The Drunken Tailgate

Quality Canned Beers

There are several benefits to opting for canned beers while tailgating. You can fit more of them into a cooler, they are easy to dispose of, and they are more discreet if the situation calls for it. But only so many quality beers are available as cans. Within the last couple of years it’s become more common for liquor stores to stock Mexican beers in cans. But when the temperature dips lower I like a heavier beer. My local liquor store, Tower Package, sent me a newsletter today with a profile of the beers available from Oskar Blues Brewery. Wondering about the cans? Here’s what they say on their website:

In 2002 we became the first US microbrewery to brew and can its own beer. We started hand canning our beer two cans at a time, on a small table-top machine.

Why cans? We thought the idea of our bold, hoppy pale ale squeezed into a little can was hilarious. It made us laugh for weeks.

But then we discovered that the belief that cans impart flavor to beer is a myth. The modern-day aluminum can and its lid are lined with a water-based coating, so the beer and the can never touch. Cans, we discovered, are actually good for beer. Cans keep beer especially fresh by fully protecting it from light and oxygen. Our cans also hold extremely low amounts of dissolved oxygen, so our beer stays especially fresh for longer. Cans are also easier to recycle and less fuel-consuming to ship.

Below is Tower’s guide to four of the canned selections from Oskar Blues:

Dale’s Pale Ale is their flagship beer and America’s first hand-canned craft beer. It’s an assertive but deftly balanced beer brewed with hefty amounts of European malts and American hops. It features a copper color, and a hoppy nose. To complement its hoppy first impression, Dale’s also sports a rich middle of malts and hops, and a bracing finish at 6.5% alcohol by volume.









Mama’s Little Yella Pils is a delicious, small-batch versionMama’s Little Yellow Pilsner of the beer that made Pilsen, Czechoslovakia famous. Mama’s is made with hearty amounts of pale malt, German specialty malts, and traditional (Saaz) and 21st century Bavarian hops. It’s fermented at cool temperatures with a German yeast. While it’s rich with Czeched-out flavor, Mama’s gentle hopping and low ABV (just 5.3%) makes it a luxurious but low-dose beer.


















Old Chub is a Scottish strong ale brewed with hearty amounts of seven different malts, including crystal and chocolate malts, and a smidge of US and UK hops. Old Chub also gets a dash of beechwood-smoked grains imported from Bamburg, Germany, home of the world’s greatest smoked beers. Old Chub is 8% alcohol by volume.


















Gordon is a hybrid version of strong ale, somewhere between an Imperial Red and a Double IPA. Made with six different malts and three types of hops, it’s then dry-hopped with a motherlode of Amarillo hops. It is 8.7% alcohol by volume and features a gooey, resiny aroma and a luscious mouthfeel. The result is an assertive yet exceptionally smooth version of strong beer.

Slow and Painful USC Beer Bong

I’m posting this video for two reasons. And neither one of them are because this guy handles a beer bong like a champ. I’m going to ignore the fact that he deliberates and stalls for so long before starting his ever so slow finishing of bong. I’d like to focus on two different subtleties in the video.

1) Look on the left side of the video and spot the two little kids watching all of this go down. Where are their parents? I guess you got to learn how to chug a beer at some point in life. Might as well start early.

2) Apparently USC fans did not get the memo about men over the age of 12 wearing jerseys to the game. It appears that guys not wearing a jersey are in the minority.

Belt Buckle Bottle Openers with Collegiate Logos

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that belt buckles with bottle openers and college logos are a cool idea in theory only. There are lots of college football fans who wear belt buckles. A large percentage of those belt buckled fans also drink beer. But the chances that those people will have to quote Adam Sandler at some point in the day are around 80%.

Your Spicy Guide to Drinking

All summer EveryDayShouldBeSaturday has been delighting us with their Digital Viking: Guide to Spicy Living. The setup is two people discussing a notable drink, food, explosion video, car, and book, movie, etc. And though I’ve enjoyed all of it (and bought several recommended books) the true gem is Orson Swindle”s inspired writings on drink. It’s lead me to a new favorite liquor drink (Tequila and Tonic) and to try out Rosé in front of disapproving male in-laws. It is superb. I’ve included below what I believe to be the five best of these dipsographical writings in order from merely awesome to happysuperfantasticallymegasweet. If you’re not drunk by the time you get done reading this… well… then we don’t know each other as well as I thought we did.

#5

Fat Tire. Amber beers have the shortest half-life from the tap/awesome to suck/bottle. Abita Amber remains the premiere example of this, as it’s strictly meh from the bottle but guzzleworthy from the tap. When in Baton Rouge, I will drink draft Abita Amber from a gutter filled with decaying nutria, so long as it’s just been poured, and someone promises to feed me fried meat of some sort immediately afterward to kill the resulting bacterial infections and general -itis.

Fat Tire is here somewhere in Atlanta, and by Cthulhu it will be mine tonight. I’m going to drink three of them, play Team Fortress Two, and pass out like a gangsta in a wrinkled t-shirt at 9:30. Oh, beer snob? There are better Belgian beers? Really? I’m fascinated by your opinion, and would love to hear more about it why don’t you come closer and WRENCHES YOUR COCK IN A DOORJAMB AND SLAMS UNTIL SATISFIED. My child will be baptised with Fat Tire and a vial of Tim Tebow’s blood Dan Shanoff siphoned off him for me. It is delicious and oh my yes you know a lot about beer pet hug points stroke SLAP.

#4

Champagne. Remember that hip-hop is actually the whitest, stiffest, and least imaginative music in the world in one respect and one respect only: while early rock and roll came from white kids trying to act as black as they possibly could, rappers through the 90s seemed to rapidly accrue every fixin’ of the English upper classes as possible: Burberry, Bentleys, and ultimately the swilling of cognac and champagne as the role model for hip-hop fashion slowly degenerated from a Kangol’d Rakim to a melaninized version of Bertie Wooster. Who knew that the preferred watching in black households in the late eighties was Jeeves and Wooster, and that Fry and Laurie would help define a generation of top-shelf luxury brand whoring rappers? Tip of the hat, gents. You were more influential than you realized.

Digression concluded, and bringing the camera back over here to delicious, intoxicating Champagne. Like Tequila, Champagne is one of the few alcoholic beverages possessing genuine and impressive powers. A fizzy white wine with a mineral edge, Champagne can be consumed throughout the year, and occasionally throughout the day as US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan did, often drinking a bottle he kept on ice in his desk starting around noon or so, and progressing throughout the day. It doesn’t have the tannic afterburn effect red wine has, doesn’t get you as sloshed as hard liquor will, and skirts the often crippling bloat beer brings to the party. In short: the choice of sneaky and efficient drunks for years, champagne is the child you choose for the “bring your booze to work day” prize recipient, and it sits quietly in your office admiring your collection of business cards without trashing the place like vodka or whiskey will.

It does have its costs, mind you, but the Hagman diet can work for decades before you have to actually pull the other “Hagman” and get a new liver. Hell, even then Hagman didn’t seem that disappointed over his insane champagne consumption, as it helped him get ridiculously famous, and only cost him $50K a year for four bottles a day:

He was such a happy drunk that if the booze hadn’t rotted his first liver he would still be on the stuff today.

“If there hadn’t been any side-effects on my health, I would have been happy to go on,” he admits. “I never was drunk. It just gave me that little click. My wife never minded. We were making so much money at the time that $50,000 a year on champagne really didn’t matter.”

Winston Churchill, though a whiskey and soda man, kept champagne as his mistress, and was so fond of Pol Roger the vineyard made it in pint bottles for him. The cheap stuff, particularly your Oregon labels like Domaine St. Michele, are beyond passable, and even sneak into the good if you can get them cold enough. At somewhere around 13 bucks, they won’t destroy the budget either, and will take a good 30 years to rot the liver. That’s plenty of time to become JR Ewing or the Prime Minister of England in the meantime. Now pop the Santana DVX.

#3

Tequila. Silvery-tongued bandita with perfect tits heaving under the sole cover of a bandolier of ammunition, borne aloft by angel’s wings and a jet pack, soaring naked just out of reach…oh, tequila, you turn me into a lovestruck mad scientist. Best served just cold enough to take the ethyl edge off it, tequila probably is the liquor inspiring the greatest instant gag reflex for anyone reading this, and that is because at one point you disrespected her, and she shot you dead and left you die vomiting in the desert somewhere around 4 a.m. for the offence.

Shame on you: when balanced properly with the right mixers, attitude, and a enough food in the belly, tequila really will turn you into a more brilliant lunatic than you ever imagined yourself being. Normal alcohol: swimming naked. Tequila: swimming Lake Nantahala naked with the company of ten total strangers you talked into joining you. That’s what tequila has done for me, and it can do the same for you, provided you show the proper respect for the drink with the highest risk/reward ratio of any of the major alcohols in the canon. It worked for Ty Webb, after all, and he never made a single mistake in his life.

It’s not just for shots, and if you’re drinking the cheap, formaldehyde-laced shit, it’s most definitely not for shots. (Don’t bother with the salt and lime if you don’t have to if you’re shelling out for Patron or its compatriots: it goes down smooth enough, especially if chilled, and all that squirting and tossing can get confusing, especially after a shot or five.) You could go Tequila Sunrise, but the outlaw TNT is a pleasant surprise: Tequila and tonic mixed in the proportions of your choosing, garnished with lime, and consumed slooooooowly, lest the slow infusion of genius overwhelm your mainframe.

#2

Rose. Oh, pink wine. So sexy, so trashy, so not White Zinfindel, a mistake by Gallo vintner that caught on when someone drank it and noticed it tasted just like jolly ranchers after you threw them up and reingested a few times. (Notice, we capitalized White Zinfindel, but not like you capitalize “Washington,” or “The Renaissance,” but like you capitalize “Evil” and “Chlamydia.”)

Rose is hot weather wine, and it comes from a quick dip in the tank with the skins and then a tank fermentation without them, resulting in a light, slightly fruity and tart wine you can drink on the surface of the sun (or in Columbia, South Carolina in a windowless van with shag carpeting in July, which we know some of our readers are wont to do.) You also get to have this fun conversation with your friends when you drink it at a barbecue:

Friend: “Pink wine? Wanted something that went with barbecued cock, homosexual?”

You: “It’s GOOD DAMMIT.”

When this happens, just remember that you can drink a boatload of the stuff without a serious hangover, it matches just about anything summery on the menu this summer, and it’s usually tres cheap. And gay. Fine, it’s gay. IT’S GAY AND DELICIOUS. Like a Queen album or using Lush products with open enthusiasm, you can take it from my cold dead hands, which are bent at a slight angle from our wrists.

#1

Since Holly has the summer swillin’ beer taken, I’ll be a good American and recommend one of our red-blooded American beers to counter her outsourcing of drinking choice across the border WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA? (Pacifico is delicious and we could drink a six pack in an hour on a hot day if we stopped counting, which would all end in tears when you try to hop over the fence to use a neighbor’s trampoline, and then gash your leg open and bleed all over a stranger’s trampoline, who happens to be sitting on the deck the whole time watching you do this, and let’s just move on.)

You know an old friend beer-wise when the experience of power-vomiting eight of these and burnt dormroom chili doesn’t ruin the splendor of a beverage for you. Oh, Miller High Life, you fake-tittied 42 year old waitress beckoning from across the bar with a lit Virginia Slim in hand who won’t ask any questions, and won’t be blinded by the light as long as you call her Angel of the Morning, you trashy lovable whore of a beer, you.

To taste a Miller High Life is to taste your misspent youth in a single, bubbly, weakass-wheat soda shiver. It’s called the Champagne of Beers because it is very bubbly, will get you in a superb mood provided you drink multiple units of it, and like champagne sets in innocuously enough to make overconsumption a near dead certainty. It also only costs $3.69 for a six pack, which is in itself a valuation placing Miller High Life somewhere between the categories of “Alcoholic’s Miracle” and “Public Health Scandal in Convenient Cardboard Carrying Case.”

Totally Not Cool: Beer Prices to Rise

CNN reports that beer prices are expected to rise across the board:

“The looming price hike comes as sales volumes in the brewing industry have declined. Anheuser-Busch InBev said earlier this month that total beer volumes were down 1.5% in the second quarter versus the same period last year.”

So come this fall I may have to bid a sweet adieu to my new found love, Mothership Wit, that bit of liquid awesomeness that New Belgium has delivered me. Which also means it may be time to get reacquainted with a dear old friend. Hello Mr. Busch Light. It’s been years since last we tangoed.

Drink Like A Champion Today: College Themed Bud Light Cans

From the Wall Street Journal comes news that there are now Bud Light cans in your favorite team’s colors. Kick. Ass.

“Show your true colors with Bud Light,” the company says, according to copies of internal marketing materials obtained by colleges. “This year, only Bud Light is delivering superior drinkability in 12-ounce cans that were made for gameday.”

The Fan Cans campaign comes amid efforts by Anheuser-Busch, a unit of Anheuser-Busch InBev NV of Leuven, Belgium, to revive the sales of Bud Light, the top-selling beer in the U.S. The brand’s U.S. volume sales are on track to register the first annual decline in its 27-year history.

As part of a broader marketing effort, the Bud Light school-colors campaign, also called “Team Pride” in the marketing materials, aims to use “color schemes to connect with fans of legal drinking age in fun ways in select markets across a variety of sports,” says Carol Clark, Anheuser-Busch’s vice president of corporate social responsibility. She also says that the program is voluntary and that roughly half the brand’s wholesalers have chosen to participate.

Cap a Cooz: Koozie with built in bottle opener

Over the last few years bottle openers have been popping up everywhere. On the bottom of flip flops seems like a good idea until you step in dog crap that first time. The bike rack for my car is outfitted with them as well. But it’s easy to keep a bottle opener in a car anyway. But a koozie with a bottle opener built in is ingenious. A beer, a koozie, and a bottle opener. You’re set. Check out Cap-a-Cooz and either get a smooth looking koozie featuring their own logo or you can also create your own (the 36 unit minimum at $4.49 is reasonable). They appear to fit both bottles and cans well.

Thermos Brand Steel Koozie Review

Thermos has finally thrown their hat in the beer insulation ring with a stainless steel koozie. Vat19.com sent me over one of these stainless steel can insulators for a test drive. It uses vacuum insulation that has been developed for other Thermax technology products. So with out getting into details, it’s going to keep your beer colder than a cheap piece of fabric. On the product page on Vat19 you can see a video on the comparative temperature change. Tailgating Ideas also tested the change over a koozieless can.

But in reality, it shouldn’t take you longer than 20-30 minutes to finish most of your beers. So temperature change is actually pretty low on my priorities list for a koozie. I’m more worried about practicality and appearance.

Pros:

- The hard metal design and rubber bottom makes this koozie quite sturdy when sitting on a flat surface. When using a cloth koozie at home I often get a little anxious when I sit my beer down on a table. As the beer gets lighter is more likely to flip over. It takes a pretty strong effort to tip over the Thermos insulator.

- Fits a can snugly. It’s slim enough that my hand fits around it well. The outside of the insulator stays at room temperature and doesn’t get wet so you maintain a good grip.

- Sleek and unique look

Cons:

- This is more of a koozie for around the house. The main issue for tailgating is that you can’t fit this in your pocket. Which isn’t always a problem but it could be. Also at this price you don’t really want to lose it when you get drunk.

- It doesn’t hold bottles well. They jostle around quite a bit which makes it a can only situation.

Overall: It gets the Drunken Tailgate seal of approval. I’ve been using it for three months now and I’m very satisfied. I use it every time I’m drinking a beer from a can inside my house.