint of the black stuff right now...

Talked me into it.

Twisted my arm, what the hell.

[USAF_Vol]

Too late, I poured one. It is settling, good things coming soon.

Got a nice head on it. I'm about to watch wipeout and burn notice on the DVR. I have to stay up late to work a mid tomorrow.

[USAF_Vol]

Are there more bud commercials lately or am I just noticing them now?

[Vercingetorix]

Whoops. All right, since I talked you into it, I'm going to start another one.

Tonight was Dad's Night Out Of The House (I am a stay at home dad), so naturally I headed to the local. Five tasty pints there. Probably not enough better than my own to justify going out for them, except that A) my spawn was not there saying DADDY DADDY DADDY DADDY DADDY the whole time, and B) I've been a regular since Peyton Manning was a junior, so it's not like I have to pay for all (or even most) of the pints I have.

The nice (or evil) thing is that when I get home, there's this tap staring me in the face, so why not keep going? Probably on pint #9 or so now. And as I said upthread, it's every bit as tasty as the first one was six hours ago....

[Vercingetorix]

Originally Posted by USAF_Vol

Are there more bud commercials lately or am I just noticing them now?

I haven't noticed them, but I'd be shocked if there weren't a whole spat of brand-management commercials about Budweiser as the all-American beer now. A brand like Budweiser is all about the symbolism, really -- since it competes in a category of beers which are, frankly, indistinguishable -- and there are going to be a whole lot of jackasses (like me) who are going to give their Bud-drinking friends crap about drinking a Belgian beer. ("And if you're going to go Belgian, then let me tell you about the bottle of Chimay that I just happen to have squirreled away in the bottom of my fridge....")

I don't think it's going to make any difference at all long-term. The product won't change at all. But you'd expect a whole lot of commercials with American flags flying for at least awhile.

[USAF_Vol]

Absolutely, I poured my second pint. Gonna finish them off. I suppose I am celebrating a new duty position. I am now the Flight Chief for my shift. So now I am responsible for 64 people. A tall order for a 28 year old.

I made rank quick because I test well. I am an E-6 at 10 years in service.

Here's to me being successful!

[USAF_Vol]

I had some Chimay white and blue or maybe red. 5 freakin bucks a bottle. But you can'tbeat a monk brew!

I was thinking they would up the ante with advertising.

It is really popular overseas, I know some Terps (Iraqi Interpreters) always talked about budweiser. It is big on the black market.

[USAF_Vol]

How old is your boy Vercing? Mine is 3, I am looking at taking him to the Falcons/Colts preseason game. What say you?

[Vercingetorix]

Originally Posted by Business

Red Stripe is a Michelob Lager by a different name. I swear if you put Michelob in a Red Stripe bottle I don't think anyone could notice the difference.

The dirty secret about beer is that most beer is interchangeable. Ten years ago, I did an actual blindfolded, identify-the-beer taste test of all the beers on draft at my local Irish pub, and it's amazing how the differences that you actually think that you taste go away when you don't know what's in a given glass. I pulled the Guinness and the cider (duh, not beer) out right away, of course, but I couldn't believe how little difference there was between everything else on draft. (Which, as I recall, included Bass, Harp, Boddington's, Budweiser, Miller Lite [sic], and a couple others.)

I can't overstate this enough. Before the blind test, I would have bet $1000 that I could tell the difference between, say, a Bass and a Budweiser. Maybe $10,000. Maybe even $100,000. And surely I could, given a one-to-one test. But in the context of 8 or 9 blind tastes, once you peeled away the couple of outliers (cider and Guinness), everything else was basically the same. I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't done it.

[USAF_Vol]

folks should be able to differ the boddingtons due to the creamy head.

Wasn't harp lager the Guinness solution to the American golden style lagers? Or was it the German Lagers, prolly the German.

But true, they are hard to tell in a blind test, but visually, it helps decide if you like it, most people are turned off instatntly when they see the beer is dark or black.

[Vercingetorix]

28? Shite, I'm a decade older than you. I was 38 this past weekend. Didn't realize I was drinking with a child. You're responsible for 64 people, and I'm responsible for one. And yet he still manages to destroy me somehow.

The boy is three and a half. He distinguishes between "pints," which he knows are special, and "beer," which he knows comes in bottles. He likes to bring you a bottle, of course, whether you need it or not. And he always conscientiously brings an opener along with the bottle, which he hopes you'll let him use to open it together. I am doomed when he goes to school.

I should be here mid-August. We drink Guinness; we have three-year-old kids. Seems like there has to be a beer there somewhere, doesn't it?