The Deets

A guy who works for a company that makes custom labels - including beer labels, thought I’d find the above beer map of the United States interesting.

Yes I do.

Although it’s a shame they chose Coors Light to represent Colorado. And what’s up with Arkansas?

We’re not sure if our current chandelier ties our dining room together.

I’m going to throw this out as a suggestion:

This is sold by Tabby, Inc, a Texas style furniture and home furnishings company.

What I like about this is that it’s a kit and you can use your own bottles. So someone could conceivably make a Brew 52 chandelier. Tabby is willing to provide bottles for those who want a Texas feel, although I’d want to run their bottle selection past my Senior Texas Authenticity Expert, Mike N before accepting their selection.

We’re in the brainstorming phase right now so there are no wrong answers. Just throwing stuff up on the white board.

If you’ve ever wondered, “who the heck orders cheap cans of PBR?” that was me earlier this week on a visit to the Longfellow Grill. Why? Perhaps it was a bargain play. I believe it was $2.65 for 16oz, which is very reasonable.

The beauty of this order was the presentation, as you can see above. I wasn’t expecting my can to come in a bag. The waiter was laughing while delivering it, which I think is a good sign. He sure didn’t laugh for Carly or The Other Mike’s more standard orders of a glass of wine or microbrew.

To top things off, I doubled down on the PBR and they brought the bag a second time. That’s how you pound home a good joke about a very drinkable canned beer.

Katherine Kersten went out on a limb in her Sunday column, stating that kids who broke the law by drinking while underage did something wrong. Wow!

But not only did they break the law, some students drank illegally from enormous beer containers. 40 ounce containers to be exact.

For those of you not familiar with 40 ounce bottles, they’re basically bottles that hold 40 ounces of beer. If you’re familiar with the more common 12 oz bottle, imagine that bottle but 3 and 1/3 times larger.

Put another way, an underage lacrosse player could drink just over three normal bottles of beer, or ONE 40 oz beer to achieve the same level of drunkenness.

Apparently, Kersten thinks size matters when it comes to beer bottles. It’s as if 40 oz beer drinking is Eden Prairie’s reefer madness in a bottle. She seems to think that a 40 oz is many many times larger than a typical beer bottle, comparing 40’s to both a “small garbage can” and a “tank.”

If there is one thing I know about high school kids, it’s that they will never take you seriously if you make obviously absurd claims in order to prove your point. For example, telling kids that all drugs are equally dangerous (marijuana, heroin, meth, crack) tells kids that you either don’t know what you’re talking about, or that truly dangerous drugs aren’t that much more dangerous than the weed they’ve tried or watched their friends try.

This is similar to the absurdity of Kersten’s over-reaction to students drinking from large beer bottles. How can she expect kids to take her seriously when they start laughing at her asinine obsession with bottle sizes?

To help Katherine understand the absurdity of her metaphors, I put together this infographic comparing a small garbage can, tank, and 40 oz bottle:

Kersten states that EP students need a class in remedial logic. Takes one to know one, I guess.

Beer & Wine & e.p.t., originally uploaded by edkohler.

Is it just by chance that the Beer & Wine aisle is right next to the pregnancy tests in this Virginia grocery store?

BTW, this is REAL beer - in a grocery store. Not the 3.2 stuff you’ll find in Minnesota groceries.

TwinCitiesBeerPrices.com is reporting via the Chicago Tribune (FIBs) that Wisconsin bar owners are disrespecting beer by failing to clean the lines to their taps on a regular basis:

Industry standards call for the lines to be cleaned at least once every two weeks. While they won’t make you sick, dirty beer lines can spoil beer.

My extensive Wisconsin beer drinking experience leans toward macro brews, so perhaps this is simply a technique used to introduce flavor into MGD and LITE?

It turns out that there is a Beer Fest going on in Winnipeg tonight. Hmmm, what to do, what to do. Decisions decisions.

With this video, the Wall Street Journal officially made Beer Pong uncool in 2 1/2 minutes:

via TwinCitiesBeerPrices.com

The Last Minneapolis Conservative has an interesting idea in the comments on Moe’s blog post about Merlin’s Rest: Set up a Happy Gnome style bar in Longfellow:

Merlin’s Rest on East Lake Street

I think it should go in the old Pizza Pie & I location.

I’m liking it. Walking distance for Aaron and I. Pretty sweet.

I tried ordering a Finnegans Irish Ale at the Longfellow Grill Tuesday night, but was shut down by the waitress. She’d never heard of it before, so I explained that it’s a local beer brewed by a non-profit and bottled by Summit that donates money to local charities. Apparently, she’s a bit of a cynic since she responded by saying something like, “but can’t non-profits pay their employees a lot of money?” which certainly is true, but in no way discounts the work of Finnegans.

Here’s a bit more about the beer:

Just Looking: Luke Francl’s Weblog

Jacquie Berglund is the owner of Finnegans Irish Ale. Jacquie started Finnegans in 2000 with the idea of donating all profits back to the community. The became profitable in 2003 and have raised over $60,000 for a slew of great causes.

They’re also organizing a Summerfest at the Cabooze on June 9th.

Finnegans is available at East Lake Liquor in bottles and on tap at Merlin’s Rest.