This post originally appeared last Father's Day on my previous blog site, www.earlsblogazine.blogspot.com. I live in a place where people make their own beer very regularly. A good number of these home brewers, seemingly, are able to turn it from a hobby to a profession...or at least a money-making pastime. I really like craft beer. I'm fortunate to have so many different, small local breweries so close to my house. There's one around every corner, they're all a little different, and they're all wonderful. But it's 93 degrees outside and I plan on barbecuing in the backyard. You know what I'll be drinking? Not local craft beer. I firmly believe that there is a time and a place for every beer. High school and college was Busch, Natural Light, Keystone. A Cardinals game is the time for a tall, frosty Budweiser. A couple after-work beers with the fellas at TGiF's, Applebee's, or Chachkie's is where 9-to-5ers enjoy their Bud, Miller, and Coors...all Light, of course. Mexican beer while in Mexico, German beer while in Germany, Belgian beer while in Belgium. After a day on the slopes, trail, or river, it's usually best to top the day off with a craft beer of your choice. A dark, bold stout, a crisp pale ale with a little bite, a hoppy IPA with texture. And on a 93 degree Saturday, filled with throwing the baseball around, barbecuing pork, and sitting in lawn chairs, there is clearly one style of beer suited best. Yard beer. Yard beer is what your father drank as he sat in a lawn chair, watching the sprinkler go back and forth, while you crawled around the backyard in your diaper and put sticks and rocks in your mouth. It's what your grandfather drank while your dad crawled around the backyard in his diaper. And it's what us, as fathers, should drink. I invited my friend, Colorado Kevin, over for some barbecue and yard beer. CK has a daughter a couple days older than mine, and is loving fatherhood, as am I. But from time to time, you just need to spend a few hours away from the girls and enjoy a Saturday in the backyard with some old friends. These old friends are named Hamm's, Rainier, Pabst, and Olympia. Colorado Kevin and I put several of each flavor in a cooler and poured a bag of ice over top of them. Yard beer is best enjoyed when freshly pulled from the the depths of an icy cooler. We sampled each one. Several times. We discussed the complexity, the nose and back end flavors, the finish. That last sentence was complete sarcasm. What we did discuss was the lack of change that these beer brands have displayed. The recipes, the logos, the labels. Call them throw-backs, retro beers, or whatever. These four beers have been around for damn near ever. Hamm's was established in 1865. Rainier in 1878. Olympia's the baby at 1896. Then there's old man Pabst, dating back to 1844...the blue ribbon winner. You can bitch about the taste, but you have to appreciate the history and tradition. After drinking beer while sitting, drinking beer while playing catch, and drinking beer while enjoying pulled pork, we constructed our individual lists of beer in order of preference. Colorado Kevin's list was: 1.) Rainier 2.) Pabst Blue Ribbon 3.) Olympia 4.) Hamm's Mine panned out to be: 1.) Olympia 2.) Rainier 3.) Pabst Blue Ribbon 4.) Hamm's What this concludes is that Hamm's is quite awful. Happy Father's Day, guys.
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AuthorI am Earl. Archives
May 2024
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