Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Alcoholismo

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mexico
It appears the U.S. doesn’t have a lock on goofy, over-the-top anti-alcohol propaganda. Mexico has some pretty bad propaganda, too. This comes courtesy of I-Mockery, a humor website, and its founder, Roger Barr, who describes the Mexican Crazy Mexican Monografias: Alcoholismo propaganda:

When it comes to public service announcements, America is really quite tame compared to the rest of the world. While we have the ultra-corny NBC celebrity spots which always end with “The more you know…”, other countries aren’t nearly as sheepish when it comes to displaying the harsh realities of life. This became even clearer to me when I stumbled upon an incredible collection of Mexican monografias posters in the basement of a Philadelphia art gallery last year. Some of them were extremely graphic, and others were pretty friggin’ hilarious… needless to say I purchased one of each.

Barr then goes on, in often hilarious fashion, to translate and comment on each of the images, such as this example below.

alcoholismo

Hmmm, I’m getting a few mixed signals here. From what I can tell, if you become an alcoholic, one of several things can happen to you: a) you can crash your car into a telephone pole, b) you’ll appear in your very own television commercial, or c) you’ll somehow fall into a huge glass of liquor which a giant will then pick up to drink and you’ll die in his stomach. See what I mean? Those Mexicans aren’t gonna shy away from the truth about alcoholism. Harsh reality, people.

And this very surreal piece of art:

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“Some bottles of alcohol contain miniature humans who don’t have any genitals, and oh yeah, Death likes to hangout inside bottles too. Kind of like a genie, but the only kind of wish he’ll grant is your wish for the sweet release of death.”

Barr has broken down every one of the nearly two dozen graphic works cautioning people about the dangers of alcohol. And before I get another rash of comments, I’m not making fun of those dangers, just this ridiculous attempt to warn people about them using these illustrations. But take a look for yourself at the Alcoholismo, it’s pretty funny stuff.

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Beer In Ads #108: Coors’ Golden Brewery

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Thursday’s ad is for Coors. It’s an old advertising lithograph from around the 1890s. I love these kind of old ads that are merely showing off the industrial beauty of old breweries. This is, in a sense, vintage brewery porn. I attended a Coors event earlier tonight (more about that later) and so this seemed an appropriate ad to showcase today.

coors-lithograph

The Beer Genie Out Of The Bottle

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The British Beer & Pub Association (or BBPA), a UK trade association for pubs, launched a new website recently called the Beer Genie. It’s aimed at bringing the “magic of beer” to consumers. The site is “themed around beer’s power of sociability” and certainly seems to have a lot of decent information. It’s also got quite a number of sections, including Beer & BBQ’s, World Cup Beers, the History of Beer, beer & Women, Beer Facts, Knowledge and Links, Beer & Christmas, Beer & Entertaining, Beer & Weddings and a Gallery. It certainly seems like a better effort than Here’s To Beer, A-B’s failed attempt to do something similar a few years ago. At least this has the support of more than one big brewery.

Beer In Ads #106: Budweiser, Age Old Partner With Fine Food

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Tuesday’s ad is for Budweiser from the 1950s. The ad is positioning Budweiser as a food friendly beer. The dish in the center reads. “Age Old Partners — Fine Beer and Fine Food.” All the other dishes depict some of the foods they believe Bud will pair well with: pheasant, turkey, duck, beef, lobster, deer and fish. Having been to several beer dinners put on by Anheuser-Busch, I can’t say that Bud is a versatile as they suggest, and is frankly overwhelmed by most of those dishes. But it’s interesting to see them try to position it as an all-purpose food beer.

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Oklahoma Governor Signs Homebrewing Bill

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Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry signed HB 2348, which means homebrewers can legally brew starting November 1, 2010. “Oklahoma law already allowed for the home production of wine and cider, but until now excluded beer.” 48 down, 2 to go. Just Alabama and Mississippi continue to have homebrewing illegal in their state. See the full story at the American Homebrewers Association.

Smokin’ Aces Drink Bell’s Oberon

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We were watching Smokin’ Aces 2: Assassins’ Ball last night — quick review: mildly entertaining action adventure with cartoon violence and not much of a plot. Most of the best bits were in the trailer.

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Anyway, a good portion of the film takes place in a bar. One of the beers served is Bell’s Oberon. There’s a prominent tap handle of it on the bar, where one scene takes place. When the frame part of the scene at one point, the Bell’s logo along with the Oberon label can be seen in the foreground on the left-hand side of the frame. And at several more points, either the Bell’s or Oberon graphics can be seen. I don’t know if Larry Bell paid for product placement or if someone who made the film was a big fan. Either way, that was fun to see.

bells-oberon

Session Beers For The Next Session

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Our big 40th Session will be hosted by Erik Lars Myers from Top Fermented. He’s chosen a topic near and dear to Lew Bryson’s heart — as wll as many other beer lovers — session beers, which he describes as follows.

There are a thousand ways to approach this.

What is your definition of a session beer? Is it, as Dr. Lewis suggested at the Craft Brewers Conference this year, “a pint of British wallop” or is your idea of a session beer a crisp Eastern European lager, a light smoky porter, a dry witbier, or even a dry Flemish sour?

Is it merely enough for a beer to be low alcohol to be considered a session beer, or is there some other ineffable quality that a beer must hold in order to merit the term? And if so, what is that quality? Is it “drinkability”? Or something else?

What about the place of session beer in the craft beer industry? Does session beer risk being washed away in the deluge of extreme beers, special releases, and country-wide collaborations? Or is it the future of the industry, the inevitable palate-saving backlash against a shelf full of Imperial Imperials?

What are some of your favorite session beers? When and where do you drink them? If you’d like, drink one and review it.

So join us for the next Session, all about sessions, on Friday, June 4.