“Beer beer, the wonderful brew, the more you drink it, the more you spew.”
~Ancient Chinese Proverb
Last week we introduced our newest weekly segment, “This Week in Beer,” where we detailed the latest trends in beer. We don’t mean to overstate its impact on your life, but we spent a few paragraphs berating the government for shutting down, leaving breweries unable to get new recipes or labels approved, and six hours after we submitted the article, the government opened again. That’s right. Remember, when everyone in America wakes up to find a pony in their front yard that has been given to them as a gift by their local Congressman, you can thank us for telling them to do that (or you can shout, “What the fuck, AFFotD, my apartment is going to be covered in pony shit” which is totally a valid response. We really didn’t think this whole pony plan through, to be honest).
An educated American is a drunk American, so we’re going to continue our quest to give you all the most relevant beer news you can, because you’re far too sober for a Tuesday right now.
This Week In Beer: October 16-October 22
Hangover Cure Company Releases a Map of America’s Favorite Beers (by state)
We’ve never heard of Blowfish, the company that sells Alka-Seltzer tablets of caffeine and aspirin as a hangover cure, but we like the way they’re trying to get their name out there. They released an interactive series of maps that list every state’s favorite beer (let’s all just shake our heads sadly at California and Hawaii for being the only states that prefer Corona), while breaking down each state’s drinking rank, hangover rank, as well as listing their top 3 favorite beers, cocktails, and shots. They even give a fun fact about drinking for each state, because they correctly hoped that we’d appreciate the work they put on these lists so much that we’d overlook their blatant attempt to rip off our American States of America series.
You can spend all day on this site learning about the way America gets down and dirty with their booze, like how we consume 122 billion drinks per year, or that Maine drinks more than any other state in the nation. You can get lost in these maps, which were also made to show each state’s favorite shot or the amount of times people of each state calls in sick because of a hangover. Hell, we might buy some Blowfish just to reward them for putting this much research into American boozing.
Before We Go Any Further, Here’s a Toddler Drinking a Beer at a Cleveland Browns Tailgate
We have to thank Deadspin for giving this to us. Now, each time we have a friend say he doesn’t want to order another drink, we can show them this picture and say, “Come on, you’re gonna let this kid outpace you?”
This Week Is Baltimore Beer Week
According to that picture up there, the governor of Maryland decided that October 2nd to November 2nd was Maryland beer month. Now, why they decided to have their “beer month” go into November, as opposed to sticking with the full month of October, we don’t know, but we’re never going to be ones to look a gift government proclaimed beer month in the mouth. Apparently, as s subset of this, October 18th through the 27th has been named “Baltimore Beer Week” which, again, you guys need to learn how a calendar works, with your months that start on the 2nd and your weeks that are 10 days long.
This is apparently the fifth year Baltimore has done a beer week, and this year it involves 366 activities throughout that city you know primarily because of its role in The Wire. Impressively enough, it was organized by just three people, which goes to show that Baltimore doesn’t half ass things when it comes to getting everyone drunk.
MIT Puts Too Much Thought Into Their Beer Pong Tables
The good folks at Gawker recently unearthed a video (confusingly paired with soft-jazz) made by MIT Phi Beta Epsilon member Christian Reed to hawk his custom-made, unnecessarily complex pong table (presumably to make you feel the urge to purchase one for your frat or super depressing 30th birthday party). It’s sturdy enough to be “dunk proof” (because apparently in MIT people actually sully the game of beer pong by leaping onto the table to smash a ball into a cup on the other side and ruin everything), moves effortlessly on coasters, has a gutter collection system, illuminated lettering, and a ball cleaning system. Keep in mind, all of this effort is being used for beer pong, an American sport that only requires a table, two ping pong balls, and 22 red Solo cups.
You’re probably thinking we’d be fans of putting all this focus on a devise that literally can only be used for beer pong, but you’d be wrong. This is stupid and unnecessary, and probably cost hundreds of dollars just to make. Hundreds of dollars that could better be spent getting a board of balsa wood to drape over your table while you go to the grocery store and buy 400 domestic beers. When an American has that kind of money at his disposal, he uses it to get drunk. When Christian Reed gets that money he decides to show off his love of Kenny G and his flair for engineering. That’s bad, Christian Reed is bad, and he should feel bad for all of this.
A Beer Is Now Sponsoring a NASCAR Car Because of Course* It Is
*pun intended
Colorado’s Oskar Blues Brewery (aka “that beer that’s actually pretty good even though it weirds you out to spend twelve bucks on a six pack of canned beer”) became the first brewery to ever have its logo affixed to a NASCAR car when they put the logo of their Dale’s Pale Ale on Landon Cassill’s car. Full disclosure, this was a one-time thing, and it happened on October 11th, but we still added it to this week’s rundown because you deserve to know this, and we didn’t want to delete that one pun we came up with for this section.
Yuengling Is Coming Back To Massachusetts
Yuengling is America’s oldest brewery, and the most popular American-based-brewery-with-a-strongly-foreign-sounding-name. It’s also that beer that people get way more excited about than they should because it’s not available everywhere. If your state doesn’t get Yuengling, or if you moved from a state that sells it to one that doesn’t, you probably will pine for it, and each time you’re on the east coast and find a twelve pack of it you get really excited. And then you drink it and realize it’s a cheap beer that tastes alright, but isn’t anything special. It’s better than Bud Light or PBR, but so is Old Style or drinking Listerine to quell the shakes.
But fear not, residents of Massachusetts! After two decades of having to drive like, what, an hour and a half to get to another state to buy cheap beer, Yuengling has decided to open shop again in your fair state. Good for you! It’s not like you have any breweries in your state that helped revolutionize American microbrewing while selling cheap, high quality beers or anything. At the end of the day, this is the best thing to have ever happened to Boston, because now New York can’t brag that they’re the only ones who get Yuengling anymore.
(Yes, we know that a lot of states in the East and South get Yuengling, but don’t tell New Yorkers that, they will refuse to believe you.)
America Fun Fact of the Day 