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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3311 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for March 3, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Combining the Culture War drinking thread and the weekly What Are You Reading fun thread, what are you drinking this week?

As a big bourbon fan, I'd never quite hit on a Scotch that really got me excited, but I admittedly hadn't tried that many, so I grabbed a bottle of Abelour A'bunadh this week and it really is fantastic stuff. The sherry aging is very prominent, but stops short of being oversweet, leaving tons of fruitiness and a bit of a dark chocolate finish.

On the beer end, I've laid off my usual affinity for huge barrel-aged stouts and big NEIPAs to try to cut a few calories out, instead opting for some classic Guinness Extra Stout and Founders All Day IPA. They're both... fine. I like them just fine, but I miss the sugar bomb beers.

The usual. By that I mean regular beer aka Miller High Life, Coors Banquet, Pabst, etc. It's not that I don't like imports and craft beers, it's just that I drink almost every day and they're too idiosyncratic and expensive to really work as daily drivers. I also like to keep a ton of it in my car so that when I'm skiing or whatever I always have beer I can offer everyone freely without them feeling bad about taking as much as they want. I honestly think that if these weren't mass-market American beers but some special variety brewed by Czech monks beer snobs would rave about their crisp and refreshing taste.

While we're on the subject—as a Wisconsinite I assume you can give me a satisfactory answer to this—what the hell happened to Leinenkugel's? When I was in college and craft beer was mostly mediocre, a friend of mine would regularly bring in cases of the Creamy Dark and Red Lager back from Chicago and they were both excellent. Then you could get it in Pennsylvania and it was great. Then they started selling fruity stuff, which okay, fine. Then it got hard to find. Then you could only get the Red Lager if you bought a variety pack. Then they discontinued it altogether. The situation got so dire that my brother and I went to the local master distributor to see if he could order it specially for us. Now it seems the only stuff of theirs I can find around here is all fruity stuff. I was at a pizza place Sunday and saw they had a Lemon Haze which I wanted to try because I like hazys, but was told it had been replaced with a peach sour. Okay, I like sours, let's give this one a go. It wasn't a sour. It tasted like Leinie regular (which I can't get around here for some reason) with peach flavor. I'm really disappointed that a company that once made a quality product has let itself slide so far.

Bud or Blue Moon all the way. Coors is terrible and Miller isn't much better.

Used to work with a Wisconsinite who was also disappointed with Leinie but raved about Spotted Cow.

Am Sconnie, can confirm Spotted Cow is delightful and inexpensive, and remains my go-to bar beer. I've also been drinking brandy and bitters toddies when there's a chill, and High Life remains the ultimate lawnmower (or, as is the case, snow shoveling) beer. Also been drinking some homemade hard cider, which is ludicrously easy to home brew compared to beer.

Honestly, as one who drinks a ton of mass-market beer, Bud is about on the same level as Coors Banquet, Molson Canadian and Miller High Life. MGD is indistinguishable from High Life but slightly more expensive so there's no reason to buy it. The next tier includes Pabst, Iron City, Stoney's, Labatt Blue, Molson Golden, Lion's Head, Straub. then there's the specialty tier, beers that aren't particularly cheap but have some kind of off-flavor that make them bad: Michelob, Rolling Rock, Stroh's, Genessee. Then there are beers that are straight-up bad: Carling Black Label (except when it's a buck at 123 Pleasant St. in Morgantown), Red Dog (RIP), Coors Extra Gold, Keystone, Schlitz (though that may have changed), Yuengling Premium (not the lager, which is too different to qualify for this list). Then there are beers that I'm afraid to try: Milwaukee's Best, Natural, American. Then there are the special cases: Duquesne and Hamm's have unique flavors that aren't necessarily unpleasant but that you can get sick of rather quickly. Old Milwaukee exists in some limbo where it isn't as bad as it seems like it should be.

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