Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer

The Alutiiq nation names him as neginla eh while the Bella Coola call him boqs. The Chinook people refer to him as skookum while the Cree call him wetiko. The Inuit know him as urayuli, the Lummi nation tell stories about the ts'emekwes, and the Tlingit? Why they thrill their children with whispers of the kushtaka.

Most of us, however, know him by the name given to him by the nations that speak the Halkomelem language, native Americans of British Columbia and northern Washington state.  The name they give him is sasq’ets, a word Anglicized in the 20th Century into the now ubiquitous sasquatch. 

Today, on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer, we’re talking about the beer most associated with the sasquatch, a beer brewed from the same cold glacial waters that slake the thirst of the hairy man himself, that stealer of clams and fish, knocker of wood, and haunter of old logging camps. Today, cool kids, we’re talking about Kokanee beer.

http://www.pickledeggsandcoldbeer.com

Last week we started something we were not prepared to finish.  Our eyes were bigger than our mouths.  This week, well, we finish our meal.

Today, on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer, we're talking about Printshop Beer Company's Something More Than Night Smoked Porter and Alliance Brewing's Mandarina Blonde.

http://www.pickledeggsandcoldbeer.com

Last week we started something we were not prepared to finish.  Our eyes were bigger than our mouths.  This week, well, we finish our meal.

 

Today, on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer, we're talking about Printshop Beer Company's Something More Than Night Smoked Porter and Alliance Brewing's Mandarina Blonde.

 

http://www.pickledeggsandcoldbeer.com

In 1982 something happened in Knoxville, Tennessee that shocked the world – dare I say it, it probably shocked Knoxville itself.  Knoxville became home to the World’s Fair.By all accounts the event was a great success – today artifactual vestiges are scattered throughout the leafy hills of old East Tennessee – beer steins, pennants, shot glasses, and t-shirts abound at antique stores, the roads are dotted with signs that show distance in kilometers as well as miles, and of course the gleaming emblem of the fair, the glorious, golden Sunsphere stands as a majestic colossus, visible from anywhere in downtown Knoxville, including the nosebleed seats of the University of Tennessee’s old Neyland Stadium.What many people don’t know, but absolutely should, is that a the story of the World’s Fair is tied intimately to a beer, a beer that was available for less than a year, a beer that even in its short tenure was sold with nine different can designs, making it an instant collectible, a triumph of marketing.Alas, from all reports, the original version of World’s Fair Beer was - - - not good.  We can’t attest for that, given that your hosts were barely in elementary school when it was produced, but when we heard it was being reformulated and rereleased, this time as a 35 IBU pale ale, well, we just had to try it.Today, on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer, we’re talking about World’s Fair Beer.

In 1982 something happened in Knoxville, Tennessee that shocked the world – dare I say it, it probably shocked Knoxville itself.  Knoxville became home to the World’s Fair.

By all accounts the event was a great success – today artifactual vestiges are scattered throughout the leafy hills of old East Tennessee – beer steins, pennants, shot glasses, and t-shirts abound at antique stores, the roads are dotted with signs that show distance in kilometers as well as miles, and of course the gleaming emblem of the fair, the glorious, golden Sunsphere stands as a majestic colossus, visible from anywhere in downtown Knoxville, including the nosebleed seats of the University of Tennessee’s old Neyland Stadium.

What many people don’t know, but absolutely should, is that a the story of the World’s Fair is tied intimately to a beer, a beer that was available for less than a year, a beer that even in its short tenure was sold with nine different can designs, making it an instant collectible, a triumph of marketing.

Alas, from all reports, the original version of World’s Fair Beer was - - - not good.  We can’t attest for that, given that your hosts were barely in elementary school when it was produced, but when we heard it was being reformulated and rereleased, this time as a 35 IBU pale ale, well, we just had to try it.

Today, on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer, we’re talking about World’s Fair Beer.

http://www.pickledeggsandcoldbeer.com

Today is a little different than usual.  We are combining a tele-review sent in from England via the mysterious INTERNETS from the elegant Nathan Fortner of a beer we look forward to trying ourselves, Budweiser Budvar, with a totally unplanned special review of the WORST BEER WE HAVE EVER HAD, Simpler Times Lager - this generic, Trader Joe's horror that will give us far more nightmares than vampires or zombies.  Hold onto your butts kids, this is a weird one.

Today, on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer, we're talking about Budweiser Budvar and Simpler Times Lager. 

http://www.pickledeggsandcoldbeer.com

Today is a little different than usual.  We are combining a tele-review sent in from England via the mysterious INTERNETS from the elegant Nathan Fortner of a beer we look forward to trying ourselves, Budweiser Budvar, with a totally unplanned special review of the WORST BEER WE HAVE EVER HAD, Simpler Times Lager - this generic, Trader Joe's horror that will give us far more nightmares than vampires or zombies.  Hold onto your butts kids, this is a weird one.Today, on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer, we're talking about Budweiser Budvar and Simpler Times Lager. 

http://www.pickledeggsandcoldbeer.com

Chef, writer, and food librarian Sara Bir wrote something beautiful about today’s beer, and I’d like to start things off with a quote from it:

Hamm’s tastes like freedom. Freedom to get a good buzz after work on a Tuesday evening when daylight lasted until 9-ish. Freedom to be constantly broke-all but still buy decent brie. Freedom to squander time on hopeless crushes and aimless solo hikes. I may not scale mountains or go to rock shows that conclude at 2 a.m., but I can still dig on an ideal, and when I want to indulge in a can of shitty summertime beer, Hamm’s delivers every time.

That’s right folks, today we’re reviewing a beer from Minnesota, a beer that has some of the most legendary breweriana and advertising associated with it of any quaff, a beer that as famous for its mascot as its actual product, and a beer that until recently no one I knew had ever tried.

Today, on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer, we’re talking about Hamm’s.

http://www.pickledeggsandcoldbeer.com

Chef, writer, and food librarian Sara Bir wrote something beautiful about today’s beer, and I’d like to start things off with a quote from it:

Hamm’s tastes like freedom. Freedom to get a good buzz after work on a Tuesday evening when daylight lasted until 9-ish. Freedom to be constantly broke-all but still buy decent brie. Freedom to squander time on hopeless crushes and aimless solo hikes. I may not scale mountains or go to rock shows that conclude at 2 a.m., but I can still dig on an ideal, and when I want to indulge in a can of shitty summertime beer, Hamm’s delivers every time.

That’s right folks, today we’re reviewing a beer from Minnesota, a beer that has some of the most legendary breweriana and advertising associated with it of any quaff, a beer that as famous for its mascot as its actual product, and a beer that until recently no one I knew had ever tried

Today, on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer, we’retalking about Hamm’s.

William and Ralph were Irish-American brothers who immigrated from New York to Melbourne, Australia in 1886.  Three years later they were producing their first beers for local consumption, and three years after that their brew became the first Australian beer export, sent to South Africa to bolster the spirits of the young men fighting in the Boer Wars.  Shortly thereafter their brewery consolidated with Carlton & United Breweries who continued producing the brothers’ beer exclusively for sale in bottles, the only way it would be available until 1958 when it was first sold in cans.  For most of that time today’s beer was the flagship beverage in the CUB line, until the early 1970s when it began to be exported to Britain and the United States.  Through the 1980s CUB shifted the brand’s marketing and sales focus overseas, till by the 21st century it was almost impossible to find in Australia, but had become the second most popular beer in the United Kingdom.  This growth was in no small part possible because of the craze for all things Australian in North America and Europe during the 1980s and 1990s, a craze fed by the Crocodile Dundee series of films, by Quigley Down Under, by the Mad Max films, Cheech Marin’s masterpiece Shrimp on the Barbie, and my personal favorite product of Australia, Yahoo Serious’ masterpiece Young Einstein.

 

Today’s beer, however, finds itself in legal trouble over one little thing.  Despite advertising itself as “Australian for beer,” only a small proportion of its output is actually brewed in the great Southern Continent and even less of it is consumed there.   In Britain, its largest market, it is actually brewed in Manchester, while in the United States the quaff bubbles out of Fort Worth, Texas or Albany, Georgia, or in some northern climes, is imported from Canada – hell, it is also produced in China, France, Japan, Portugal, India, Ireland, Sweden, Vietnam and, yes, Australia.

Now part of Anheuser-Busch InBev, a symbol of Australia barely consumed by Australians, today’s beer is one of the best symbols of globalization’s impact on the beer market, multinationalism in an oil can.

That’s right, today on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer we’re talking about Foster’s Lager.

http://www.pickledeggsandcoldbeer.com

FYI - Guys, this is a saucy one - normally we aim for about a PG-13 rating, but this one has a little more language than usual, some references to sex, and around 45 repetitions of the enternal punchline "that's what she said."   Bear that in mind before listening to this one around whippersnappers or folks who are a bit more sensitive about potty language and naughty thoughts.  

Cheers!