I first wrote about Stampede Light almost two-and-a-half years ago in February 2006. It’s a contract beer out of Dallas, Texas, and is billed as the first “vitamin” beer. Joe Owades, the inventor of low-calorie light beer, helped founder Lawrence Schwartz develop the recipe. I tend to think beer is essentially healthy enough and am not a big fan of “enhanced” beers generally.

Stampede Brewing has just launched an ad campaign with the tagline “Drink Smart” featuring actress/singer Jessica Simpson.

From the press release:

Multi-platinum singer. Movie star. Philanthropist. Entrepreneur. Beer drinker?

Everyone knows about Jessica Simpson’s daisy dukes body and healthy lifestyle. The all-American beauty and world-renowned entertainer has a passion for working out and making healthy food choices. But she also makes those smart choices with the beer she drinks. “Yes, I work out and take care of myself, but I also like a cold beer once in a while,” Simpson said. A new light beer with functional additives is Simpson’s new favorite beer — Stampede Light Plus®

Now it’s probably not fair. I obviously don’t know Jessica Simpson personally. I haven’t really followed her career, though from what I’ve seen of her public persona she doesn’t seem particularly quick-witted. But perhaps privately she’s quite sharp. Oh, and according to the New York Daily News, she also owns 15% of Stampede Brewing. Here’s the first “Drink Smart” ad for Stampede Light.

Again, I’m trying really hard not to sound like a jerk, but there seems to be a disconnect between the image and the text. This is just not the face of smart drinking. It looks more to me like she’s confused or about to sneeze. What do you think her expression conveys?

A long forgotten profession, the ale-conner (or ale-taster), was an important and upstanding member of society from at least the 1100s. Their job was to insure that all breweries were making quality beer. The position, in fact, persisted until the early part of the 20th century, when it became entirely ceremonial.

The Wikipedia entry:

An ale-Conner (sometimes aleconner) was an officer appointed yearly at the court-leet of ancient English communities to ensure the goodness and wholesomeness of bread, ale, and beer. There were many different names for this position which varied from place to place: “ale-tasters,” gustatores cervisiae, “ale-founders,” and “ale-conners”. Ale-Conners were also often trusted to ensure that the beer was sold at a fair price. Historically, four ale-Conners were chosen annually by the common-hall of the city.

Ale-Conners were sworn “to examine and assay the beer and ale, and to take care that they were good and wholesome, and sold at proper prices according to the assize; and also to present all defaults of brewers to the next court-leet.”

The tradition was maintained in London into the 20th century. The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica reports:

In London, four ale-conners, whose duty it is to examine the measures used by beer and liquor sellers to guard against fraud, are still chosen annually by the liverymen in common hall assembled on Midsummer Day. Since ale and beer have become excisable commodities the custom of appointing ale-tasters has in most places fallen into disuse.

The title was also used of officers chosen by the liverymen in London to inspect the measures used in the public houses. The title is a sinecure.

And from the 1828 Webster’s Dictionary:

A’LE-CONNER, n. [ale and con, to know or see.]
An officer in London, whose business is to inspect the measures used in public houses, to prevent frauds in selling liquors. four of these are chosen annually by the livery men, in common hall, on midsummer’s day.

Curiously, an odd notion crept into the lore of the profession about how they actually accomplished their job. According to the wonderful Martyn Cornell at his Zythophile blog, it all began in a 1911 publication entitled Frederick Hackwood’s Inns, Ales and Drinking Customs of Old England. In only this book “but not, significantly, in any of the major 19th century books on beer,” the author says “that an unnamed ‘authority’ said the ‘official ale tester’, in his leather breeches, would ‘enter an inn unexpectedly, draw a glass of ale, pour it on a wooden bench, and then sit down in the little puddle he had made.’ After half an hour he would attempt to rise, and if his breeches had stuck to the bench the ale had too much sugar in it, and was thus impure, Hackwood claimed.

Yup, you read that correctly, he wrote that the ale-conner poured the beer on his chair and sat on it to determine if it was a good ale. This strange tale was repeated in other countries and persists even today in London, where ceremonial ale-conners continue as a City tradition, where they continue the story.

“First I taste the ales. Then a pint of ale is poured on a wooden bench and I have to sit down on it in the leather breeches that we wear especially for the occasion. After one minute I stand up. If ale does not stick to the breeches, it is not the right consistency. Afterwards I announce: ‘I proclaim this ale good quality. God save the Queen.’ And everyone proceeds to get merry. No pub has failed the test yet.”

Humorously, someone named Greg used Lego blocks to illustrate how this would work:
 

How To Be An Ale Conner

Are you fed up with cleaning up other people’s mess? Want a job that’s a bit less smelly? (and a bit more sticky!) Do you like drinking beer and wearing leather trousers? Then you should become an ale conner! These vignettes will teach you the basics…

1) Find a place that serves ale

2) Buy a pint of ale to test

3) Pour half the beer onto a wooden stool

4) Sit on the stool (and drink the rest of the ale!)

5) After 30 minutes stand up – if your leather trousers stick to the seat then the ale contains too much unfermented sugar. Fine the brewer (and confiscate the ale!)

Not surprisingly, testing beer by sitting on it all hogwash. I’m more amazed that anyone ever believed it. Cornell skewers this notion in his typical blazing fashion in Myth 3: Medieval ale-conners wore leather breeches and tested ale by pouring some on a wooden bench and then sitting in it and seeing if they stuck to the bench. Cornell expresses his own surprise over actually trying it far more wittily than I could. “Clearly your friends would think you were a couple of gallons short of the full firkin if you deliberately plonked yourself in a puddle of beer, ruining your trousers and the furniture at the same time, and I doubt the pub would be overwhelmed at your soaking its seats with liquid.”

Despite having never been true at all, the myth of the ale-conner “escaped into the wild,” and continues to be repeated endlessly. But it certainly makes for some hilarious Lego fun.

If you enjoy travel, you’ve likely heard of Rick Steves’ Europe travel series. His travel videos appear on most PBS stations. In today’s Seattle Times, Steves has a column extolling the virtues of Belgian Beer entitled Beer makes Belgium blossom. Nice to see a celebration of Belgian beer from so mainstream a source (and thanks to Doug for sending me the link).

The Los Angeles Times reported recently on a study by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University. It’s the 13th year of the National Survey of American Attitudes on Substance Abuse. For the first time, teens remarked that prescription drugs were easier to obtain than beer, putting quite a hole in the neo-prohibitionist position that beer is easy for kids to get their hands on.

And as for their preference, a majority of teens said they preferred to drink “liquor mixed with cola or something sweet.” Only 16% liked beer, meaning it’s not quite the problem the neo-prohibitionists would have us believe, targeting beer far more often than liquor or wine. And if you polled them farther, I’m willing to bet a healthy percentage of that 16% prefer the sweet, low-hopped industrial light lagers that make up the majority of macro beers manufactured by the large beer companies, meaning that craft beer is hardly part of the problem.

That’s all assuming you accept the study’s methodology, which I find pretty difficult to swallow, especially when they use it to declare their most inflammatory assumption: that parents are to blame for teenage drinking by not setting a good enough example or by letting them out of their sight unsupervised. This is based on surveying 1,004 teenagers and only 312 of their parents, finding that almost half of teenagers surveyed go out in the evening to hang out with their friends. Parents said the number was more like 14%. That’s the big controversy, that those numbers don’t agree and therefore someone must be lying. Amazingly, it’s the parents who are singled out as the ones presumed to be lying, or at least clueless, yet in the 73-page report I can’t find any evidence why they chose to believe the teenagers and not their parents, except of course that it may be more in line with their agenda. But nevertheless, CASA arrogantly asserts:

“Every mother and father should look in the mirror and ask themselves if they are doing the parenting essential to help their child negotiate the difficult teen years free of tobacco, alcohol and drugs,” said Elizabeth Planet, CASA’s director of special projects.

CASA does single out what the call “Problem Parents” as being the ones who make it more likely their children will abuse alcohol and/or drugs. I assumed they meant parents who themselves had alcohol or drug problems, who effectively passed their own bad behavior on to their kids. I was wrong. To CASA, a problem parent is one who fails to do all of the following:

1. Monitor their children’s leaving their home and hanging out on school nights (Monday through Thursday).
2. Safeguard their dangerous and addictive prescription drugs, like painkillers and stimulants, from their children.
3. Address the problem of drugs in their children’s school.
4. Set good examples.

Two and four seem obvious, of course, but one and three seem like complete bullshit to me. Talk to almost any teacher these days and if they’re honest with you, they’ll tell you parents have become meddlesome and intrusive problems themselves, wanting special treatment for their kid and inserting themselves into every aspect of their kids’ education. This makes it harder for teachers to actually teach, making necessary discipline nearly impossible and independence on the part of their kids almost unachievable. Now CASA says they’re not doing enough to address the school’s supposed drug problem. Puh-leeze. Let the schools alone and maybe they’ll have the time to do their jobs.

But by far, the constant monitoring that they propose parents need to be doing, is what drives children to drink. Okay, they’d probably drink anyway, but it’s not helping. We’ve become a nation of overprotective paranoids, assuming every second our children are unobserved is a second he or she is in grave peril. I was far more able to roam on my own as a child. At ages five and six, I was bound to the block we lived on, but that was a pretty wide berth by today’s standards, including the front and backyards of over a dozen homes. I could easily evade my mother’s gaze had she even bothered to keep it on me. At seven, the alley and the block across the street opened up to me and by ten anywhere in the neighborhood — several acres at least — were my playground. That seems almost fantastic compared to today’s tethered society, where it’s not uncommon to find kids on an actual leash.

I read in article a couple of days ago about how Summer Camps are starting to institute “no cell phone policies,” not because the kids couldn’t do without them, but because parents couldn’t let go even for a week or two at camp. The article went on to quote several psychologists saying that what a terrible disservice we were doing to this generation by not allowing them to learn how to deal with adversity or grow to be independent persons who can take care of themselves. Yet this aberrant behavior of coddling children is exactly the kind of behavior that CASA is insisting we must do in order to keep our kids off of drugs and alcohol. As Joseph A. Califano, Jr., CASA’s chairman and president and former U.S. Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, states CASA’s position. “It is inexcusable that so many parents fail to appropriately monitor their children, fail to keep dangerous prescription drugs out of the reach of their children and tolerate drug infected schools.” By “appropriately monitor” it seems like he essentially means operate the family like a police state. I have but two words for Califano and Planet: fuck and you.

When I was a teenager, I went out most school nights, hanging out with my friends. And yes, sometimes those evenings involved alcohol, though in my case never drugs due to a deal I struck with my mother. But was that the horror CASA, the neo-prohibitionists and other anti-alcohol factions believe? I and virtually all of my friends did no lasting damage to our lives and learned through trial and error how to be independent adults. If we were under constant surveillance would be as self-reliant today? I doubt it. We had to learn how to fail in order to succeed. Why should we do any less for our own children? Is it possible that by letting my children out of my sight they might do something they shouldn’t? Up to a point, I certainly hope so, otherwise they might never grow into self-sufficient adults. Remember that old sappy saying that if you love something you have to set it free? I believe that to be just as true for raising children. At some point, you have to let them spread their wings and get a taste of being outside the nest.

I want to be clear before the next barrage of threatening e-mails and comments comes screaming in that I’m not advocating that we should openly encourage bad or dangerous behavior or even turn a blind eye to it if we’re aware of it. But kids need an environment where they can be by themselves in order to grow up. It can never happen under the constant parental scrutiny that certain elements of our society today seem to demand. In a perfect world, I’d be able to model responsible drinking in my home with my kids as participants and observers, but our world, sadly, is far from perfect. Too many self-righteous moralists stand ready to swoop in and separate me from my children should I have the temerity to raise them in a way with which they disagree. So I’m forced to follow someone else’s moral code as groups like CASA continue to fabricate the reasons why I can’t be trusted to follow my own conscience.

Sorry kids, you’re stuck at home every night so I can monitor your behavior until you turn 21, or until you go to college and learn to binge drink owing to my not being allowed to teach you responsible drinking while you were stuck at home. But don’t worry, however it turns out, it’s all my fault.

Yesterday, hundreds of Teamsters marched in downtown St. Louis, concerned that InBev might renege on their promises to not close the twelve Anheuser-Busch Breweries throughout the country. InBev employees were also there, presumably to mitigate the Teamsters’ worries. In fact, Union leaders representing InBev employees worldwide including Europe, Latin America and Canada announced an agreement to form a global alliance of InBev workers through the International Union of Food Workers. But with negotiations soon to be conducted between the Teamsters and InBev — not to mention InBev’s history of treating its acquisitions — clearly there was a reason the Teamsters Brewery and Soft Drink Workers Conference, a subgroup of the Teamsters, organized the rally despite InBev’s continued assurances. I’ve personally spoken to several A-B employees, past and present, at various levels throughout the company, and the mood is cautious and most are more than a little worried about their individual futures. At the brewery level, there’s a little more sense of security, I’m told, because obviously InBev will continue to make beer. But the administrative positions, sales and marketing, desk jobs, etc., all have people running scared. I know plenty of people who were in similar positions with beer companies bought by InBev who now work elsewhere because they were made redundant shortly after InBev’s takeover. It’s hard to take InBev’s word on their promises to A-B given their very clear history of doing just the opposite.

The very next day, today, the St. Louis Business Journal is reporting that August A. Busch IV will receive $17 million in compensation over the next five years to advise InBev president Carlos Brito on “new products, marketing programs and charities, and to meet with retailers, wholesalers and advertisers and attend media events”. He’ll be paid a lump sum of almost $10.4 million and then $120,000 per month until 2013. But that’s not all. He’ll also get “an office in St. Louis, administrative support, a personal security detail, complimentary tickets to A-B-sponsored events and insured medical, dental, vision and prescription drug benefits.” Although he is prohibited from bashing InBev pursuant to a mutual non-disparagement covenant, but I imagine all that cash will allow to get over that. That’s over and above what he’ll make from the stock he owns. His father, August A. Busch III, stands to make $103.6 million.

It’s certainly not for me to say he doesn’t deserve this windfall. I’m sure his institutional memory has some value, but the juxtaposition of this enormous sum being revealed as the regular A-B employees who made that windfall possible fight for their very livelihoods, their futures and their retirement puts into stark relief the basic unfairness of our corporate system. Because this is not an unusual occurrence at all. In fact, it’s all too common when this type of merger, takeover, or whatever you want to call it takes place. The executives at the top, even if they horribly mismanaged the company and/or even caused the takeover, never suffer and in fact are almost uniformly rewarded with cash sums the average employee can only dream of. So as employees throughout Anheuser-Busch continue to lose sleep over their future, the Busch family and the rest of the top level executives are no doubt sleeping like babies, without a care in the world. It’s no longer up them whether the people that made them rich have a future or if InBev will ultimately keep the promises that helped seal their fate.

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.