I must say that the "fun playing outside with the dog" photo doesn't do a very good job of summing up Kriston's actual reaction to the snowfall which involved, I believe, a great deal of mumbling about "the apocalypse" and many suggestions that we should cancel our party because no one would be able to make it to our house (a whole half block from the Metro stop) through the snow. In the end, we wound up with some kind of dinky demi-keg that, naturally enough, ran out shamefully early and had to be supplemented with economically inefficient purchases of cans of Budweiser.
Y'know, this reminds me of the old line (I think from Amy Alkon) of why the person who asks should pay for the date--"If you threw a party, would you expect the guests to bring beer?" In my circle of vaguely grad school people in Pittsburgh, it was pretty usual to bring a six-pack to a party. Helped alleviate glut/shortage issues. Also hosts with horrible taste.
Not that I think this has any relevance to who should pay for dates.
Based purely on my observation, I think Bud might not be as heartland as you think. Miller Genuine Draft seems to be the favorite among the NASCAR set. I heard somewhere that it's called "Draft" because it's not beer, it's malt liquor: water, ethanol, surfactants, colorants, etc. . . tastes like ass anyway.
I've found bringing beer a funny tradition here in the (deep) midwest. Even - maybe especially - when we have one family or one guy over to join us for dinner, the man almost always shows up with a mini cooler of beer for himself. It's not usually great beer, so it just seems like a self-sufficiency thing... you feed me, but I'll take care of myself for beer.
I'll date myself with this, but my attachment to bud grows partly out of my 20's when every slumming yuppy drank rolling rock, which I think is worse than ass. Bud is a good light lager. When I lived in London it was reasonably popular among the lager louts (ok that's not really in its favor, is it), and I had a german friend in high school who liked it because it was very drinkable and light (as in, easy to drink a lot of) compared to german beers.
Bud is nominally a pilsner, but pilsners are a subclass of lagers, so anyway it's both.
A general rule regarding imports: the exporting country is sending you their swill. In Europe, Heineken is a squarely middle-of-the-road beer, nothing special at all, even a little low-class, but in America (at least for a while there, maybe still) it's considered classy and European.
The same with Canadian and Mexican and Australlian imports. Most Australlians will tell you that Foster's is lowest-common-denominator stuff, certainly nothing they take pride in. And while the Corona brewery actually makes some nice beers, particularly their Christmas stuff, most of it is only available in Mexico, and the yellow pisswater they export is, well, pisswater.
I didn't realize this till I went to live in London, where the same "foreign import = classy" thing held. At least at the time, American vice products, particularly Marlboro cigarettes and Budweiser beer, were very trendy, and even in pubs with a good selection of local cask-conditioned ales, all my Brit friends would order bottles of Bud. They considered it several steps above the plebian Heineken. I of course was all over the Fuller's ESB and such.
On a related note, everyone I knew there was also into instant coffee, I was the only one drinking tea.
Oh yeah, well who wants to be in your stupid boys club anyway?
Posted by susan | Link to this comment | 01-25-05 4:05 PM
NotU, I guess.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-25-05 4:06 PM
Oh, snap!
Posted by susan | Link to this comment | 01-25-05 4:13 PM
Draft Sue!
Posted by Lindsay Beyerstein | Link to this comment | 01-25-05 6:21 PM
I must say that the "fun playing outside with the dog" photo doesn't do a very good job of summing up Kriston's actual reaction to the snowfall which involved, I believe, a great deal of mumbling about "the apocalypse" and many suggestions that we should cancel our party because no one would be able to make it to our house (a whole half block from the Metro stop) through the snow. In the end, we wound up with some kind of dinky demi-keg that, naturally enough, ran out shamefully early and had to be supplemented with economically inefficient purchases of cans of Budweiser.
Posted by Matthew Yglesias | Link to this comment | 01-25-05 11:26 PM
Had it not stopped snowing that night, I wouldn't have made it from my bedroom to the dinky demi-keg.
Posted by Kriston | Link to this comment | 01-26-05 6:57 AM
Tease!
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 01-26-05 8:05 AM
You made your guests drink Budweiser?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-26-05 8:53 AM
Hey, I like bud.
Posted by cw | Link to this comment | 01-26-05 11:24 AM
cw, you can come to our next party. Ogged's staying home.
Posted by Kriston | Link to this comment | 01-26-05 11:40 AM
Y'know, this reminds me of the old line (I think from Amy Alkon) of why the person who asks should pay for the date--"If you threw a party, would you expect the guests to bring beer?" In my circle of vaguely grad school people in Pittsburgh, it was pretty usual to bring a six-pack to a party. Helped alleviate glut/shortage issues. Also hosts with horrible taste.
Not that I think this has any relevance to who should pay for dates.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 01-26-05 12:35 PM
Northeast Harvard Liberals drink budweiser! We in the red states are shocked, shocked!
I detest the stuff, myself.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 01-26-05 1:40 PM
Based purely on my observation, I think Bud might not be as heartland as you think. Miller Genuine Draft seems to be the favorite among the NASCAR set. I heard somewhere that it's called "Draft" because it's not beer, it's malt liquor: water, ethanol, surfactants, colorants, etc. . . tastes like ass anyway.
Posted by Brian | Link to this comment | 01-26-05 8:00 PM
I've found bringing beer a funny tradition here in the (deep) midwest. Even - maybe especially - when we have one family or one guy over to join us for dinner, the man almost always shows up with a mini cooler of beer for himself. It's not usually great beer, so it just seems like a self-sufficiency thing... you feed me, but I'll take care of myself for beer.
I'll date myself with this, but my attachment to bud grows partly out of my 20's when every slumming yuppy drank rolling rock, which I think is worse than ass. Bud is a good light lager. When I lived in London it was reasonably popular among the lager louts (ok that's not really in its favor, is it), and I had a german friend in high school who liked it because it was very drinkable and light (as in, easy to drink a lot of) compared to german beers.
Posted by cw | Link to this comment | 01-27-05 7:38 AM
Bud is a pilsner, not a lager, no?
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 01-27-05 4:34 PM
d'upsy.
Posted by cw | Link to this comment | 01-27-05 7:50 PM
Bud is nominally a pilsner, but pilsners are a subclass of lagers, so anyway it's both.
A general rule regarding imports: the exporting country is sending you their swill. In Europe, Heineken is a squarely middle-of-the-road beer, nothing special at all, even a little low-class, but in America (at least for a while there, maybe still) it's considered classy and European.
The same with Canadian and Mexican and Australlian imports. Most Australlians will tell you that Foster's is lowest-common-denominator stuff, certainly nothing they take pride in. And while the Corona brewery actually makes some nice beers, particularly their Christmas stuff, most of it is only available in Mexico, and the yellow pisswater they export is, well, pisswater.
I didn't realize this till I went to live in London, where the same "foreign import = classy" thing held. At least at the time, American vice products, particularly Marlboro cigarettes and Budweiser beer, were very trendy, and even in pubs with a good selection of local cask-conditioned ales, all my Brit friends would order bottles of Bud. They considered it several steps above the plebian Heineken. I of course was all over the Fuller's ESB and such.
On a related note, everyone I knew there was also into instant coffee, I was the only one drinking tea.
Posted by Mitch Mills | Link to this comment | 01-28-05 12:44 AM
Where does Bass Ale fall on the British spectrum?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-28-05 5:35 AM
I'm glad that this conversation is still called "so many ovaries."
Posted by Kriston | Link to this comment | 01-28-05 6:27 AM
On a related note, everyone I knew there was also into instant coffee, I was the only one drinking tea.
A lot of the russians I knew were into instant coffee, too, since it was completely unavailable in Russia.
Posted by cw | Link to this comment | 01-28-05 6:30 AM
If I remember correctly, Bass Ale was pretty middle-of-the-road, maybe a step or two above. But I could be wrong about that.
Posted by Mitch Mills | Link to this comment | 01-28-05 9:00 AM