MISCmedia for 12/13/99
Beyond Bitter Beer Face

HERE'S SOMETHING I WROTE for Jeff Gilbert and Glen Boyd's irrepressible sleaze-tabloid, Mansplat. They asked folks to list 12 beers they either loved or hated. I took the easy route and submitted a hate-list.

I don't know if I can get past a dozen of these without e-retching, but will try:

• RHEINLANDER. One of the old budget brands of the late, lamented Rainier Brewing Co. I once held an experiment in the privacy of my own home. I'd drink one 40-ouncer of Rhinelander and watch women's bowling on the old Prime Sports channel until it became, in my eyes, a tribute to the grace of the female form in motion. It worked; I developed a lifelong appreciation for ladies who know how to hold their spherical shapes. I also developed a lifelong memory of a Rheinlander headache (something akin to having one's skull serve as the 1-pin in a 300 game).

• COLT 45. Some would-be whitey mall rappers in my acquaintance thought it would be fun to hold a party in which only malt liquor would be served. The lamest party I've been to (includng born-again Christian wedding receptions).

• SIERRA NEVADA. The quintessential San Francisco art-world beer--i.e., totally pretentious, proudly flavorless, and lacking in any practical purpose.

• PYRAMID APRICOT ALE. It's no $25,000 Pyramid.

• O'KEEFE'S EXTRA OLD STOCK. The strongest mass-market Canadian beer at the time I first tried it, during a party on a visit to Vancouver. The blokes I was with later claimed I'd been rude to their girlfriends. But I at least remembered enough of the night to confidently state that I'd been a non-gender-specific jerk.

• MOLSON ICE. In the years after the O'Keefe's experience, the big two Canadian beer companies kept trying to up their alcohol content. Eventually they hit on the idea of freeze-drying beer, removing some of the frozen water, then melting and bottling the concentrated remains. The result: An instant hangover inducer with no flavor-taste whatsoever (as opposed to the metallic flavor-taste of malt liquors). Molson Ice is also the beer once endorsed by Courtney Love, back when she was no moderation role-model.

• IRON CITY. The best thing I could say about Pittsburgh's fave local brew was that (at least at the time it was temporarily available around here) it still came in steel cans (that's the industry there, as all Flashdance viewers know). That meant you could turn the can upside down and open it with an old-fashioned "church key" opener. Otherwise, about as lively as recent Pirates seasons.

• DOS EQUIS. The logo says it all--anybody who buys you this is double crossing you.

• RAINIER ALE (aka The Green Death). I knew I was in for a sorry relationship when we first stopped by a convenience store on the way to my place, and this was the only beverage other than Night Train she claimed to ever buy.

• (The first version of) RED HOOK ALE. After Grant's, the second microbrew in Washington, and the oddest tasting (until deliberately odd products like Apricot Ale showed up). Still, it should be credited/blamed for firmly establishing the whole respectable-strong-beer phenom way back in the '80s.

• COORS. The "Colorado Kool-Aid" nickname is all too accurate. The beer for Suburban drivers in the suburbs who fancy themselves to be rugged cowboys by knocking down bottle after bottle of beer-flavored water.

• COORS LIGHT. For those to whom regular Coors is too much.

TOMORROW: More recycled real estate.

ELSEWHERE:

• And you think your job sucks! (Found by Bifurcated Rivets)....
• Somebody from San Jose, Callif. who hates almost everything I like; one more reason to hate California (found by World New York)....

RECENT HIGHLIGHTS:

• In the Brave New Seattle, every new building must be monumental, "world class," and tastefully outlandish.
• Imagining life after Microsoft, and exploring the roots of the Gates personality cult.
• The first and second parts of our visit to an imagined Northwest theme park.
• Parts one, two, three, and four of our WTO protest post-mortem; a list of WTO-protest links; and the earlier preview piece.
• The "new secessionists" somehow think business still has too little power vs. government.
• The new Coldwater Creek store sells the fantasy of living on the land but not off it; while the new Ballard Fred Meyer hypermarket tries to look like the steel plant it replaced.
• Parts one, two, and three of a look back at Ed Bellamy's Looking Backward, which promised that by now we'd have complete socio-economic equality but not computers.
• Imagining a newspaper for the Net age.
• Some of today's more perverse, ephemeral "art forms."
• I still kvetch about arrogant San Francisco; but is Seattle now no better?
• Can you tell me how to get to Coronation Street?

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