If you read my recent post about the Bulletin’s Fantasy Football games, you already know that NFL Football is the only one of the big four professional sports that I follow. I’m a lifelong Green Bay Packers fan, but don’t hold that against me. I also believe that beer and football are nearly inseparable. They go together like hops and barley, a bat and ball, bacon and eggs, or money and politics.

But for the past few years, the NFL has been trying to remake itself as a squeaky clean sport, as foolish a task as I can imagine. As pointed out so cogently by the late, great George Carlin in his comparison of baseball and football, football is nothing short of organized war. It’s violent and requires players who are not just competitive, but are willing to play with pain and inflict it on others.

Carlin described the object of football thusly:

In football the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy’s defensive line.

Watch old NFL films and you hear player after player talk about how much they just wanted to hurt their opponent, how much they enjoyed it. It attracted a certain type of person, especially in the days when it didn’t pay well. It was always a business, but when players didn’t make much more than many other professions, they had to really love it to play it professionally. But little by little that’s changed. Not only are professional players today paid very well (thanks to unsung older players who created the player’s union), but today’s football is far less violent than it used to be, at least outwardly. Many of the recent rule changes were made to protect players from injury and to reduce much of the naked aggression that used to be the signature of the sport. That was, at least in part, because of the money at stake and what happened when too may star players got injured. The business side of the game has been managed quite skillfully, to the benefit of the rich owners, but often to the detriment of the fans, host cities and even local taxpayers. The amounts of money involved with television rights, merchandising and ticket prices are all staggeringly high. According to Forbes in 2006:

The NFL is the richest sports league in the world, with the average team worth some $957 million. And the Dallas Cowboys, the most valuable team in the NFL, are now the single most valuable sports franchise on the planet, worth $1.5 billion.

Pro football is also the most profitable sport on the planet (mean operating income in 2006 was $17.8 million on $204 million in revenue). Although its television ratings have slipped in the past decade, the NFL still beats the daylights out of other prime-time programming, including every other sport. Nearly three out of every four Americans watched an NFL game on television last season

So the stakes are high for nearly every decision the league makes. Gone are the days when football was a game that was also a business. Nowadays it’s a business first, and the game aspect of it is of secondary importance. Case in point, last week the NFL issued a press release about their newly created “fan code of conduct.” It’s as ridiculous a piece of hubris as I’ve ever seen from a business that relies on the goodwill of its customers to attempt to control their behavior. Naturally, the NFL sees it differently, to wit:

The fan code of conduct is designed to set clear expectations and encourage a stadium environment that is enjoyable for all fans. Teams may add additional provisions to the standard code based on local circumstances or preferences. Each team will communicate its code of conduct during the preseason to season-ticket holders and fans through mailings, online, and in-stadium signage, and other messages.

“The in-stadium experience is critically important to the NFL, our clubs and our fans and it will be a major focus this season,” said NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. “We are committed to improving the fan experience in every way we can — from the time fans arrive in the parking lot to when they depart the stadium. We want everyone to be able to come to our stadiums and enjoy the entire day.”

The code of conduct is intended to address behavior that detracts from the gameday experience. Any fan in violation of these provisions will be subject to ejection without refund and loss of ticket privileges for future games.

What a steaming pile of propaganda and doublespeak. They’re concerned about the image of their business and about liability. Period. Goodell’s being “committed to improving the fan experience” is deceitful hogwash. The majority of fans already behave themselves at games and stadiums already have rules in place to keep the peace. Not to mention, we’re already a nation of laws with plenty of rules against behavior that harms one another, whether at a football game or anywhere else. Nothing in the NFL’s Fan Code of Conduct adds to that. All it does is try control fan behavior, in an attempt to keep it within some narrow range of acceptability that they believe is “family friendly,” all in effort to make more money. It’s shameless. Here’s the whole shebang.

NFL Fan Code of Conduct

The National Football League and its teams are committed to creating a safe, comfortable, and enjoyable experience for all fans, both in the stadium and in the parking lot. We want all fans attending our games to enjoy the experience in a responsible fashion. When attending a game, you are required to refrain from the following behaviors:

• » Behavior that is unruly, disruptive, or illegal in nature.
• » Intoxication or other signs of alcohol impairment that results in irresponsible behavior.
• » Foul or abusive language or obscene gestures.
• » Interference with the progress of the game (including throwing objects onto the field).
• » Failing to follow instructions of stadium personnel.
• » Verbal or physical harassment of opposing team fans.

Event patrons are responsible for their conduct as well as the conduct of their guests and/or persons occupying their seats. Stadium staff will promptly intervene to support an environment where event patrons, their guests, and other fans can enjoy the event free from the above behavior. Event patrons and guests who violate these provisions will be subject to ejection without refund and loss of ticket privileges for future games.

Look how broad some of those are. “Verbal harassment of opposing team fans” could easily include simple “booing,” especially in home stadiums where the rival team is doing the razzing. That’s as much a part of the game as anything, and now people have to watch what they say? In reality, most of what’s on that list are already prohibited or at least frowned upon. Obscene gestures? Since when did giving someone the finger become illegal? In bad taste, maybe, but a crime? According to the rules of conduct, you could bring a buddy who gets drunk and lose your season tickets? Yeah, that seems reasonable.

Beyond harming other people (already against the law), the idea that the NFL thinks they have the right to tell people how they experience the game I find highly insulting. I’m sure the argument goes something like they’re a private organization and therefore have the right to make their own rules, but they sure don’t act private every time they ask the communities where they do business to pay for their stadiums and make tax concessions to stay there, etc. They can’t have it both ways. They can’t pretend to be a part of the community where fans and non-fans alike pay for the privilege of these teams making billions of dollars in their home town and then act like they owe nothing to those communities, telling them how to act.

Carol Slezak, a Columnist with the Chicago Sun-Times, makes some excellent points in a recent column, Oh, That NFL Hypocrisy. As she puts it. “The code of conduct, then, basically amounts to a public-service announcement with penalties attached: Please drink responsibly — or else. Was it really necessary for the league to codify this message?”

The hypocrisy gets downright remarkable when you recall the “beer partnerships” the NFL has wooed over the years. Coors is the official beer of the NFL, Budweiser commercials dominate the Super Bowl, and at Chicago’s Soldier Field you can watch the game from the “Miller Lite Party Deck.”

As long as there’s beer for sale, there always will be some misbehaving fans. But the code of conduct? It’s overkill. Most fans don’t throw bottles onto the field. Most fans don’t get into brawls during games. Most fans don’t drive home drunk. Most fans behave themselves. The code of conduct comes across as arrogant and insulting. A league that has no problem charging fans outrageous prices for tickets, merchandise, the NFL package and everything else imaginable now is telling them how they must act? Goodell simply could have advised teams to enforce their existing rules by policing the stands better.”

Slezak goes on to suggest some sensible rules that football fans should hold the league to if they want us to watch. And that’s the direction it should run, the league doesn’t get to tell fans how to be fans. All of society is subject to the same sets of rules, and by and large they are effective at keeping law and order. There will always be people who can’t follow the rules or — in the case of drinking too much — can’t hold their booze. There are already laws to deal with such people. I hope this will backfire on the NFL, but in a post-9/11 world with paranoia and patriot acts, most people seem willing to set aside their own civil liberties because they’ve been convinced it’s “for their own good.”

But there’s at least one more hypocritical aspect to these rules. Several of the players themselves are hardly role models and have done far worse than the rules the fans are supposed to abide by. Asking fans to behave at the same time players’ conduct spirals out of control leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

As Dan Moffett wrote in the Palm Beach Post, a column entitled First rule for fans: Don’t act like players, “[d]ozens of current and former players have had run-ins with the law in recent years — a spate of charges and crimes that pretty much spans the breadth of human indiscretion: DUI, assault, spousal abuse, drug possession, drug trafficking, dogfighting, lewd behavior, theft, witness tampering, larceny and assorted varieties of disorderly conduct and boorish behavior.”

In the case of the players, in some ways it’s understandable. To keep that war analogy going, it’s similar to what soldiers go through. You can’t train people to be highly competitive and violent to do a job and then expect them to switch it off once they’re off the field of battle. Human nature doesn’t really work that way. Yet we always seem surprised when such people go off the rails and act at home the way they were trained to act at work. And that extends to fandom, too. The league can’t try to foster team loyalty (which adds to their coffers) without some people taking those passions too far.

As one NFL Analyst, David Halpren, argues, at the Bleacher Report.

I understand that the NFL wants to create an environment that is friendly and safe. I understand that women and children shouldn’t be scared to enter a stadium. And I totally respect the fact that an opposing fan should be allowed to cheer for his or her team at a road game without being harassed.

However, let’s keep things in perspective.

Not being able to use “foul language” is almost a violation of my rights. I say almost because obviously I’m in their stadium, so I have to abide by their rules, but come on!

There are eight regular season home games each year. Each game is an event. You tailgate with friends, you get pumped up for the game and you are passionate. Cursing is second nature.

Are you telling me if the Eagles run a five-yard out pattern on 3rd-and-12 I’m supposed to sit on my hands? Hell no. I’m going to tell Andy Reid to go %$&@ himself. Not because I’m mean, but because I’m into the game and I’m expressing myself.

These new rules are very subjective and I hate the fact that some stadium security guard has the right to pick me out of a crowd and get my tickets revoked because I said “@#%hole” as some moron wearing an Eli Manning jersey walked up the steps.

I have an idea; how about they just play the games in the stadium with no fans and we’ll all watch the games in our own houses while we sip tea?

But perhaps the real tragedy is that we think we have to legislate good manners at all. I think no one would argue that the goal of everyone being able to enjoy a sporting event without fear of bodily harm or egregious verbal abuse is not, in and of itself, a bad idea. But why we do we need rules to act like responsible adults? What has happened to our society when I have to be told not to throw something on the football field or not physically abuse my seat neighbor? And the first rule says, at least in part, that it’s illegal to do something illegal. Why did I need to be told that? Have we really come to the point where people assume that everything that’s not been completely and specifically spelled out, is okay to do? Is that the result of paternalistic, nanny laws? Yes, I think it is, at least to some extent.

I definitely think we need to weed out the bad drinkers out there who make it tough for the rest of us, fueling neo-prohibitionists with ammunition for their misguided cause. But until we again have a society that makes people responsible for their own actions through peer pressure — not just laws — then that’s a difficult proposition. What we need is education and especially the message that it’s quality that matters and not quantity. That’s not the message the big breweries will get behind, because they rely so heavily on volume. Budweiser’s term of art is drinkability, which is essentially code for drinking (or at least buying) in quantity. That’s what large beer companies need to survive but as these lumbering giants get ever larger, emphasizing quality over quantity becomes increasingly at odds with their need to maintain shareholder value. And I think that’s exactly what would solve the NFL’s beer-drinking problem.

Remember those Hopsickle desserts that got the Rustico Restaurant & Bar in Alexandria, Virginia in trouble with the state last year? According to Life in the Fast Lane, their Hopsicle “has made its come-back after the restaurant was granted permission to sell frozen beer on a stick.”

As a base, Morales uses Belgian fruit beers that are low in alcohol and minimally hopped. The icy beer-infused treats are subject to beer availability and come in 7 flavors — framboise, cherry kriek, peche, cassis, banana, plum and the new and improved chocolate stout, at $5 a pop.

Morales’s original hopsicle recipes were made entirely from beer, but he changed them to incorporate other ingredients in an effort to appease the local liquor control board.

“Go into a restaurant that uses wine as a food ingredient and you don’t have these issues.” says Morales, who also uses beer in soups, potpies, ragouts and even a peanut-butter-and-beer-jelly sandwich.

The article also details other beer desserts such as beer ice cream, floats and milkshakes, complete with recipes.

Antarctica Brewery is Brazil’s fourth-largest beer brand, and is owned by InBev, picked up from AmBev when they merged with InterBrew. They brew half a dozen beers, of which the Pilsen is the most popular. The brewery was founded in 1885, and is located in São Paulo.

Before I get grief from my wife — and Maureen Ogle — for using sexist imagery, let me explain that it’s not gratuitous, but central to this post. The woman below, Brazilian actress Juliana Paes, has been the face of the Brazilian beer company Antarctica for quite a while. I’ve read that most beer commercials in Brazil are filled with sexual innuendo, and Antarctica is no exception. According to one account, “Juliana is actually a fine actress but her good looks have landed her in Brazilian Playboy, been caught panty-less by the paparazzi (ala Britney) and she’s considered one of the country’s top sex symbols.” According to her Wikipedia page, she’s been in a couple of films and a lot television shows.

1. Seu Nome: Put your name here, just your first or both.
2. Nome do Amigo Zoado: A friend’s name, preferably someone you want to taunt, perhaps a spouse? Whoever you choose, it’s best if they get to watch it with you or if you send it to them via e-mail.
3. Seu Email: Your e-mail (this is optional)
4. Email do Amigo Zoado: Your friend’s e-mail (this is also optional)
5. Then click on “Vizualizer“
6. Laugh

There was an interesting, albeit, short piece on Brandweek yesterday entitled Which Brand Would You Wear on a T-Shirt? concerning a study done by the southern California ad agency David & Goliath. They interviewed people in local bars and asked them which of 25 popular beer and liquor brands would you be willing to wear on a T-shirt, and why? As Brandweek characterizes the goal, it “was to get a grassroots gauge on the badge value of beer and spirits brands today.” Jack Daniel’s was the number one spirits brand, but it was the beer results I was interested in. Here are the top five.

1. Corona
2. Blue Moon
3. Stella Artois
4. Bud Light
5. Pabst Blue Ribbon

According to their observations those vacation commercials Corona has been running actually made people think the beer was good, though in ad-speak they used the jargon “resonate,” as in resonated with consumers. And Stella Artois has the distinction of being called “the new Heineken,” as dubious a distinction as I can imagine given how skunked Heineken usually tastes. The report also apparently said people felt Stella was “considered premium and culturally unique.” Unless “culturally unique” means “tastes like every other Euro lager,” then I’m baffled. But then advertising is all about creating a perception that often isn’t in touch with reality.

Based on the results, I presume the only brands offered in the survey were big ones — read with large marketing and advertising budgets — and the bars they visited were of a particular type, most likely hip, trendy and/or with a younger skewing demographic. David & Goliath chairman David Angelo said of their method. “This simplified approach gets to the heart of what people really think and feel about beer and spirit brands.”

Does it really? I’m not sure I’d agree with that statement. I think it’s more likely a testament to the power of marketing. For these brands that are largely indistinguishable — Blue Moon excepted — to have any individual association, it requires that they spend huge sums of money on hammering the brand perception into the minds of potential consumers. That it works says more about people than the brands. But what do people “really think and feel about beer and spirit brands” that hasn’t been spoon fed to them via advertising? It’s a relatively safe bet that if they’re still drinking these brands, then they have had very little beer education or have been exposed to the variety of beer otherwise available to them.

But Angelo wonders aloud. “Beyond product traits, is there a deeper mindset or association that your brand could use to connect with people?” But none of these brands — again except Blue Moon — have any real product traits. Line them up and the average person could not identify them blindfolded. Without the marketing barrage, they become a commodity. Only their marketing distinguishes them from one another.

It’s a shame there’s so little detail about this study, the method they used to elicit the responses, the full list of brands, and all of that. But the agency’s website has nothing further and as far as I can tell, only Brandweek is reporting on it. I’d certainly be interested to know if any true craft brands were included.

But let’s get back to the T-shirts for a moment. Now that AB 1245, the Trash & Trinkets bill has passed, by 2011 these companies can spend $5 per person on direct marketing (assuming the Governor signs it, of course). With their buying power they could easily purchase logo T-shirts for less than $5, meaning they will be able to not only ask what T-shirts people would be willing to wear, but actually hand them the shirt on the spot. Now that’s “connect[ing] with people.” And it’s also not too hard to see how that would give an enormous advantage to the brands who can afford it.

Last week at the Great British Beer Festival, The Angel’s Share, brewed by the Lost Abbey in San Marcos, California, was chosen as the “Best American Cask-Conditioned Beer.”

From the press release:

The winner was selected by CAMRA beer experts, brewers and international beer judges from forty six beers, specially imported for the Great British Beer Festival. The Festival provides a unique opportunity to try beers from around the World alongside 450 British real ales. The international ‘Bieres Sans Frontieres’ Bar includes rare lambics, wheat beers, Trappist ales, honey, fruit and spice beers as well as a giant wooden barrel of Imperial Porter from the De Molen brewery in the Netherlands.

The beer is brewed with copious amounts of caramel malt to emphasize the vanilla and oak flavors found in the freshly emptied bourbon casks, where it spends six months maturing.

Andy Benson, Manager of the Bieres Sans Frontieres bar said, “It’s a great result for Lost Abbey and I’m sure the beer will be a fast-seller at the Festival, just don’t drink too much of it, as it is 12.5% ABV. American beers are often a surprise to the British palate, they are so intensely flavored that most people either love them or hate them, nothing like the insipid lagers we usually associate with America. The craft beer market in the States is booming and most of these beers are extremely difficult to find this side of the water. Some of the beers are not even available in their own areas in a cask conditioned form.”

Second place went to Mayflower Brewings’ Porter from Massachusetts and third to Cambridge Houses’ IPA from Connecticut.

Congratulations to Tomme Arthur.

I just learned that the California Senate earlier today passed AB 1245 by a vote of 26-7, which gives you some indication of how Anheuser-Busch threw around their political weight. Not only did they sponsor the bill, along with eight Bud distributors in lock step, but they were in fact the only brewery in California not to oppose it, and that includes MillerCoors, who operates a facility in southern California. Even Heineken USA officially opposed the bill. So essentially your elected officials, or at least 79% of them, turned a deaf ear to the concerns of every single small and large beer business in the state, except one. Anybody think this sounds like the Senate was listening to the will of the people? This bill was the very definition of special interest legislation and you can see how it played out. The will of the multi-national corporation was the winner today, and the people be damned.

The only silver lining in all this is that there were any “no” votes at all. That was something of a surprise, and may be attributable to calls made by people like you and me. At least Id like to believe that’s the case. Some nay vote Senators did argue on the floor for the interests of craft brewers, and that’s certainly a sliver of good news. There’s possibly one more shot at stopping this, if the bill goes back to the Assembly GO committee before reaching Governor Schwarzenegger’s desk for signature. Otherwise look for A-B to begin buying customer loyalty beginning in January of next year, when phase one of the bill takes effect.

There is, however, one more irony worth pondering about this bill which may make it all moot in the end, or at least not benefit A-B as much as they believe. InBev, assuming their buyout of A-B is approved, will more than likely not be in a rush to use giveaways to build their business. InBev is notoriously frugal, particularly when it comes to swag. InBev, if they were aware of this bill, would more than likely be as opposed to it as everybody else. Since they know they don’t want to spend as much as $5 per customer, but if they believe their competitors might, it seems likely they would have no choice but to see this as a competitive disadvantage and not in the interests of the newly formed company, ABIB. If so — and I freely admit I’m out on a limb right now — is it inconceivable that InBev might be able to quietly obtain the ear of the governor and whisper that four-letter word into it: veto? And that would ultimately mean A-B wasted the political capital they spent getting the bill this far, and pissing off their new masters in the process. Stranger things have happened in the beer business.

This might sound like a frivolous question, but I’m deadly serious about asking it. It’s something that’s been on my mind off and on for years, at least since web browsers first started appearing and breweries starting putting up web pages. I understand that drinking alcohol is prohibited if you’re under the age of consent — 21 here, but lower almost everywhere else that it’s not illegal — but is reading about something illegal likewise illegal?

I know there are plenty of books that people have censored and continue to censor because they believe that young people reading them might be corrupted by the ideas expressed in such books. I also generally believe such people to be backward doofuses, no matter how well-intentioned they pretend to be. But here in cyberspace, the ether that has no geography, things seem a little trickier. Anyone can access any website, any time. And that tends to worry people convinced that ideas are dangerous and that impressionable minds should only be exposed to things their parents deem to be safe. I know I’m over-simplifying, but overall the notion that ideas can corrupt I find highly specious. If an idea can’t hold up to a child’s scrutiny, maybe it’s not such a great idea after all. Kids tend to have very natural, well-defined bullshit detectors.

But censorship in the protection of childrens’ virtue is one of America’s most peculiar cherished institutions. We may not have burned books — though we did stupidly ignite some Beatles records once upon a time — but we certainly have done almost as much harm by trying to ban them. I tend to believe that ideas that challenge the status quo or people’s dogmatic beliefs are not only important to a functioning society but downright necessary. A society that can’t question its own values becomes a form of dictatorship. But when the censorship is self-inflicted by ordinary people trying to foist their own set of morals on everyone else, that’s far more dangerous than a government ruled by a single tyrant. A dictator can be overthrown and the will of the people restored, but when we do it voluntarily, that’s harder to fight. It’s the difference between Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World. In the latter’s vision of a dystopian future, they censored one another voluntarily, believing it was for their own good. I find that view much closer to how our modern world functions, where private citizens devote their time to protesting other peoples’ morals “for their own good,” so convinced are they that what they believe must be correct. This is why I find neo-prohibitionists so frightening. They exude ignorance and moral superiority, believing forcing other people to believe whatever they believe and wanting to force us to behave as they do is all simply for our own good. They seem to believe a difference of opinion is not something to be tolerated, but squashed. The ends do justify the means, in their minds.

But back to the internet. Anyone, young or old, can look up how to build a bomb, smoke marijuana, do cocaine or any number of dangerous and illegal acts. Tobacco, insofar as it’s also illegal for minors, is very accessible on the web. Go to any popular tobacco company, like Phillip Morris or R.J. Reynolds and you can waltz right on to their website. But with alcohol, it’s another story. Most larger beer companies have a splash page where you have to certify that you’re over 21. Why? There’s no beer coming out of the computer using a USB tap, there’s nothing illegal you can obtain at a brewery’s website. All you can do is read about the brewery and their beer. So why is that more dangerous than reading about cigarettes, drugs or bomb-making, all of which — and who knows how many more I can’t think of — can be accessed without first confirming that you’re an adult? I’ve written over and over again about how important I believe alcohol education is to fostering more reasonable behavior among young adults, but if they’re presumably not even allowed to read about alcohol, then that’s yet one more way in which educating people is maliciously thwarted. Can I be the only one that finds that infuriating? Why should we restrict young people from even reading about alcohol? Why is reading about beer considered so dangerous that it alone is singled out for special treatment. As usual, my favorite comedian, Bill Hicks, has some salient thoughts on this subject:

“I’ve been traveling. I’ve been noticing an anti-intellectualism sweeping our world, I find quite frightening. I was in Nashville, Tennessee last year, after the show I went to a Waffle House, I’m not proud of it, I was hungry. And I’m alone, I’m eating and I’m reading a book, right? Waitress walks over to me, “Tch tch tch tch. Hey, what you readin’ for?” Is that like the weirdest fucking question you’ve ever heard? Not what am I reading, but what am I reading for. Well, goddammit, you stumped me. Why do I read? Well… hmmm… I guess I read for a lot of reasons, and the main one, is so I don’t end up … being a fucking waffle waitress.

But then… this trucker in the next booth gets up, stands over me, and goes, “Well, looks like we got ourselves a reader.” What the fuck’s going on here? It’s not like I walked into a clan rally in a Boy George outfit, goddammit, it’s a book! Am I stepping out of some intellectual closet? I read. There, I said it. I feel better.”

What’s more than a little frightening about his rant is that it was done over ten years ago (Hicks died in 1994) and the anti-intellectualism he refers to seems even more acute today than ever. Pop culture is rapidly becoming a celebration of dumb and dumber. Anything witty, intelligent or thoughtful is branded elitist, and will never last on primetime. Idiocracy may not have been as good a film as Office Space, but Mike Judge was just as prescient with the movie’s take on the direction our culture is headed. For further evidence, read Morris Berman’s The Twilight of American Culture, in which he argues persuasively that we’re entering a new dark ages.

Think I’m alarmist? Take a look at these recent statistics concerning the state of reading in this country. “58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school and 42% of college graduates never read another book. 80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year, 70% of US adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years, 57% of new books are not read to completion.” Before I had kids, I read an average of 2-3 books every week, including audiobooks I listened to in the car. That I’m so far in the minority is quite scary. How do we as a society address complex problems when reading a book is beyond our ken? If knowledge is power, no wonder we’re so helpless. Is it any surprise then that so many people still believe Iraq had something to do with 9/11 and Barack Obama is a practicing Muslim.

Undoubtedly, the best way to keep people ignorant and susceptible to superstition and propaganda, is to keep information away from them. The less people know, the more they can be manipulated and the easier they can be controlled. That’s the basis of early propaganda studies that were first tested on the American population before and during World War I. The pioneer of the field, Edward Bernays, successfully used the techniques he developed in the Ministry of Information, an ominous sounding branch of our government that manipulated support for going to war and squelched dissent on the grounds of national security. His basic principles are still being used today for the same purposes, and have also expanded into virtually every aspect of our lives.

So why is it a big deal that you have to click an extra box so you can visit a beer website, especially when anyone could simply say they were an adult to gain access? I think it has to do with the perception this extra step sends, which is that alcohol is so dangerous that even reading about it is illegal. It’s not, of course, but the intolerant neo-prohibitionists have created such a chill on our civil liberties and freedoms that huge companies are loathe to cross them and so voluntarily censor themselves to avoid their churlish wrath. That in doing so they might possibly keep information out of the hands of adolescents who need it the most, thereby adding to the problem of underage drinking, is typical of the mis-guided nature of the anti-alcohol movement. Because when reading is outlawed, only outlaws have beer books.
 

Let me say first that I love Salon. My wife and I happily pay to be premium members and have done so for several years to access a wealth of diverse topics tackled by quality writers. The weekly column Ask the Pilot alone is worth the modest annual fee. Written by a working pilot, Patrick Smith, it has given me more insight into the airline industry than any ten other sources. Plus, he’s witty and curmudgeonly in a way that reminds me of a certain beer writer. But I’m getting off topic, as usual. [NOTE: it’s possible that you may have trouble with the links if you’re not a member and/or you may have to watch a commercial first before gaining access for the day.]

Today’s Salon featured in the Eat & Drink section, an article entitled And the next great American beer will be…? with the subtitle Pabst may be worshiped by hipsters, but can it replace Budweiser as the best classic domestic brew? The author is Edward “Ted” McClelland, who also wrote two books about — wait for it — nothing remotely close to beer! He’s written about horse racing and travel and has done articles for a variety of mainstream publications, just the sort of resume that so many mainstream publications will hand out a beer assignment to, because apparently beer requires no special knowledge whatsoever. In fairness, that appears to be slowly changing, but it’s still a disappointment to see, especially when it’s by a publication I have great respect for otherwise.

The gist of the article is that now that Budweiser is about to become a foreign beer, what will be the next great American beer, and more specifically will it be Pabst? While he gets his facts mostly correct and overall it’s not terrible, the main premise that we need to find something similar to replace Budweiser is in my opinion not even the question that we should be addressing.

McClellan does acknowledge that the weakest part of Pabst’s claim to the throne is that they’re not actually brewing their own beer but heaps praise on them for their recent success, saying Pabst “demonstrates both the power of its red-white-and-blue image, and its success at marketing, even when that was achieved by barely marketing at all.” He also reference’s Rob Walker’s new book Buying In, but in a 2003 New York Times column, The Marketing of No Marketing, Walker himself makes clear that Pabst wasn’t “barely marketing at all” but instead was employing a very deliberate strategy of appearing not to be marketing while marketing the hell out of it, just in a different way than traditional marketing. Pabst is currently in the process of trying to repeat that success with other nostalgic brands like Primo and Schlitz.

McClelland goes on to speculate that if not Pabst, who should the crown go to, throwing out such brands as Genesee Cream Ale, Iron City, Narragansett, Shiner Bock and even Yuengling. I suppose what I really don’t understand is why finding a “cheap buzz” is a worthy goal at all. What’s the point of trying to replace one bland macro beer with another one that tastes almost exactly the same? Shouldn’t a lack of bland, interchangeable industrial light lagers owned by American brewers provide an opportunity to spotlight the 1400+ small craft brewers making beer with full flavors? Wouldn’t this be the perfect time to re-educate all those macro drinkers that beer can be so much more that any of the brands McClelland mentions? But not once does he mention Samuel Adams Boston Lager or any of the literally hundreds of wonderful lagers made by craft brewers around the country.

McClelland also interchanges his goal between finding the next great American “beer” and the next great American “lager,” but perhaps he’s confused about the difference. While there is a preponderance of ales among craft-brewed beer, there are still plenty of spectacular lagers to choose. But if it’s all beer, there are also plenty of ales that could fit the bill.

He also never explains why the next great American beer has to be national. Despite not mentioning national brands, he seems to imply that’s a condition, especially with questions like this one. “So can a patriotic American — or an Americana-loving hipster — still get a cheap buzz off a classic, domestic lager? Yes, but only if he lives in the right place.” But Boston Beer, Sierra Nevada, Anchor Brewing and several others are all brands available nationally.

Back in what’s considered the Golden Age of American brewing — the late 1800s — the number of breweries topped 4,000, meaning they were all primarily very local breweries. Now that we’re in the Silver Age (IMHO), most Americans live within 10 miles of a craft brewery. With so much good beer so close, why on Earth should we be wasting time trying to find another national brand to replace Bud? Maybe it’s time to finally stop being duped by propaganda marketing convincing most Americans that beer is something worthy only to swill that must be cheaper than water. Why is that notion so pervasive? The obvious answer is the onslaught of marketing and advertising by the former big three and the similarly tasteless imports like Heineken, Corona and their ilk.

But beer is, as I’ve said so many times, so much more than that. The country has been filled with hundreds, possibly thousands, of ales and lagers worthy of the title “next great American beer” for decades. That so many in the media have on beer blinders and miss that simple fact says a lot about our basic values. Financial success is always more highly valued in our culture than other ways in which success can be measured. So the amazing, high quality craft beers that have been part of the American beer scene for thirty years go largely unnoticed, despite being the next great American beer, right here, right now.