If this hilarious video for the annual The Repeal of Prohibition Beer Festival doesn’t make you want to attend, I don’t know what else would. The festival will be held at Schlafly Bottleworks in St. Louis, Missouri on Saturday, April 14th, 2012 from noon until 5:00 p.m.
I found this odd little gadget while searching for an image this morning. It’s a Football Beer Caddy, apparently “handcrafted from recycled steel.” The 12-inch tall steel sculture is meant to hold your beer, though I can’t for the life of me understand why you’d do that. After pouring your bottle into a glass — you are doing that, right? — why would you need a caddy for the empty bottle?
According to the website, they’re “handcrafted by American and European artisans using recycled steel and copper that is bent, cut, welded and brushed resulting in original works of art for the perfect unique football gift idea or unusual home accent piece. The moment you hold an H & K metal sculpture, you will appreciate its craftsmanship, quality and value.” Maybe, but if you want your own, $81.99 is what you’ll need to plunk down to get one of these football beer caddies for your very own. Crazy.
John Heylin, of the Nor Cal Beer Guide, along with several other BABB members, created a little spoof or homage film for SF Beer Week entitled What’s SF Beer Week Like? Drawing on Reservoir Dogs and the cult status of Russian River’s Pliny the Elder, the minute and a half video might make you cry, especially if you can’t get Pliny in your hometown. But fear not. As is revealed in the end credits; “No Pliny the Elder was harmed in the making of this video.”
Here’s how John describes his film: “How spoiled is the Bay Area when it comes to beer? This spoiled. Come check out SF Beer Week from February 10th-19th and spoil yourself silly.” I spoke to Vinnie Cilurzo at Russian River Brewing today, and he loved the video, thought it hilarious and sent it to all his employees.
Ha, this is funny spoof, especially if you remember the Happy Days spin-off Laverne & Shirley, who worked at the fictional Shotz Brewery, which was located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Mother’s Brewing is not to far away (just a few states and not quite 600 miles) in Springfield, Missouri, and they’ve created their own version of the opening sequence from the television show. Enjoy.
Today’s comic strip Pearls Before Swine, written by former San Francisco attorney Stephan Pastis, took a funny swipe at Anheuser-Busch InBev. [Thanks to Motor for sending me the strip.]
It looks like Santa Claus prefers red ale.
My good friend and colleague, Lisa Morrison — a.k.a. The Beer Goddess — just let me know about her latest project, and just in time for Christmas. She’s created a line of t-shirts, hats, stickers, iPhone cases, and so much more with a humorous nod to the Occupy Wall Street movement to show support for our favorite cause: the good beer movement. In this case, she’s calling it “Occupy Pubs: A Glass Roots Movement.”
You can order all manner of things with the Occupy Pubs logo at her Cafe Press page. The basic t-shirt shown below will run you $19.19, with fancier ones a little more. There are also styles for women, children and infants.
“We are the 5%!”
I got a nice tweet from Gerard Walen of Road Trips For Beer, who’s obviously been paying attention enough to know how much of a Muppets fan I am. He had a chance to see an advance screening of the new Muppet film that opens Thanksgiving and he assures me that Porter and I “will love the movie.” Of that, I have little doubt. I’ve turned my whole family into Muppet fans by showing them all of the television shows and movies since they were little. I’ve been a fan since I was a kid, and have never really stopped loving their bad pun, groaner brand of humor ever since. But after seeing the film, Walen took it a step farther in a post: ‘The Muppets’ Movie Makes Me Wonder: What Beer Would They Drink? He’s come up with some pretty funny, inspired choices for the main characters. Makes me even more thirsty to see the movie later this week.
Surely this has happened to you as often as me. You’re at a picnic or buffet and you’re trying to juggle your beer and fill your plate with food. At such times, you wish you had a third hand. So while searching the other day for another image, I stumbled upon this on a Tumblr blog, but there was no original link or any information about it; just the picture below:
So at first glance, it seems like a good idea. With the plastic tray over the bottle, you’d have one hand free to load up on food. But thinking about it a few seconds longer, and it’s not the panacea it first appears to be.
So I ask. What’s wrong with this picture? Well first of all, you shouldn’t be drinking straight from the bottle, though the plate wouldn’t work with most beer glasses, which taper up rather than down. You might be able to put a pint glass upside down over the top of the bottle, but it doesn’t look like the opening in the plastic tray is wide enough to accommodate it then.
But even assuming you were drinking straight from the bottle — perhaps you’re at a picnic in a park and have no choice — wouldn’t it be easy to forget about the food and take a swig, and in the process dump all the food on the ground? But maybe it’s just useful to load up on the food in the buffet line and carry it a spot where you can sit and eat with your beer. Either way, what looks to be the solution to we’ve all had countless times may not quite solve it after all. What do you think? Boom or bust?
