Strange But True

Winning Friends Resolution

December 22, 2007

For regular Bulletin readers who recall How To Win Friends and Influence People from the beginning of the month, where a South Dakota A-B distributor’s “Contemporary Marketing Coordinator” responded to harsh criticism of one of their products — Rolling Rock — with a textbook example of poor customer relations, has apparently come to a resolution. [...]

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Let No Good Deed Go Unpunished

December 21, 2007

I confess at the outset that this story has nothing to do with beer, but is about bourbon … sort of. But it is also about the assault on alcohol — and to some extent civil liberty — a subject I find myself writing about more and more these days, so that’s why I decided [...]

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Look Away From the Beer

December 19, 2007

This interesting tidbit comes by way of the Fermenting Barrel via Tomme Arthur (thanks, Tomme), who knew my little crusading heart would appreciate the inanity of it all. It seems a new ordinance in the southern Utah town of Springville “requires beer displays be erected no closer than 15 feet from a store’s public entrance.” [...]

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Harriet’s Beer For Girls

December 17, 2007

Harriet Easton, age 19, appears to be one ambitious and entrepreneurially-minded young lass. She’s determined to fill the void created by a continuing drop in UK pub beer sales. “Figures released last month showed beer sales in pubs at their lowest level for 70 years. Seven million fewer pints per day are now being sold, [...]

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Other Uses For Beer

December 7, 2007

I stumbled on this list of “10 Unexpected Uses for Beer” on the website Gomestic, which as far as I can tell looks like it’s about home and garden issues and related things. It was written by 131242313424, who apparently didn’t get the memo about being a free man and not a number (bonus points [...]

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Costa Rica Just Says No to Swiss Beer

December 5, 2007

I guess it’s good to know that other country’s bureaucracies are every bit as irrational as my own, especially when dealing with the regulation of alcohol and other so-called “controlled” substances. It seems the Latin American country of Costa Rica is having issues with a Swiss beer, Hanfblute, because it contains the essence of marijuana [...]

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Curing A Hangover

December 3, 2007

I came across this list at Forbes when I was reading the original Forbes story about the world’s heaviest-drinking countries. This is their list of the Top Ten Hangover Cures, which I’ve reprinted below. Water (Lots of It) Sports Drinks Over-the-Counter Pain Relievers Vitamins B6 and B12 Berocca Prickly Pear Tripe Soup Haejangguk (Korean for [...]

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How To Win Friends and Influence People

December 2, 2007

I got a comment the other day to one of my old posts about Rolling Rock when the brouhaha was going down in Latrobe, Pennsylvania earlier this year. E-Rokk, the person who posted the comment, apparently had a run-in with an Anheuser-Busch distributor’s rep. He also has a blog with four friends called Hey Stupid, [...]

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Spot the Drunk

December 1, 2007

Maybe it’s just my peculiar sense of humor but anytime I hear the phrase “spot the … anything” I think of Monty Python, as in “Spot the Looney.” So that was my first thought when I heard that Britain’s Home Office had issued very specific guidelines to members of the police on “How to Spot [...]

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Ennui? Oui!

November 30, 2007

I know it’s been quite a while since I’ve posted anything new and a few people have written me to see what is the matter. It’s nice to know that I’m missed so I thought I’d update everyone. I’m just tired and took a little unscheduled time off to spend with the family and, hopefully, [...]

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Busch Model Train Accesories

November 18, 2007

After the official part of my recent German beer trip ended, I had a few days to myself before heading back across the pond. So one day, Peter Reid (who publishes Modern Brewery Age) and I took a Deutsche Bahn train to nearby Salzburg, Austria to visit the original Trumer Brauerei (more about that trip [...]

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Got A Sense of Humor?

November 17, 2007

I’m not sure how old this is, because it’s not dated, but at least more than two years ago PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) created a spoof ad aimed at young adults based on the famous and highly successful “got milk?” PSA campaign that the California Milk Processor Board created in 1993. [...]

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The Beer Label Dog

November 17, 2007

This is pretty cool. I stumbled upon this doing some random searching. You’ve probably seen those mosaic photo posters where tiny photos are used to create another photo along the lines of pointillist painting. The one below is an example from a software website for Mazaika, a program that facilitates making mosaic photographs. This photo [...]

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Quick Chilling Beer With Dry Ice

November 15, 2007

The New Zealand Herald reported Tuesday that a Massey University student in Auckland has invented a novel device to quickly chill beer in a fraction of the time, potentially allowing people to leave the cooler at home. It’s one of thirty inventions being exhibited at the three-day Design Exposure 2007, which began Wednesday, at Massey [...]

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Soviet Anti-Alcohol Posters

October 23, 2007

I happened upon this cool bit of history while searching for some images the other day. It’s the Museum of Anti-Alcohol Posters, a collection of old Soviet propaganda posters on the evils of drinking. There are more then thirty of them here, with translations. What struck me most in looking through them is that they’re [...]

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Paris Banned from Munich

September 23, 2007

I’m not much for celebrity gossip, but my wife uses it to decompress from her detail-oriented, stressful job — she’s an attorney. She finds that the mindless entertainment helps her unwind after days spent reading complex contracts and the like. So she was the one who came across this gem that seems too priceless to [...]

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