This Week in Beer: November 5th Edition

“To beer, the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.”

~Homer Simpson

As our memories of warm summers slowly fade into oblivion to be replaced by cold, overcast winter nights, there is one thing that we can use to make our season just a little brighter.  No, you big softies, not family and friends, we’re talking about beer.  Delicious happy hop juice.  And, continuing our weekly series, here’s some beer news you might not have heard.

This Week in Beer:  November 5^th Edition

Man Rushes Into Burning House To Save Beer

The word “hero” gets tossed around pretty cavalierly these days.  Sure, you might here it used to describe someone that stopped a shooter, or talked someone down from a bridge, but where’s the love for the Georgia man went back into his house to retrieve beer…while the house was on fire?  That’s what Walter Serpit did when flames broke out in his house as he was watching TV with six adults and two children.  After everyone evacuated, Serpit decided he didn’t want to lose his cherished beer friends, so he hobbled (yes, hobbled, as he walks with a cane) back to the burning building.

When asked for comment about his decision, he said, “I told them to get the kids out and everything, and me myself, being an alcoholic, I was trying to get my beer out.  You feel me?”  We now have that quotation on a banner hanging in our headquarters.

Chinese Pilots Use Helicopter To Open Beer Bottles

A video was recently uploaded that’s self-explanatory while requiring all the explanation in the world.   In it, as a sort of skill challenge for Chinese helicopter pilots, a bottle opener is attached to a helicopter, which is then delicately flown to a clamped down beer for the bottle cap to be removed.  The pilot in the video failed to get any points because, though he opened the bottle, he took a small chunk of the top with the bottle cap, which we think is bullshit.  If you are able to open a bottle of beer with a fucking helicopter in such a way that you can drink the beer afterwards, you deserve credit for it.  Because holy shit, you guys.

Man Stranded At Sea Saved By Beer

Sometimes, you’re hanging with your buddy, and after taking down eight beers by yourself, you and your bro decide that it’s a good idea to strip naked and jump into the sea.  Hey, don’t judge us for the way we like to spend time with our friends, okay?  Anyway, in this situation, what would be the worst case scenario?  The current carrying you out to sea for you to drown or, even worse, slowly freeze to death?  Well, that very nearly happened to a man in Herne Bay, England.  When two drunk buddies decided for a late night skinny dip session, one man was brought in with a life saver, but the second drifted off to sea, losing consciousness.  He had been in the water for over 45 minutes before he was rescued, but managed to miraculously survive, thanks in large part to the magic of beer.

According to the coastguard deputy station manager at Herne Bay Pier, “He had had eight cans of beer.  The paramedics said that it probably kept him alive because his body had slowed down so much that it might have helped him.”

So hopefully you all come out of this having learned a very valuable lesson about drinking while swimming—don’t do it, unless you’re really hammered, in which case you are invincible and will never die.  Yay beer!   

Winchester, Kentucky Launches Beer Cheese Trail

Beer Cheese is a regional dish that’s mainly found in Kentucky, but we can give you two guesses as to what it’s made of.  Holy shit, you legion of Sherlocks, you’re right—it’s a cheese spread that is made with beer.  Winchester, Kentucky has recently decided that this is something people should give more of a crap about (and they’d be right—why isn’t every bar in the world stocked with a free and unlimited supply of the stuff?) so they have introduced the Beer Cheese Trail, which allows people visiting the city to go from business to business to learn about Beer Cheese and, of course, to buy cheese products.  We have to tip our hat to the folks of Winchester on this one, if we ever found ourselves there, that’s the first thing we’d try to do.

Best High School Ever Teaches Kids How To Brew Beer

Quick, do you remember the best experiment you ever got to do during a high school class?  For many of you, it probably had something to do with cutting open a dead frog, pig fetus, or cow’s eye because it was gross and awesome and high school is pretty much a social experiment dedicated to making as many functional sociopaths as humanly possible.  That being said, you probably listed an experiment involving a scalpel and a lot of girls going, “Eww, this is so gross” because you didn’t go to high school at the Ralston Valley High School in Arvada, Colorado.  That’s where a biology teacher told his 15-year-old students to study how to brew beer as a lesson on alcoholic fermentation.  To further give this nameless teacher the title of “best teacher this school has ever had ever since the coolest teacher got busted for sleeping with some of his students,” he was offering extra credit to student’s who went to visit the Coors Brewery, which admittedly is about the worst brewery in the state of Colorado, but at least his heart is in the right place.

Of course, parents complained about the curriculum, since they felt it was giving mixed messages about alcohol consumption, because this is why we can’t have nice things, stupid loudmouth parents.  This class, with the beer lessons, has been taught without complaitn for eight years, so we can blame any negative press directly towards Adrienne Moerz, who is the soulless monster that decided to complain once she heard about the class from her daughter.  So remember, residents of Arvada, Colorado—if you see Adrienne Moerz, she’s the reason why your favorite things get taken away, and you should heckler her appropriately if you see her at a PTA meeting.

US Beer Consumption Increases

We did it!  After a three-year downturn in beer consumption the US beer industry has seen gains of 0.8%, again thanks largely in part to a 13.7% boost in craft beer purchases, meaning that America is drinking more beer, we’re drinking better beer, and the beer we’re drinking is more likely to get us drunk.  That’s just great news, and we can only assume that it’s largely due to AFFotD’s tireless efforts to get you as drunk as possible, using such tactics as showing you crazy strong beers, or just writing about what happened in beer news in the previous week, saying beer enough that you subconsciously start craving a beer, because hot damn that would hit the spot, just a nice rich beer for you to drink while kicking your feet up after a long hard day.  Man, how great would that be?  Yum.

Buy beer now.