Olympia Beer Offers Million Dollar Prize For Finding Bigfoot

Posted on April 16, 2013 by Jay Brooks

In what has to be one of the most unusual marketing efforts by a large brewer, Olympia Beer has offered to pay $1 million dollars — in increments of $25,000 a year for the next four decades — to anyone who can find conclusive evidence of a live Bigfoot. The contest is the brainchild of Evan and Daren Metropoulos, who recently bought Pabst Brewing Co., which also owns the Olympia brand.

Full details and rules can be found at OlympiaBigfoot.com, but here’s their “Mission Statement” for finding Bigfoot:

Olympia Beer and Bigfoot have been leaving footprints together in the Pacific Northwest since 1896.

We have been sharing the same backyard for over a century and we believe it’s time to do what has never been done, and that is to offer a one million dollar reward to anyone who can ensure the safe capture of Bigfoot. When we say safe capture that means Bigfoot has to be alive and breathing folks, with no wounds. That’s right you can’t use any act of violence, no guns/knives/boxing gloves/nets/etc, only sugar or sweets to lure him in.

You must register to participate in the search. To report your discovery of irrefutable evidence of the existence of Bigfoot, click on the “Submit Capture Report” link on the left and follow the instructions to report your evidence. You participation in the search is subject to the complete Official Rules.

To aid us in this adventure, Olympia Beer is partnering with The Falcon Project

The Falcon Project has been identified as “the most penetrative search for Bigfoot ever conducted in the United States.” They will conduct an aerial search for Sasquatch employing an unmanned airship with high definition thermal imaging camera equipment.

Sure, it’s a publicity stunt, but it’s a funny one. And what if someone actually does it? Apparently 14% of all Americans believe Sasquatch to be real, while another 14% say they’re not sure.

Winners must provide “irrefutable evidence” of Bigfoot’s existence and, according to the rules, may include “DNA Evidence.” From the rules:

“Bigfoot” refers to a previously undiscovered species of upright, bipedal hominid, native to North America existing contemporaneously with the Contest Period or the twenty-five (25) year period immediately prior to the Contest Period. There is no set type or amount of evidence required to establish proof for purposes of this Contest other than that all evidence presented must satisfy the Judging Panel. Evidence may include, but is not limited to DNA Evidence. DNA Evidence may include hair, blood, tissue or saliva that proves the DNA sequence of the donor shows that said donor resides in the primate evolutionary family tree, among other apes or hominids, but does not have the same genetic markers and DNA sequence as any known species. Evidence may also include “Visual Proof” of a live physical body. Physical remains may be considered as evidence provided that it can be conclusively demonstrated that the date of death pre-dated the Contest Period. Visual Proof shall not include footprints, bone fragments, inconclusive skeletal remains, or any other non-definitive evidence of the existence of Bigfoot. Any photo or video taken with photographic or video equipment is not sufficient to qualify as evidence in and of itself for consideration in the Contest, but may be considered as supporting evidence.
NO HARM SHOULD BE DONE TO BIGFOOT OR ANY LIVING CREATURE AS A RESULT OF PARTICIPATION IN THIS CONTEST. ANY EVIDENCE OF SUCH ACTIVITY SHALL LEAD TO DISQUALIFICATION FROM THE CONTEST AND NOTIFICATION TO THE PROPER LEGAL AUTHORITIES.

Beer & Women By Anonymous

Posted on April 16, 2013 by Jay Brooks

Today is the birthday of the late Alan Eames, one of the first Americans who wrote extensively about beer, especially in a serious way, mining history and culture for his topics. I never met Alan, though I talked to him on the phone a few times. When he passed away a couple of years ago, my friend Pete Slosberg bought his library, and donated much of it to the Brewers Association in Boulder, Colorado, for their library. When Pete and his wife moved to San Francisco recently, he gave me several boxes from the library, mostly old newsletters, press releases and other miscellaneous stuff.

By coincidence, today is also the day when many people celebrate the Greek philosopher Aristotle’s birthday around 384 B.C.E. Nobody’s sure of the exact date that Aristotle was born, and I’m not even sure why today is used by so many sources, but it’s as good a day as any, I suppose. Anyway, I was browsing through one of Eames’ books today, “A Beer Drinker’s Companion,” from 1986, and came upon this 17th century poem, which also mentions Aristotle. The author is unknown, but it seemed appropriate because of the connection between Alan Eames and Aristotle and their mutual birthday today. Enjoy.

Beer and Women

While I’m at the tavern quaffing,
  Well disposed for t’other quart,
Come’s my wife to spoil my laughing,
  Telling me ’tis time to part:
Words I knew, were unavailing,
  Yet I sternly answered, No!
‘Till from motives more prevailing,
  Sitting down she treads my toe:
Such kind tokens to my thinking,
  Most emphatically prove
That the joys that flow from drinking,
  Are averse to those of love.
Farewell friends and t’other bottle,
  Since I can no longer stay,
Love more learn’d than Aristotle,
  Has, to move me, found the way.

The Session #74: The Beer Balancing Act

Posted on April 5, 2013 by Jay Brooks

Our 74th Session, is hosted by Bryan Roth, who writes This Is Why I’m Drunk. His topic is about finding balance in life, recognizing that however passionate or obsessed any of us are about our beer, life is more than just beer. Or as Bryan puts it. “Beer is more than the alcohol that goes into it – it’s the passion, history and community. Beer is also just one of many interests I have in my life, whether it’s exercise, continuing my education or keeping tabs on how social media impacts society. Beer doesn’t define me, even if it may be something I can ramble on about for hours and hours. These are all things I love spending my time on, but what about you?” So here’s his invitation to I’m Having a Party and You’re Invited: “The Session” for April 2013:

April’s topic is “Finding Beer Balance.” It’s a discussion I hope will offer a variety of responses as people consider their interests outside of finding the perfect pint.

Is beer your vice? Is beer your reward? Does beer really have to be either? Do you find lifestyle balance through work, hobbies, family or maybe even “Dry Days” like David Bascombe? There are a variety of ways to find balance. These questions are simply a jumping-off point.

It’s hard not to love Bryan’s topic, even if it requires us to talk about the one subject every one of us loves more than beer: ourselves. But blogs are, if nothing else, personal; so being personal seems part and parcel of any blog. If it wasn’t personal, at least part of the time, then it would be something else. So how does anyone balance their work and their personal life?

For me, it’s never been that difficult. Almost every longterm job I’ve had was in a field that I first came to because I was passionate about it in some way. When I was a kid, I was into music, played in bands, and my first real job out of high school was playing in a U.S. Army Band. After that, I managed record stores and became one of the record buyers for a large chain of records stores.

My next job played on that experience plus a lifelong passion for film, when I did marketing and advertising for a small chain of video stores. After moving to California, and a few grunt jobs to pay the bills, I once again found myself managing video stores and then was a buyer for that chain, too.

I later turned my lifetime love of comic books into a job — you guessed it — managing a comic book store, before a chance opportunity landed me a job writing for a law office, finally putting those journalism classes (and my stint as sports editors of my junior high school newspaper) to good use. While there was a lot I loved about that job, it was the writing — crafting a persuasive argument, applying law to a set of facts, and agonizing over every word — that really got me up in the morning.

At that time, I was already a beer geek, having really started down that path in the late 1970s while stationed in New York City. After moving to California in 1985, there was plenty more to discover there, and I held tasting parties and started homebrewing, too. In 1991, I visited over 550 bars over a period of about four months, with the result being the publication of the book The Bars of Santa Clara County: A Beer Drinkers Guide to Silicon Valley. (Hilariously, someone in Florida will sell you a new copy of the book for $60.90! I have a box left, I’ll sell you one for far less than that!)

I used that book, along with my experience as a record and video buyer, to become the beer buyer for Beverages & more, and have been involved in some part of the beer industry since around 1991 or 1992.

Although throughout my entire life I’ve generally felt lost, confused, bewildered and disoriented, I’ve always gravitated toward work that has something to do with a passion. So most of my jobs have never been just for the paycheck. Even when the paycheck wasn’t all that much (most of them frankly) I’ve been fortunate that I tended to care about them far more than I probably should have — good for the employer, jury’s still out if that was good for me. Last month, I found this great quote by legendary brewer Pierre Celis. “To me, work is being on vacation. Why do I continue working? Well, if I stop I’m no longer on vacation.” And that’s a bit how I feel about my work. I’m always doing it, because it doesn’t feel like work. Oh, sometimes it does, certainly, but by and large I feel driven to do it — not because of deadlines or paying the rent or any mundane reasons like that — because it’s something that I feel like I have to do. I feel fortunate I found beer, and that I’ve managed to turn writing about it into not just my job. but a career. But even if I hadn’t, I suspect I’d be writing about something else. Writing has always felt like something I just do, something I just have to keep doing. Publish or perish, as they say.

So I may not be typical in balancing work and life, because for me the two are so inextricably entwined together. It’s a symbiotic relationship. One couldn’t exist without the other. No matter what work I’m doing, I tend to live it 24/7 even though sometimes that can be very, very bad. Unfortunately, I think I’m just hardwired that way. Over the years I’ve collected board games, legos, Hawaiian shirts, ties, records, comic books, books, videos, animation, view-masters, 3-D anything, buttons, breweriana, clothespins, dates, ticket stubs, dice, miniatures, postcards, art, globes, rocks, gems, fossils, birds, playing cards, baseball and football cards, tarot cards, beer books, quotations, xmas ornaments, Atari games, and pint glasses. And that’s just what I can remember off of the top of my head.

Does it get in the way of life? Sometimes, naturally, but usually it’s not a problem. Kids have made me more grounded about being too obsessive, because they demand your attention in way that you not only don’t mind but that you actually want to stop whatever you’re doing and focus on them. Anything that makes you less self-interested has got to be a good thing in the long run. So while I’m as obsessive about beer as any beer geek, maybe more so in some ways, I can go on and on about any number of subjects, as people who know me well can attest to. I can bore you to death talking about a great number of arcane hobbies, pursuits and passions. Just wind me up. My geekdom knows no depths or bounds. A few years ago, I wrote one of the “It’s My Round” pieces for All ABout Beer magazine in which I compared comic books and craft beer in Living in the Silver Age.

Part of it is an unquenchable curiosity about damn near everything. There are very few subjects that I can’t find something interesting in. Asking Who, What, Where, When, Why and How in life is a good way to live as far as I’m concerned, especially since asking questions and seeking the right answers is something journalists are supposed to do. How lucky is that?

I wasn’t always as lucky as I feel today, but maybe that’s lucky too. Having struggled in different ways and at different times in my life has made me a much stronger person and most importantly allows me to appreciate how lucky I am right now. I love my job, my career, what I do every day. I love that I have a supportive, loving wife and kids who bring me both joy and keep me grounded at the same time. I love where I live, not just the house we’re in but where in the world, too. Living equidistant between Lagunitas and Russian River doesn’t suck. And just as important: friends. In my twenty plus years in the beer world, I’ve made many lifelong friends to share both a beer and our shared passions for it. In the end, that may be the best thing of all, because I’ve always felt that one of the best aspects of beer is its shareability. Beer alone is good, but often a little sad, too. Beer just cries out for companionship. Beer’s at its best as a shared experience.

Still, even though beer is unquestionably a big part of my life, it’s not the only part, and it’s probably not even the biggest or most important part. That would be people; family and friends. Luckily sharing a beer with them makes for a richer experience and for a more balanced existence. For me, that’s balancing beer and life.

Our Victuals Being Much Spent, Especially Our Beere

Posted on March 19, 2013 by Jay Brooks

Today is the birthday of William Bradford, who was born March 19, 1590 and was aboard the Mayflower on its journey to found Plymouth Colony in today what is part of Massachusetts. Although not initially a leader, he became governor of the colony, a post he held for thirty years, and is generally credited with creating the first Thanksgiving.

Bradford kept a journal covering the years 1620 to 1647, which was later published in a variety of forms, including in Of Plymouth Plantation and Mourt’s Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. Within the world of beer, Bradford is best known for his diary entry suggesting that the colonists dropped anchor in Plymouth Bay because they’d run out of beer, though he put it quite a bit more elegantly; “we could not now take time for further search or consideration, our victuals being much spent, especially our beer.”

In context, of course, the meaning is changed somewhat:

That night we returned againe a ship board with resolution the next morning to settle on some of those places. So in the morning, after we had called on God for direction, we came to this resolution, to go presently ashore again, and to take a better view of two places which we thought most fitting for us; for we could not now take time for further search or consideration, our victuals being much spent, especially our Beere, and it being now the 19. [new style 29th] of December. After our landing and viewing of the place, so well as we could, we came to a conclusion, by most voyces, to set on the maine Land, on the first place, on an high ground where there is a great deale of Land cleared, and hath beene planted with Corne three or four yeares agoe, and there is a very sweet brooke runnes under the hill side, and many delicate springs of as good water as can be drunke, and where we may harbour our Shallops and Boates exceeding well, and in this brooke much good fish in their season: on the further side of the river also much Corne ground cleared: in one field is a great hill, on which wee poynt to make a platiforme, and plant our Ordnance, which will command all round about; from thence we may see into the Bay, and farre into the Sea, and we may see thence Cape Cod.

Author and beer historian Bob Skilnik has pointed out that the myth of beer being the sole catalyst for the Pilgrims has been well documented, though still it persists. (BTW, anyone heard from Bob lately?) I’ve written about this before (but the link to the newspaper article is down) and also Don Russell wrote one of his columns about it, Don’t believe the Pilgrims’ beer myth, a few years ago, saying “it’s absurd to believe the Pilgrims anchored simply because they had run out of beer. Aside from making them sound like drunken frat boys on a transatlantic beer cruise, historical documents indicate they had other priorities. ‘In actuality, there was plenty of beer still on board for crew members who had to make the return passage to England,’ said Skilnik, author of “Beer & Food: An American History.’” As Skilnik discovered.

Expeditionary crews sent from the anchored ship had been checking the lay of the land for weeks, looking for a suitable place to build homes. Yes, food and supplies had run low. But more importantly, Skilnik noted, the cold was brutal, passengers were dying and the ship’s crew wanted to return to Europe. Meanwhile, there was fowl and fresh water waiting on shore. It wasn’t the shortage of beer that finally prompted the Pilgrims to give up the ship, Skilnik said. It was plain common sense.

The fault, Skilnik contends, begins with a full page ad in the Washington Post from January 8, 1908 taken out by Anheuser-Busch for Budweiser. This was just as the forces for prohibition were intensifying their efforts, and the breweries were finally starting to recognize the threat. Damage control was initiated, but most historians see it it now as “too little, too late,” and this ad was most likely a part of that effort to show beer in a better light. The fake newspaper page contains stories about beer through history, including the pilgrim’s tale.

The pilgrims appear in the story in the second column from the left, at the top.

That was the beginning. Before, and after Prohibition, advertising continued to make the connection, in fact tried to make it even stronger. As Russell continues, “After Prohibition, the message grew even slicker, with an annual Thanksgiving publicity campaign from the U.S. Brewers Association. Each Thanksgiving throughout the 1930s and ’40s, newspaper readers were treated to features with headlines like, ‘Beer, Not Turkey, Lured Pilgrims to Plymouth Rock.’”

Bradford may have written it, but hundreds of years later, it’s not quite the smoking gun we’ve been let to believe.

Statue of William Bradford in Plymouth Rock State Park, Massachusetts.

But Bradford’s journals also contain additional references to beer. Here’s a few more Bradford quotes with beer in them.

November 15:

In the morning so soon as we could see the trace, we proceeded on our journey, and had the track until we had compassed the head of a long creek, and there they took into another wood, and we after them, supposing to find some of their dwellings, but we marched through boughs and bushes, and under hills and valleys, which tore our very armor in pieces, and yet could meet with none of them, nor their houses, nor find any fresh water, which we greatly desired, and stood in need of, for we brought neither beer nor water with us, and our victuals was only biscuit and Holland cheese, and a little bottle of aquavitae, so as we were sore athirst.

Mid-November:

Again, we had yet some beer, butter, flesh, and other such victuals left, which would quickly be all gone, and then we should have nothing to comfort us in the great labor and toil we were like to undergo at the first. It was also conceived, whilst we had competent victuals, that the ship would stay with us, but when that grew low, they would be gone and let us shift as we could.

Christmas Day:

Monday, the 25th day, we went on shore, some to fell drink water aboard, but at night the master caused us to have some beer, and so on board we had divers times now and then some beer, but on shore none at all.

John Updike’s Paean To The Beer Can

Posted on March 18, 2013 by Jay Brooks

Today is one of my favorite author’s birthdays, John Updike. He grew up in the same small Pennsylvania town that I did — Shillington — and we both escaped to a life of writing. Though I think you’ll agree he did rather better than I did with the writing thing, not that I’m complaining. I once wrote to him about a harebrained idea I had about writing updated Olinger stories from the perspective of the next generation (his Olinger Stories were a series of short tales set in Olinger, which was essentially his fictional name for Shillington). He wrote me back a nice note of encouragement on a hand-typed postcard that he signed, which today hangs in my office as a reminder and for inspiration. Anyway, this little gem he wrote for the The New Yorker in 1964 is a favorite of mine and I now post it each year in his honor. Enjoy.

Beer Can by John Updike

This seems to be an era of gratuitous inventions and negative improvements. Consider the beer can. It was beautiful — as beautiful as the clothespin, as inevitable as the wine bottle, as dignified and reassuring as the fire hydrant. A tranquil cylinder of delightfully resonant metal, it could be opened in an instant, requiring only the application of a handy gadget freely dispensed by every grocer. Who can forget the small, symmetrical thrill of those two triangular punctures, the dainty pfff, the little crest of suds that foamed eagerly in the exultation of release? Now we are given, instead, a top beetling with an ugly, shmoo-shaped tab, which, after fiercely resisting the tugging, bleeding fingers of the thirsty man, threatens his lips with a dangerous and hideous hole. However, we have discovered a way to thwart Progress, usually so unthwartable. Turn the beer can upside down and open the bottom. The bottom is still the way the top used to be. True, this operation gives the beer an unsettling jolt, and the sight of a consistently inverted beer can might make people edgy, not to say queasy. But the latter difficulty could be eliminated if manufacturers would design cans that looked the same whichever end was up, like playing cards. What we need is Progress with an escape hatch.

Now that’s writing. I especially like his allusion to the beauty of the clothespin as I am an unabashed lover of clothespins.

In case you’re not as old and curmudgeonly as me — and who is? — he’s talking about the transition to the pull-tab beer can (introduced between 1962-64) to replace the flat punch-top can that required you to punch two triangular holes in the top of the can in order to drink the beer and pour it in a glass.

The pull-tab (at left) replaced the punch top (right).

Originally known as the Zip Top, Rusty Cans has an informative and entertaining history of them. Now you know why a lot of bottle openers still have that triangle-shaped punch on one end.

So essentially, he’s lamenting the death of the old style beer can which most people considered a pain to open and downright impossible should you be without the necessary church key opener. He is correct, however, that the newfangled suckers were sharp and did cut fingers and lips on occasion, even snapping off without opening from time to time. But you still have to laugh at the unwillingness to embrace change (and possibly progress) even though he was only 32 at the time; hardly a normally curmudgeonly age.

How Beer Gave Us Civilization

Posted on March 15, 2013 by Jay Brooks

While I’m firmly in the “beer came before bread” camp in the anthropological debate about what sparked civilization, evidence has been mounting for that view since it was first proposed over a half-century ago. In a new opinion piece in the New York Times by Jeffrey P. Kahn, the CEO of WorkPsych Associates, entitled How Beer Gave Us Civilization, he lays out the case for why “we needed beer” and runs through an overview of early civilization’s introduction of alcohol and why it was so necessary to our development. He also brings into the debate a recent study from the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, What Was Brewing in the Natufian? An Archaeological Assessment of Brewing Technology in the Epipaleolithic, which adds new support for what I call the “beer first” theory.

He unfortunately ends with the long-discredited Benjamin Franklin beer quote, but apart from that gaffe, it’s a good read. Just stop short of the final two paragraphs, and it’s even better. He should have just finished with this sage observation. “Beer’s place in the development of civilization deserves at least a raising of the glass.” Hear, hear.

Illustration by Anders Nilsson.

May 2013
S	M	T	W	T	F	S
« Apr
			1	2	3	4
5	6	7	8	9	10	11
12	13	14	15	16	17	18
19	20	21	22	23	24	25
26	27	28	29	30	31