- Publisher |
- Eric Drummond Smith
- Media Type |
- audio
- Podknife tags |
- Alcohol,
- Beer,
- Comedy,
- Food,
- Society & Culture
- People |
- Country Of Origin |
- USA
- Produced In |
- Abingdon, VA
- Premiere Date |
- 2018-07-02
- Frequency |
- Weekly
- Explicit |
- Yes
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Submit ReviewHow do you introduce Nashville? It isn’t easy folks. The capital of three states pretending to be one, known far and wide as the Music City, Nashville is the delicate tendon connecting Deep Southern west Tennessee to Appalachian east Tennessee, an urban asterisk punctuating and dominating the agricultural middlelands. Nashville is the birthplace of the Goo-Goo Cluster, the nesting place of the world’s oldest radio show The Grand Ole’ Opry, and one of the great centers of the American Civil Rights Movement. It is a city of art and parks and the Parthenon, a fantastic museum and recreation of the ancient Athenian Parthenon. Nashville is a city of universities and cutting-edge medicine, professional sports, cowboys, poets, yodelers, New York-style delis and passels of ghosts.
Oh. And the beer. I almost forgot. Nashville is one of the centers of the American beer renaissance. We're sampling TWELVE beers, selected by our guest from Jackalope Brewing Company, Mill Creek Brewing, Nashville, Nolansville, Tennessee, Tennessee Brew Works, Yazoo Brewing.
Today we’re talking about more of these beers than Carter has little pills. Today on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer we’re talking about Nashville.
How do you introduce Nashville? It isn’t easy folks. The capital of three states pretending to be one, known far and wide as the Music City, Nashville is the delicate tendon connecting Deep Southern west Tennessee to Appalachian east Tennessee, an urban asterisk punctuating and dominating the agricultural middlelands. Nashville is the birthplace of the Goo-Goo Cluster, the nesting place of the world’s oldest radio show The Grand Ole’ Opry, and one of the great centers of the American Civil Rights Movement. It is a city of art and parks and the Parthenon, a fantastic museum and recreation of the ancient Athenian Parthenon. Nashville is a city of universities and cutting-edge medicine, professional sports, cowboys, poets, yodelers, New York-style delis and passels of ghosts.
Oh. And the beer. I almost forgot. Nashville is one of the centers of the American beer renaissance.
beers-actual.mp3">Today we’re talking about more of these beers than Carterhas little pills. Today on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer we’re talking aboutNashville.
Thailand is a country dominated by macrobrews – strict beer and brewing laws mean that craft and home brewing are nearly absent from the nation (at least legally). Not only that, it remains a nation in which locally brewed beers remain the dominant type. Today’s beer is the flagship of one of the two breweries that utterly dominate the small, southeast Asian nation, a beer that assiduously (and purposefully) follows the German purity laws, a beer that since the late 1980s has become a global export, found now in nearly every country of North America, Europe, and Asia, as well as Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia.
Today we’re reviewing the beer most often ordered (and mispronounced) in untold nations’ Thai restaurants. Today, on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer, we’re talking about Singha Beer.
Thailand is a country dominated by macrobrews – strict beer and brewing laws mean that craft and home brewing are nearly absent from the nation (at least legally). Not only that, it remains a nation in which locally brewed beers remain the dominant type. Today’s beer is the flagship of one of the two breweries that utterly dominate the small, southeast Asian nation, a beer that assiduously (and purposefully) follows the German purity laws, a beer that since the late 1980s has become a global export, found now in nearly every country of North America, Europe, and Asia, as well as Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia.
actual.mp3">Today we’re reviewing the beer most often ordered (and mispronounced) in untold nations’ Thai restaurants. Today, on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer, we’re talking about Singha Beer.
What happens when a tiny Scandinavian nation ends a 68 year long prohibition on beers over 2.25% alcohol by volume? Hold up. What happens when some American brewers, only a few years later, fall in love with that same nation’s legendarily delicious fresh water?
Well, let’s be honest. This isn’t much of a riddle. So today we’re talking about a quaff that links the brewing traditions of the United States and Iceland, a product that is the largest beer export of Iceland, and a beer that – and I’m speculating here – is probably consumed in vast quantities by grog-swilling trolls, ale-guzzling dwarfs, and beer-nipping elves.
actual.mp3">Today, on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer we’re talkingabout Einstök beer.
What happens when a tiny Scandinavian nation ends a 68 year long prohibition on beers over 2.25% alcohol by volume? Hold up. What happens when some American brewers, only a few years later, fall in love with that same nation’s legendarily delicious fresh water?
Well, let’s be honest. This isn’t much of a riddle. So today we’re talking about a quaff that links the brewing traditions of the United States and Iceland, a product that is the largest beer export of Iceland, and a beer that – and I’m speculating here – is probably consumed in vast quantities by grog-swilling trolls, ale-guzzling dwarfs, and beer-nipping elves.
Today, on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer we’re talking about Einstök beer.
From its independence in 1844 until the year 1916, well, the Dominican Republic had a rough go of it. More than 50 presidents came and went, as well as 19 different constitutions. Instability was the name of the game, and was only to grow worse as the world itself became generally more unhinged in the looming shadows of the First World War. The internal chaos led government to grind to a meager pace in the Republic, including in terms of its ability to collect and redistribute income.
This was a problem – the Dominican Republic owed many nations a great deal of money, and with most of the great powers on war-setting, the failure of the small nation to pay its debts to the USA and other nations invited foreign interference. Acting on the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine the US took this moment to invade the Republic, imposing its rule on until 1924.
Five years later another American invasion, of a sort, would occur – Charles H. Wanzer, an American industrialist whose fortune was founded in light generators and petroleum development in Latin America founded a brewery in the city of Santiago. It took awhile, another six years in fact, but eventually that brewery began selling the earliest version of the beer we’re discussing today.
Hold on! In 1930 one of the nastiest characters in modern politics comes into absolute power in the Dominican Republic, Rafael “El Jefe” Trujillo – a cruel man responsible for tens of thousands of deaths – thanks to the combined efforts of a coup, some of the least subtle voter fraud in human history, and of course a rather nasty hurricane. Trujillo would rule the eastern half of Hispanola until 1961 when, on a dark road, he was shot by a group of conspirators. While he ruled, however, it was generally considered sensible to butter Trujillo’s biscuits, so to speak, and so Wanzer and his co-investers named their beer after the dictator, if only indirectly – “Presidente.”
A lot has happened since those dark days. In the unstable years after Trujillo’s death there would eventually be a military uprising, prompting the US to fear the emergence of another Cuba and, predictably, invade, occupying the island this time from 1965 to 1966 and leading to the imposition of the kind of democracy one wouldn’t necessarily call free nor fair. At around the same time Presidente beer made a major shift as well, from a dark beer to a light, pilsner-style – unsurprisingly, perhaps, an American style adjunct.
The Republic would continue to be plagued by instability and illiberal rule until the end of the Cold War, stabilizing in the 1980s (when Presidente became the property of Grupo Leon Jimenes, a Dominican tobacco company) and achieving what political scientists would deem full democratization only in the 1990s. But with the post-Cold War period came post-Cold War beer politics – including the Beer Wars, and eventually the little Dominican brewery that could found itself enmeshed in the machinations of two giants – AB InBev and Heineken. In 2012 the former would finally win out, acquiring 51% shares in Presidente and dominance of the Caribbean market.
Today, on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer we’re talking about Presidente.
From its independence in 1844 until the year 1916, well, the Dominican Republic had a rough go of it. More than 50 presidents came and went, as well as 19 different constitutions. Instability was the name of the game, and was only to grow worse as the world itself became generally more unhinged in the looming shadows of the First World War. The internal chaos led government to grind to a meager pace in the Republic, including in terms of its ability to collect and redistribute income.
This was a problem – the Dominican Republic owed many nations a great deal of money, and with most of the great powers on war-setting, the failure of the small nation to pay its debts to the USA and other nations invited foreign interference. Acting on the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine the US took this moment to invade the Republic, imposing its rule on until 1924.
Five years later another American invasion, of a sort, would occur – Charles H. Wanzer, an American industrialist whose fortune was founded in light generators and petroleum development in Latin America founded a brewery in the city of Santiago. It took awhile, another six years in fact, but eventually that brewery began selling the earliest version of the beer we’re discussing today.
Hold on! In 1930 one of the nastiest characters in modern politics comes into absolute power in the Dominican Republic, Rafael “El Jefe” Trujillo – a cruel man responsible for tens of thousands of deaths – thanks to the combined efforts of a coup, some of the least subtle voter fraud in human history, and of course a rather nasty hurricane. Trujillo would rule the eastern half of Hispanola until 1961 when, on a dark road, he was shot by a group of conspirators. While he ruled, however, it was generally considered sensible to butter Trujillo’s biscuits, so to speak, and so Wanzer and his co-investers named their beer after the dictator, if only indirectly – “Presidente.”
A lot has happened since those dark days. In the unstable years after Trujillo’s death there would eventually be a military uprising, prompting the US to fear the emergence of another Cuba and, predictably, invade, occupying the island this time from 1965 to 1966 and leading to the imposition of the kind of democracy one wouldn’t necessarily call free nor fair. At around the same time Presidente beer made a major shift as well, from a dark beer to a light, pilsner-style – unsurprisingly, perhaps, an American style adjunct.
The Republic would continue to be plagued by instability and illiberal rule until the end of the Cold War, stabilizing in the 1980s (when Presidente became the property of Grupo Leon Jimenes, a Dominican tobacco company) and achieving what political scientists would deem full democratization only in the 1990s. But with the post-Cold War period came post-Cold War beer politics – including the Beer Wars, and eventually the little Dominican brewery that could found itself enmeshed in the machinations of two giants – AB InBev and Heineken. In 2012 the former would finally win out, acquiring 51% shares in Presidente and dominance of the Caribbean market.
Today, on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer we’re talking about Presidente.
Close your eyes. Unless your driving, of course. C’mon. I don’t even know why I have to say that. Sheesh. But otherwise close your eyes. Imagine the coolers, foggy and pleasant, of your favorite grocery or gas station. You want a beer, but what to buy? You’re not sure, but you’re sure to notice the stubby green bottles in the shape of a grenade, lightly gilt, alit with a golden hornet. What you’re seeing, there, gleaming like a malty emerald in your mind’s eye, is Mickey’s Fine Malt Liquor – a beer that, whether you’ve tried it or not, you recognize, despite its limited reliance on advertising. fine-malt-liquor-actual.mp3">Today, on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer, we’re talking about the most famous child of Evansville, Indiana. Today, friends, we’re talking about Mickey’s Fine Malt Liquor.
Close your eyes. Unless your driving, of course. C’mon. I don’t even know why I have to say that. Sheesh. But otherwise close your eyes. Imagine the coolers, foggy and pleasant, of your favorite grocery or gas station. You want a beer, but what to buy? You’re not sure, but you’re sure to notice the stubby green bottles in the shape of a grenade, lightly gilt, alit with a golden hornet. What you’re seeing, there, gleaming like a malty emerald in your mind’s eye, is Mickey’s Fine Malt Liquor – a beer that, whether you’ve tried it or not, you recognize, despite its limited reliance on advertising.
Today, on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer, we’re talking about the most famous child of Evansville, Indiana. Today, friends, we’re talking about Mickey’s Fine Malt Liquor.
Today’s beers come from the oldest independently owned brewery in Texas, the fourth largest craft brewer in the United States, a brewery founded by Czech and German immigrants in 1909 who simply missed the quaffs of their motherland. With careful planning, a willingness to ignore the misguided precepts of the Prohibition, wonderful marketing, nearly universally respected craftsmanship, and of course the help thirsty hippies from nearby Austin, the products of the Spoetzl Brewery are no longer just local gems and are now available in 49 of 50 states – sorry Hawai’i.
Today, on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer, we’re talking about the beer that is arguably most synonymous with the great state of Texas, a beer that has been smuggled in ice trucks and hearses, a beer with one of the most loyal followings in the world. actual.mp3">Today we’re talking about Shiner beer.
Today’s beers come from the oldest independently owned brewery in Texas, the fourth largest craft brewer in the United States, a brewery founded by Czech and German immigrants in 1909 who simply missed the quaffs of their motherland. With careful planning, a willingness to ignore the misguided precepts of the Prohibition, wonderful marketing, nearly universally respected craftsmanship, and of course the help thirsty hippies from nearby Austin, the products of the Spoetzl Brewery are no longer just local gems and are now available in 49 of 50 states – sorry Hawai’i.
Today, on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer, we’re talking about the beer that is arguably most synonymous with the great state of Texas, a beer that has been smuggled in ice trucks and hearses, a beer with one of the most loyal followings in the world. Today we’re talking about Shiner beer.
Alois Hingerl was the hardest working porter in the Munich railway station. He worked with great fervor and passion, so much so that he worked himself to death, having only two vices – a love of snuff and beer. He lived such a noble life that Saint Peter made him an angel and sent him on a mission of mercy, to provide wise and sage advice to the leaders of his mother city.
Alas, Himmel has neither tobacco nor beer, and Alois, now dubbed Aloisius by the divine powers, found himself craving a snort and a nip. He detoured, as most of us would, to the home of his favorite tipple, the Hofbräuhaus, intending to pour back on mass and then continue along his mission. Alas for the politicians of Bavaria, Aloisius was so sorely moved by the beer that he never left the Haus and remains there, an angelic, blue-collar zythophile, overseeing the beating heart of everything good about his homeland.
Today we’re talking about the beer that tempted Aloisius away from his divine mission, arguably the beer most identified with the land most identified with beer, a beer that is opening beer gardens and restaurants around the world while clinging to its local identity.
Today, on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer, we’re talking about Hofbräu Original.
Alois Hingerl was the hardest working porter in the Munich railway station. He worked with great fervor and passion, so much so that he worked himself to death, having only two vices – a love of snuff and beer. He lived such a noble life that Saint Peter made him an angel and sent him on a mission of mercy, to provide wise and sage advice to the leaders of his mother city. Alas, Himmel has neither tobacco nor beer, and Alois, now dubbed Aloisius by the divine powers, found himself craving a snort and a nip. He detoured, as most of us would, to the home of his favorite tipple, the Hofbräuhaus, intending to pour back on mass and then continue along his mission. Alas for the politicians of Bavaria, Aloisius was so sorely moved by the beer that he never left the Haus and remains there, an angelic, blue-collar zythophile, overseeing the beating heart of everything good about his homeland.Today we’re talking about the beer that tempted Aloisius away from his divine mission, arguably the beer most identified with the land most identified with beer, a beer that is opening beer gardens and restaurants around the world while clinging to its local identity. Today, on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer, we’re talking about Hofbräu Original.
In 1829 London, England established the first modern professional police force, Andrew Jackson was sworn in as the President of the United States, and Greek War of Independence ends with the signing of the London Protocol. That same year saw the birth of clothier Levi Strauss, Apache leader Geronimo, and American President Chester A. Arthur. John Jay, first Chief Justice of the United States, died in 1829, as would James Smithson, the British scientist whose vast fortune would lay the groundwork for the establishment of the Smithsonian Institutes in the young American Republic.
Fifty-three years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence and thirty-two years before the first shots of the American Civil War, 1829 is also the year that David G. Yuengling first established the what was then called the Eagle Brewery in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, an institution that has, for six generations, remained in the hands of his family and, equally, remained the touchstone of beers in eastern Pennsylvania and Delaware. Each generation buys the brewery from the previous, and this generation’s owners, a quartet of sisters, has followed suit.
Today’s beer is a strange and wonderful beastie, the fourth largest beer distributor in the United States – though it serves only fourteen states – and the largest family-owned brewery in the United States.
Today, on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer, we’re talking about Yuengling.
In 1829 London, England established the first modern professional police force, Andrew Jackson was sworn in as the President of the United States, and Greek War of Independence ends with the signing of the London Protocol. That same year saw the birth of clothier Levi Strauss, Apache leader Geronimo, and American President Chester A. Arthur. John Jay, first Chief Justice of the United States, died in 1829, as would James Smithson, the British scientist whose vast fortune would lay the groundwork for the establishment of the Smithsonian Institutes in the young American Republic.Fifty-three years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence and thirty-two years before the first shots of the American Civil War, 1829 is also the year that David G. Yuengling first established the what was then called the Eagle Brewery in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, an institution that has, for six generations, remained in the hands of his family and, equally, remained the touchstone of beers in eastern Pennsylvania and Delaware. Each generation buys the brewery from the previous, and this generation’s owners, a quartet of sisters, has followed suit.Today’s beer is a strange and wonderful beastie, the fourth largest beer distributor in the United States – though it serves only fourteen states – and the largest family-owned brewery in the United States.Today, on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer, we’re talking about Yuengling.
Brendan: “Do you want a beer?”Eric: “No, I’d like something special.”Brendan: “How about a Bull?”Eric: “A Bull?”Brendan: “Schlitz Malt Liquor, for when you want something a little more special than a beer.”Bill: [A giant bull crashes into Toilet-Kitchen Studio, killing everyone.]Everyone: Fin.Eric: malt-liquor-actual.mp3">Hey guys, today on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer we’re talking about Schlitz Malt Liquor.
Brendan: “Do you want a beer?”
Eric: “No, I’d like something special.”
Brendan: “How about a Bull?”
Eric: “A Bull?”
Brendan: “Schlitz Malt Liquor, for when you want something a little more special than a beer.”
Bill: [A giant bull crashes into Toilet-Kitchen Studio, killing everyone.]
Everyone: Fin.
Eric: Hey guys, today on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer we’re talking about Schlitz Malt Liquor
Today’s beer is regarded as the oldest in New England, once the unrivaled master of that region, holding a 65% share of the market in the 1950s.
This was not to last, however. Mismanagement by a series of new owners led to a steady decline in quality and customer loyalty and eventually, in 1981, exile.
In 2005 the brewery making today’s quaff had a net revenue of nothing. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Hell, they made only $50,000 in sales total nationwide. On the edge of extinction, it was rescued by passionate investors whose love not only brought it back to New England after its long sojourn as a contract beer in Fort Wayne, Indiana, but returned it to the hands of Red Sox fans, reintroducing it to the green majesty of Fenway Park. Within nine years not only was it profitable, but was pulling in $12 million a year in the black.
Today on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer we’re drinking the beer Quint crushes in 1975’s Jaws, a beer that still sells for about $6 a six-pack, a beer that claims to be the Official Beer of the Clam, a beer that we’re convinced has inspired at least half of existing Family Guy episodes.
Today’s beer is regarded as the oldest in New England, once the unrivaled master of that region, holding a 65% share of the market in the 1950s.
This was not to last, however. Mismanagement by a series of new owners led to a steady decline in quality and customer loyalty and eventually, in 1981, exile.
In 2005 the brewery making today’s quaff had a net revenue of nothing. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Hell, they made only $50,000 in sales total nationwide. On the edge of extinction, it was rescued by passionate investors whose love not only brought it back to New England after its long sojourn as a contract beer in Fort Wayne, Indiana, but returned it to the hands of Red Sox fans, reintroducing it to the green majesty of Fenway Park. Within nine years not only was it profitable, but was pulling in $12 million a year in the black.
Today on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer we’re drinking the beer Quint crushes in 1975’s Jaws, a beer that still sells for about $6 a six-pack, a beer that claims to be the Official Beer of the Clam, a beer that we’re convinced has inspired at least half of existing Family Guy episodes.
Hi Neighbor – today we’re talking about Narragansett 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.
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.
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.fair-actual-part-i.mp3">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.
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.
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.episode-2-budweiser-budvar-and-simpler-times-actual.mp3">Today, on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer, we're talking about Budweiser Budvar and Simpler Times Lager.
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.
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!
Earlier this week the United States and her sister to the north, Canada, managed to avoid a cataclysmic trade war when the two nations grudgingly came to an agreement on revisions to the all-important NAFTA treaty. In celebration of this news we’re talking about a beer that, while making up only about 4% of the Canadian domestic market, is still favored by Willie Nelson and Michael J. Fox, the beer used to toast the successful testing of the renowned Canada arm that adorned Space Shuttle for decades, a beer identified with fishermen and loggers in the great Canadian northeast.
Its story begins in 1867 with the founding of Army & Navy Brewery in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. The founder, John Oland, died only three years later, and thus the brewery was renamed after his wife and fellow English émigré, Susannah. Delicious beers were brewed by S. Oland & Sons in Dartmouth until 1928 when the founder’s grandson moved the brewery to St. John and changed its name to New Brunswick Brewery. This name in turn stuck until just after the Second World War when it was once more renamed, this time losing the regional appellation and acquiring one that referred to upper body anatomy of a ruminant mammal.
First imported to the United States in 1978, the brand was so exceptionally successful that the brewers had to radically expand its brewing capacity by 1985, the year it launched in the United Kingdom and became the fourth most consumed import beer in the United States.
Today’s beer is the largest brewery wholly owned by Canadian interests, a beer made by a company that survived the infamous Halifax explosion, a beer embroiled in a notorious ax murder, and a beer at the center of Guy Ritchie-esque heists.
That’s right folks, today, on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer, we’re talking about Moosehead Lager.
Earlier this week the United States and her sister to the north, Canada, managed to avoid a cataclysmic trade war when the two nations grudgingly came to an agreement on revisions to the all-important NAFTA treaty. In celebration of this news we’re talking about a beer that, while making up only about 4% of the Canadian domestic market, is still favored by Willie Nelson and Michael J. Fox, the beer used to toast the successful testing of the renowned Canada arm that adorned Space Shuttle for decades, a beer identified with fishermen and loggers in the great Canadian northeast.Its story begins in 1867 with the founding of Army & Navy Brewery in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. The founder, John Oland, died only three years later, and thus the brewery was renamed after his wife and fellow English émigré, Susannah. Delicious beers were brewed by S. Oland & Sons in Dartmouth until 1928 when the founder’s grandson moved the brewery to St. John and changed its name to New Brunswick Brewery. This name in turn stuck until just after the Second World War when it was once more renamed, this time losing the regional appellation and acquiring one that referred to upper body anatomy of a ruminant mammal.First imported to the United States in 1978, the brand was so exceptionally successful that the brewers had to radically expand its brewing capacity by 1985, the year it launched in the United Kingdom and became the fourth most consumed import beer in the United States.Today’s beer is the largest brewery wholly owned by Canadian interests, a beer made by a company that survived the infamous Halifax explosion, a beer embroiled in a notorious ax murder, and a beer at the center of Guy Ritchie-esque heists.lager-actual.mp3">That’s right folks, today, on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer, we’re talking about Moosehead Lager.
In 1810 Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria married Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildberg – the occasion was marked with a folk festival centered around horseraces, games, music, and tremendous quantities of beer and food. Apparently everyone really enjoyed themselves so the folks of Munich decided to make it an annual event and with each year the festival grew and grew, outlasting the reign of Ludwig, forced off the throne during the German revolution, the German Empire, the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich, and the German Democratic Republic, better known as East Germany. It is a tradition that has survived depressions, wars, and horrors unimaginable, a tradition that represents so much of what is good about the German people, a festival celebrating harvest and change and community. It is a festival in which the casual observer will hear the song “Ein Prosit der Gemütlichkeit,” every twenty minutes.
Today, on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer, we’re talking about Oktoberfest.
First brewed in 1849 by the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company, today’s beer, remained with Schlitz until 1982 when it was acquired by Stroh Brewing of Detroit, who in turn managed it until 2000 when it was acquired by that little giant of breweries, Pabst. Today representing itself with World War II-style pin-up girls on their cans, this beer is perhaps best known for being shilled by the fiction, but hormone-provoking, Swedish bikini team. This is a beer that Will Ferrell loves so much he filmed free, unscripted ads for them focused on the Quad-Cities region of Iowa and Illinois (Davenport, Betterdorf, Rock Island, Moline, and East Moline - don’t worry, we had to look it up too – and why are there five cities?). This is the beer that Consumer Reports described as the best mass-marketed beer based on the evaluation by 17 beer scholars (including several with PhDs in fermentation science) from a slate of 69 beers.
Today, on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer, we’re talking about the only beer I regularly buy in a drug store. Today, folks, we’re talking about Old Milwaukee.
The ancient Greeks argued there were three fundamental types of ethical government, distinguished by the number of people allowed to participate in the legislative process – democracies, aristocracies, and monarchies. They argued that for each of these forms of government there was a parallel, but fundamentally exploitative negative equivalent – mob rule, oligarchy, and tyranny. Today we’re going to determine whether one beer, one of the most financially successful in the history of beverage, is a properly called the King of Beers – or the Tyrant of Tipples.
That’s right, today on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer, we’re talking about Budweiser.
Before the Spanish conquest of Mexico there was fermentation: corn was transmuted into tesgüano, agave into pulque, and honey into tepache. Soon after the conquest the first Mexican brewery was founded in 1542 by Don Alonso Herrera, but the modern genre generically known as “Mexican beer” largely emerges after 1821 and the Mexican War of Independence, the product of German and Austrian immigrants combining their techniques with Mexican ingredients. The popularity of the beer in America’s sibling to the south particularly grew during the reign of the Austrian Maximilian I, the brother of Emperor Francis Joseph I of Austria-Hungary. Put on the throne of the Second Mexican Empire by the French Napoleon III in 1864, Maximilian ruled only briefly before he was removed from the same in 1867 by Mexican Republicans – or more accurately, a firing squad – but his courtiers influenced the Mexican alcohol market permanently.
In 1884 a German gentleman by the name of Wilhelm Hasse immigrated to Veracruz where, thirteen years later he would found his own brewery. His brewery soon produced Siglo XX, a nod to the emerging 20th Century, but eventually his brew would come to be known by the two Xs themselves, its memorialization forgotten by most consumers.
In fact, most consumers today, at least in the US and Canada, are more likely to identify the beer with as the higher end of Mexican beer in taco joints and with an American of Jewish Russian heritage whose career was built on his work in television Westerns and action flicks, a man most folks know as the most interesting man in the world, a man whose ad campaign single-handedly doubled sales of Dos Equis in the United States between 2006 and 2011, and tripled it in Canada in a single year, 2008.
Hoy, en Huevos Encurtidos y Cerveza Fría, estamos hablando de Dos Equis Lager Especial.
First brewed in 1844 by German immigrants in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, today’s beer has long claimed that it was awarded the title “America’s Best” at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, launching it into international fame – the fact that there seems to be no evidence to back this claim being of no matter (so it is with legend). Originally called Best Select, this beer would be sold in bottles tied with blue silk ribbons around the neck from 1882 to 1916, when the demands of the war economy forced the ribbon to migrate to the label alone.
Surviving Prohibition through manufacturing cheese, soda, and malt extracts, (products whose facilities were sold in 1933 to Kraft) today's brewery shot off the block in 1933 when beer-making was again legal and by 1977 it was the third best-selling beer in the United States, peaking at 18 million barrels a year. The 1980s left the brewery in the cold, unable to compete with emerging international superpowers and rapidly declining sales and frequent turnovers in ownership led to the unthinkable in 1996 – the headquarters had left Milwaukee for San Antonio, Texas, where they would stay until moving in 2011 to Los Angeles. By 2001 sales had fallen below one million barrels and things looked very dour indeed for the brewery until the dawn of a new type of human being – the hipster.
The value of the company increased until 2010 when it was purchased by C. Dean Metropoloulos, owner of Hostess brands, for a quarter of a billion dollars (US). The next year a crowdfunding campaign raised $200 million before a US Securities & Exchange decision to halted effort, ending an attempt to bring the company back to its roots. In 2014 TSG Consumer Partners, led by Eugene Kashper, purchase the brewer and its labels, moving the home of the owners not to Russia, as many news sources originally reported, but San Francisco (corporate headquarters, however, remained with the brewing facilities in Los Angeles). In 2015, in a gesture towards the brewery’s roots, it opened a new facility, the Pabst Milwaukee Brewery and Taproom. Built in the frame of a former Methodist church, the brewpub offers not only its best-known concoction, but long discontinued brews of yesteryear.
Today on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer we’re considering the beer that first perfected marketing without marketing, the brand that supports not only sports teams but fine artists, the beer that brings together the blue-collar throng with the popped collar crowd, a beer whose family of products are entirely contract-brewed.
That’s right – today we’re talking about Pabst Blue Ribbon.
[Note: We had some engineer and sound issues with this episode - the quality just isn't where we would like it, and you have our apologies - that said it is a fun one, and we didn't want to lose it, so we put our back into it and did some work and got this imperfect, but still great ep. Thanks for your patience as we keep learning the engineering process]
The most imported beer in the modern United States is not German, though it is a German-style pilsner. It is not Spanish, though for most of its history it was owned by a Spanish emigrant who left his home village, Cerezales del Condado, hundreds of millions of dollars for infrastructure development upon his death. It is a beer that has been made into gummi candies, a beer that has been the object vast conspiracies on behalf of international beer super-giant Heineken, and a product at the center of discussions of the North American Free Trade Agreement. It is a beer associated with beaches and boxing, a beer accused of accelerating climate change, and a beer that Forbes recently ranked the #74th most valuable brand of any product or service on earth.
Hoy, en Huevos Encurtidos y Cerveza Fría, estamos hablando de Corona.
It’s Miller Time.
Today, on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer, we’re talking about Miller High Life.
For our first ever special episode we're reviewing the legendary Vermont beer Heady Topper, a double IPA from Waterbury, Vermont rated #4 in the world by BeerAdvocate and called the best beer in America by the Chicago Tribune. Made possible by a special excursion by friend of the show Smilin' Mike Mason, we delve into the antithesis of the cheap beer. FYI, normally our shows come in at the equivalent of about PG-13, but this one has some potty language; bear that in mind if you're listening with whippersnappers or folks with sensitive dispositions. Cheers!
In 1868 a young Rhenish Prussian gentleman immigrates to the United States, working various odd jobs and gradually making his way across the American continent until 1873 when he establishes Golden Brewing in Golden, Colorado, brewing his beer with the cold waters of the Clear Creek Watershed. While the corporate beast that was Golden Brewing has undergone enormous growth and transformation, including shedding its geonymic name for a patronymic one, and now brews in several locations, its signature beer is still exclusively made in its home city, relying on the traditional water source, even as its recipe and processing has continued to be modernized, including the addition of corn syrup as the adjunct. Brewed in copper Huppmann kettles, fermented for 30-days using the horizontal box technique, cold-filtered with 19th Century style Enzinger filters, one has to conclude that this beer, even as it has achieved international prominence is still a labor of love for its mother company.
That love shows through in the genuine love and loyalty of its advocates, and since it wasn’t available east of the Mississippi until 1976, that love made it the beer most frequently smuggled across state borders for much of the 20th Century, inspiring a host of pop culture icons, including a little movie called Smokey and the Bandit.
This is the beer that inspired Clint Eastwood and Ray Charles to record a song called “Beers to You,” a song featured on the soundtrack of a movie about bare-knuckle boxing and an orangutan.
Hell guys, the this is the beer that E.T. got drunk on.
Today, on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer, we’re talking about the official beer of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, a beer that donated $750,000 to wildland firefighters between 2014 and 2017, and a beer whose name was earned in the tents and bars of Colorado where zinc miners would toast their hard days’ work over food and music.
Today we’re talking about Coors Banquet.
Founded in 1861, the Pittsburgh Brewing Company has experienced every imaginable trial and trouble in its long history – its story is reminiscent of virtually all those regional brewers that survived both Prohibition and the rise of macrobreweries. There are a lot of ways I could introduce today’s beer, but none of them capture the sense of renaissance, optimism, and purpose that seems to drive it better than its own mission statement, and so I quote – its mission is to, “make Pittsburgh proud of its hometown brewery, build on [its] proud tradition of excellence, produce the best-tasting malt beverages in the country, reinvigorate and maintain an iconic brand, and create high-quality jobs and provide healthy returns to investors.”
Heartwarming, right? Add to that their innovation in packaging designs and their linkage to iconic Pittsburgh sports teams and you’ve got yourself a full episode of Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer.
That’s right guys, today we’re reviewing Iron City Beer.
In 1903, as the Qing Dynasty waned a group of German brewers on the Shandong Peninsula established the aptly named Germania-Brauerei, offering a taste of Europe in the midst of the German concessions in Northeast China. Soon, however, the Brewery would undergo a series of transformations mirroring those taking place in China and Shandong more generally. The brewery would remain in German hands following the Chinese Revolution of 1911, but when the First World War came to a close the Germans would lose their concessions to Japan and the brewery would be forcibly sold to Dai-Nippon Brewing, the company that in 1949 would be split into the Asahi and Sapporo labels. After the Second World War the brewery was briefly put under the administration of the Tsui family by the Nationalist government, at least until the fall of the Republic of China on the mainland that same year, when it was made into a state-owned enterprise by the fledgling People’s Republic of China. And so the brewery remained for decades until the thawing of Deng Xiaoping’s reforms led eventually to its privatization and merger with three other breweries of the same metropolis. Now sold in 62 nations, this beer, once brewed according to strict German Beer purity laws though now an adjunct lager, constitutes around 50% of the PRC’s total beer exports and is the second most consumed beer on Earth, its growth mirroring that of the economic development of China itself.
Today on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer we’re raising our glasses and shouting a hearty gānbēi (干杯). That’s right folks, today we’re talking about Tsingtao.
Originally intended as a beer for those who loved classic Bavarian-style pilsners, and once sold in bottles designed to look like beer steins, these days today’s beer is more likely to be found attired in blaze orange, camouflage, NASCAR emblems, or fishing-inspired images. Despite its apparent market changes, it nonetheless remains a beer for the out-of-doors, once hanging its hat on the slogan, “clear and bright as mountain air,” today leaning on the shorter, but no less image-charged “head for the mountains.” This is a beer that has caused men in their sixties to raise arms against one another, a beer that cheerfully revels in its own hooliganish reputation, a beer that maintains the best damn Twitter account of any big corporate entity in the United States.
Today on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer we climb out of our deer stands, head back to our dorm rooms, and settle into our orange couch we bought for $50 at the flea market that one Saturday.
Today we’re talking Busch beer.
It is the best-selling beer in the United States, the third best-selling on Earth, a yellow beverage that is so ubiquitous that the only thing as large as its presence on supermarket and convenience store shelves is its advertising presence. The great cold war between multinational beer corporations rages on, in its fourth decade at least, as alliances and corporations grow ever larger, consolidating resources, developing intensive and extensive logistics systems, data analysis mechanisms, but the leading weapons are not intercontinental weapons or aircraft carriers, but inexpensive adjunct lagers that promise palatable low caloric costs with sufficiently high alcoholic content, packaged in an inoffensive form. What is amazing is the scale and consistent quality of this undertaking – today’s beer alone generates around half a billion US dollars a year, in no small part because it is nearly always of the same essential quality no matter where or when one buys it – a miracle of technology and planning whose history mirrors that of modernization itself.
Today on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer we raise our glasses and consider the imperial behest of arguably the greatest of corporate mascots of the 1980s, the late, the great, Spuds McKenzie.
Today, we’re talking about Bud Light.
Today, as we introduce the world to our scrappy little show, we find ourselves reviewing a beer that grew up with Generation-X, first market tested in 1985 and nationally distributed the following year. This quadrupally cold-filtered American adjunct lager was originally marketed as a draft-quality beer built on the bones of Miller High Life; the Champagne of Beers on tap, but with superior portability. Today, however, it sells itself as the anti-microbrew, hanging its hat on slogans like, “Its time for beer to quit acting like wine,” and “It’s time for a good-old macro-brew.” And while it hearkens itself to a by-gone age when seemingly all-American macros were built and bottled in the bounteous bosom of the blue-collar upper Midwest, insisting that, “Its time to drink beer imported all the way from Milwaukee,” in fact few beers are less attached to a particular geographic location, having originally been brewed in North Carolina, but now brewed in Georgia, Texas, Colorado, California, Ohio, and yes, Milwaukee.
Today, on Pickled Eggs & Cold Beer, we’re talking about Miller Genuine Draft.
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