source: my favorite webpage on the whole internet, tammy's midis.
"the champagne of beers" --what does that even mean?
Pabst Blue Ribbon -- P.B.R., as fans call it -- is currently enjoying a highly unlikely comeback. In 2002, sales of the beer, which had been sinking steadily since the 1970's, actually rose 5.3 percent. From the start of 2003 through April 20, supermarket beer sales are up another 9.4 percent. It is endorsed in ''The Hipster Handbook,'' a paperback dissection of cool, and is popping up in trendy bars from the Mission District to the Lower East Side.1
for me, these represent two failures of the "hipster" community, two weary warriors to whom we failed to give the proper viking funeral. i thought that the unspoken rule of "hipness" was that as soon as something is publicly acknowledged as being "hip" or "authentic", it ceases to be so. all i'm talking about is the concept of the backlash.
extra gold is full-flavored, obscure, and most importantly, actually cheap. apparently this urine-gold beer is the unwanted orphan of the coors brewing co. it's the only coors beer you won't be offered on a tour of their factory, and my local liquor store stopped carrying it when an increase in taxes meant it wouldn't be the cheapest thirty pack at the liquor store, anymore.
miller high life thinks it's so cool.
MGD is actually made from the same recipe as Miller High Life, with a different treatment. It was developed to give High Life drinkers the same taste in a can or bottle as they found in non-pasteurized kegs.2from personal experience, i can only attest to the fact that miller high life tastes a lot sweeter than miller genuine draft. it's like the difference between a bottle of chianti and a box of white zinfandel. from wikipedia:
The prevailing slogan on current packaging is "The Champagne of Beers", an adaptation of its long standing slogan "The Champagne of Bottle Beers". Accordingly, this beer is noted for its high level of carbonation, making it a very bubble-filled beverage, like champagne.3hence the slogan! actually, that fits. it would make sense that a more bubbly beer would also be sweeter. from about.com:
Natural carbonation results from the fermentation process. Fermentation produces alcohol and carbon dioxide as yeast digests the sugar in the wort. 4so an obvious explanation for the slogan could be that miller, in utilizing a beer recipe and fermentation process that called for the addition of extra sugar to the brewing process, simply called out the obvious similarity to sparkling wine production. sparkling wine does, indeed, get is carbonation from sugar. wikipedia again:
The amount of pressure in the wine is determined by the amount of sugar added during the tirage stage at the beginning of the secondary fermentation with more sugar producing increased amount of carbon dioxide gas and thus pressure in the wine.5
"Malt liquor is a strong lager in which sugar, corn or other adjuncts are added to the malt to boost the alcoholic strength."6so really, if its "the champagne of beers," then it's "the malt liquor of beers," too. and come to think of it, sparkling wine or even champagne is really just "the malt liquor of wines."
--wikipedia
