But sometimes a person just wants a simple, tasty beer that isn’t going to put him under the table, a beer that can be enjoyed one after another throughout an evening. The British call these session beers.

There’s a movement afoot among some US craft brewers to bring the session beer to America. The idea is to brew beers that are moderate in alcohol, three or four percent, while still being flavorful and not watery. These styles aren’t hard to produce, as mentioned above the British have been making them for quite some time so there are plenty of examples to choose from. And they can be very enjoyable.

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Drinking games are just around the corner!

Yup, the Presidential debates or oligarchs-slapping-each-other-on-live-TV, as I like to call it, always bring out the best in our livers.

I like keep it simple:
You’ll need your favorite spirits – I’m going with bourbon - and one shot glass for each player. You’ll also need some six-packs of Bud and Goose Island 312 Urban Wheat.

Every time McCain says “My friends” take a shot.
Every time Obama says hope or change take a shot.
Anytime McCain makes a reference to his wife chug a Bud.
Anytime Obama refers to Chicago or his roots chug a Goose Island.

That’s it; but I have no doubt that this will easily do the job.

Disclaimer – We here at the Boozin’ Blog encourage responsible drinking. Don’t be a dumbass.

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The drinking age limit is actually set by states. But in a questionable move the Federal government, bowing to pressure from the won’t-someone-think-of-the-children groups, tacked a requirement to highway funds money forcing states to change their age limits or face a 10% cut. In this round-about way the government effective Federalized drinking age limits and 21 has been the national standard for over two decades.

And it has been a whopping failure.

Having such a high age limit creates another problem. Eighteen is generally the age of adulthood in the US. At eighteen young adults can vote, join the military and serve on juries. Many move out of their parents’ house in their eighteenth year. They’ve graduated high-school and either join the workforce or head for college. In almost every way they are treated as and expected to be adults. But at eighteen it is still three years before these adults can have a legal beer.

Instead of gradually learning to enjoy alcohol responsibly many have their first drink illegally and therefore under variously clandestine circumstances. While alcohol can be a very pleasurable part of life it must also be respected and these are exactly the wrong environs for such an education. No wonder binge drinking is a problem on college campuses.

Two related organizations seek to correct this problem. Choosing Responsibility and The Amethyst Initiative advocate a drinking age of 18. If we’re going to call these people adults shouldn’t we treat them as such?

These movements deserve our support. Click on the links and see what they’re all about.

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Here’s what’s going on. Brooke and Sean Mulkerron’s daughter Tess has a rare liver disease. The toddler has had four major surgeries, six rounds of chemotherapy, and countless blood transfusions. Although she appears to be in remission and the doctors are optimistic her parents are now dedicated to the cause of fighting cancer and are keen to raise money for the fight any way they can.

So they contacted Brian Roseman, the owner of collegebeergames.com, and sold him on the idea of a tournament designed to raise money for their cause. From the press release:

To support the tournament, Roseman is donating $15 to cancer research for every beer pong table he sells from collegebeergames.com. He also provided a discount on some tables to help get the tournament off the ground. The tournament, 2008 Concord Charity Beirut Tourney is scheduled for Aug. 23 in Concord, N.H., near the University of New Hampshire (Beer pong is called “Beirut” in popular circles). The winners will receive a $500 prize and the top five teams will receive a beer pong table, but all the rest of the money raised from donations from participants will go towards cancer research with the “V Foundation Charity.”

Now, to my central point – beer and charity have gone together for a long time. It’s a natural marriage, when you think about it. Beer is all about enjoying life. Whether it’s a party or a quiet meal beer just lifts the mood. It’s a short journey from enjoying life to trying to improve the lives of others.

Throughout history brewers and pubs have been closely tied to their communities. Modern breweries regularly contribute money to worthy causes from supporting the troops to saving the environment. The beer festival that supports a charity is more common than those that don’t.

Call beer drinkers a happy bunch but don’t call us carefree. We care a lot.

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Yesterday Anheuser-Busch issued a press release promising that by the end of 2009 they plan to have 1 in 7 of their beers brewed entirely using renewable fuel.

In case you didn’t know, brewing beer uses a lot of energy and water. It takes a lot of energy to boil then cool beer during brewing. And it takes a lot of water and energy to clean up after and get ready for the next brew. I read somewhere that it takes around seven gallons of water per one gallon of beer produced using traditional methods. With a lot of effort the greener brewers have been able to get that down to three to one. So any progress that A-B can make in this direction is a positive thing.

But is it enough? Can they go further? Probably not in the economic climate but one would like to see something better that one-seventh of the beer brewed using green standards. And what about all of the big Budweiser trucks we see on the highway? I’m willing to wager that they are burning fossil fuels.

There are beers brewed much more conscientiously. New Belgium is a well known example. Using a combination of innovative brewing techniques, wind power and a system like BERS mentioned in the A-B press release NB managed to go off the grid completely a few years ago. Of course NB isn’t the only brewer looking for new and more responsible ways to make beer but these are all relatively young companies and brew only a fraction of a percent of the beer that A-B makes.

So, on the whole, this is indeed good news from the big brewer.

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The first is nothing more than a damn big beer. Heartland Brewery is now selling a three liter serving of beer that they call the Beer Goddess. They say that they are reasonably sure it’s the biggest single serving of beer in the world. (Pitchers don’t count.) But they’d like to know if you know of a bigger one.  If you do contact them at beergoddess@heartlandbrewery.com.

The second beer goddess takes a little more explanation.

Here’s the story. Utah beer has been undergoing a renaissance in the last few years. The state has long been closely associated with Mormonism and with that came some pretty restrictive beer brewing and selling laws. Despite these laws the craft beer industry managed to produce some respectable brews. Recently the state began lifting some of the restrictions that held brewing back and the brewers responded by making some really remarkable beer.

One Utah brewer of note is Wasatch Brew Pub & Brewery. Even if you haven’t heard of the brewer you may very well have heard of their best known beer, Polygamy Porter. The brand’s tag line is “Why just have one?” I’ll give you a moment to chuckle to yourself.

The popular brew has produced an odd and, at least for my part, completely unexpected backlash. The Beer Goddess Ministry of Utah has been formed by ex-Mormon Jezebel with the declared mission of getting equal beer rights for women. I’m not really sure what that means; to my knowledge there is no law nor institutional traditional that restricts women from drinking beer. (Naturally I’m aware of the moronic perception that women like beer less than men but this has nothing to do with equal rights.)

Nevertheless Jezebel seems passionate in her mission and has even developed a beer brand designed to counteract beer drinking rights disparity. Never mind that the beer doesn’t actually exist, apparently it’s enough to just have a label. Jezebel encourages her disciples to apply the label for the fake beer brand Polyandry Ale to real beer bottles as a show of solidarity for her cause. (Polyandry is when a woman has many husbands as opposed to polygamy where a man has many wives.)

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The sun came up this morning. There were no earthquakes in St. Louis – I know because I live near enough to have felt them. Babies are being born and yeast still makes beer. The world moves on and I’ll wager that most beer drinkers won’t even really notice the transition.

Oh, there might be a bit of wailing and people swearing that they’re never going to drink “that crap” again. There are even going to be some that declare Budweiser is now undrinkable even though Inbev will have done nothing to alter the recipe. But these folks are going to be in the minority. Americans will continue buying Bud at its market leading pace and most will forget that this even happened.

But if you drink beer in the US and are determined to never drink beer brewed by a company beholden to foreign masters your choices have suddenly changed dramatically. By my estimation the biggest American owned beer maker is now Boston Beer Company. Yep, the makers of Samuel Adams!

Better yet if you really want to keep your money at home how about buying from the local brewpub? You can pop in and buy about half a gallon of beer for a reasonable price, especially when you factor in the returnable growler. And the chances that an overseas company will come in and buy your new favorite brewer out from under you are remarkably thin.

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But what if *gasp* kids under the legal drinking age can get their hands on the game? I mean, it’s got beer in it. It’s even right there in the title! We might as well just hand them a fifth of Jack Daniels and a loaded pistol, right? It’s almost exactly the same thing!

Think that’s hyperbole? You won’t after reading Connecticut’s Attorney General Richard Blumenthal’s frantic ranting about the proposed video game. He’s already screamed loud enough to convince the game makers to change the name to a rather insipid “Pong Toss.” He promises to closely scrutinize the game and still insists that the game should be restricted to adults only even though all references to the demon beer have been removed.

That’s right, Dick, let’s continue to make even the mention of alcoholic beverages taboo and therefore titillating to kids. Instead of teaching them to respect what can be a very pleasurable part of life, let’s instead tell them that it’s secret and not for them because that works so very well with kids and teenagers!

Lighten up! It’s only a game and Wiis don’t come with beverage dispensers!

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Anyway, the report featured a store owner who was praising the new law allowing Sunday liquor sales. He pointed out that in other states where similar laws had passed the stores typically reported an increase in profits. It makes a lot of sense. Give customers another day to buy liquor – a day of leisure for many of them – and chances are they’ll buy more alcohol.

So this morning I logged on to Google news to read up a bit more on it. The first article I came to was this one: Sunday liquor sales start in Colorado. It opens with a store owner whining that Sunday used to be her only day off. What? She goes on to say that if she’d be given a choice she would have voted against the law.

OK, first, don’t own a business if you don’t want to work. Second, the law doesn’t require you to be open; it allows you to be open. If you want Sunday off DON’T OPEN YOUR DOOR! Third, what do you have against profits? If your goal is to work as little as possible then this extra weekend day of sales might make you enough money to hire some workers and allow you to go home and put your feet up.

And she’s not alone. The article goes on to quote other whiners. So I decided to check with another newspaper and found the same thing in the Colorado Springs Gazette. In Sunday liquor sales begin one store owner even calls this law a “hardship.” I would refer him to the previous paragraph.

What the hell is wrong with these people?

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But that is often how these things go and then through machinations that escape the understanding of most of us the deal goes through, the protesters realize that they were shouting into the wind and life goes on.

If that happens, though, the battle isn’t necessarily lost. It could be reversed.

One St. Louis brewer has come up with an ingenious solution to the problem: buy Inbev. If they can do it why can’t somebody else do it to them? Schlafly, a St. Louis craft brewer and, incidentally, the second biggest beer make in St. Louis, proposes to raise enough money to purchase Inbev. Therefore, if the takeover of A-B by the Belgian beer giant does go through then Budweiser will still, ultimately, be made by an American company.

It’s a plan so perfect it can’t possibly fail!

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