I took Marie to the new brewpub for her birthday last night. I paid $25 and enrolled her in the brewpub's mug club: your own private mug that holds over 20 ounces of beer, first beer free, and every beer for the rest of her life will only cost the price of 16 ounces. If we visit once a month for a year and she drinks two beers every time she's there, we'll be making money off this deal (reminds me of Steve Martin telling audience members who had paid $4 to get into the show: "It could be a good investment. I might do a six-dollar show. You could make a little bread off this deal"--rough quote).
After dinner, I took her to see Semi-Pro. I can't recommend it. It's filthy (though no nudity) and slightly sacrilegious, but those things didn't bother me as much as the boring factor. The thing flat out dragged at times (I was sitting there about halfway through thinking, "Am I getting bored here? Dang it, I am bored"). There were some killer scenes that made the trip somewhat worthwhile, but overall, I give it a "5."
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Finally, modern art I can appreciate: Beer tap handles. Excerpt:
Compelling handles sell more beer, he says. When his company crafted an orca-shaped tap handle for Alaskan Brewing's Summer Pale Ale, he says the beer exceeded sales projections. "The name of the beer was so small it was unreadable," Fichter says. "People just asked for 'the whale beer.' "
Elliott Ryan, bar manager at Latona Pub near Green Lake, says he's seen height increasingly wielded as a weapon in the tap handle wars. Whereas the typical tap handle averages six or seven inches, he says, some are now twice as high.
Trumer Brauerei's Trumer Pils, for instance, has a silver-rod handle crowned with a medallion, while Port Townsend's Water Street Brewing Co. is another alpha dog whose especially lengthy handle is made of handblown glass.
"It gets their beer in someone's mind before another beer," Ryan says.
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There's hope for America yet: Budweiser Losing Distribution in Supermarkets.
Grocery shelf space is a key indicator of how a beer is performing. In this instance, the indicator appears to be accurate: "And it comes as Bud is posting one of the biggest velocity declines in the business. According to Nielsen, case sales are down 8.1 percent per total distribution points ”“ a proxy Nielsen uses to measure breadth of distribution."
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New beer in memory of Frank Zappa. I think I'll buy a six pack for my mothers.
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Make your own flavored vodka.
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Production at the 133-year-old Glenglassaugh distillery in Scotland will restart for the first time since 1986. The distillery was a "contributor to" (whatever that means) to Famous Grouse, Laing's and Cutty Sark blends.
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The NYT this morning has a neat story about one man's creation: The Beer Can House.
From 1968 until his death 20 years later, Mr. Milkovisch, an upholsterer for the Southern Pacific Railroad, not only emptied 50,000 cans or more of his favorite beverage but also put the containers to good use, cladding his house and workshop with thousands of maintenance-free flattened beer cans (Falstaff was a favorite) and shading the sun with garlands of tinkling beer can tops and tabs.
