“How many beers must a man down, before you can call him a man?”
~Bob Dylan
A wise man once said, “Shut up I don’t care if you ran out of introductions to do for this weekly beer news gimmick, just have one of the interns jot down a random sentence once he’s done with his AFFotD sanctioned cage match. You can tell him I made you do it, me, Johnny Roosevelt, editor-in-chief of America Fun Fact of the Day.” We’re pretty sure it was Ghandi, but the real quotation attribution has been lost to time. Anyway, beer time.
This Week In Beer: November 12th Edition
Drunk Blackhawks Fans Pour Beer on a Players Head, Steals His Helmet
When sports were invented, so too was the concept of mixing sports with alcohol. Originally, this lead to a lot of inebriated wrestlers in Greece accidentally strangled themselves to death. Eventually, we realized that sport spectators should be the ones boozing, which then lead to a lot of inebriated spectators rushing onto the court and strangling Greek wrestlers. At some point after that, the sport of hockey was invented, and they immediately knew that they had to separate the drunken fans from the violent players with giant boards of glass, lest hockey players get strangled or get their helmet stolen or something silly like that.
Of course, even the best laid plans don’t always work out, and during a game last week between the Chicago Blackhawks and the Winnipeg Jets, a massive hit on Adam Pardy pushed the Jets forward into the audience, where of course pandemonium ensued. And by pandemonium, we mean to say “the drunkest fan in the history of hockey stole Pardy’s helmet and wore it on his head like the a goddamn trophy while a woman next to him poured beer on the player’s head just to rub salt into the wounds.”
Because you can’t spell “classy” without “holy hell those two fans are shitfaced.”
Germans Think That Beer Is Better Than Therapy
A German health official caused a stir by implying that you’re better off drinking away your problems with a nice warm beer than “talking about them” with a “licensed professional” to “address your feelings” and “start the long but fruitful path towards mental well-being” because that is totally a responsible thing for a government employee to tell people. Josef Hecken, a chairman of the group that determines which treatments the nation’s health system should provide, stated that a beer or two a night can help mild “occasional problems” such as sleep disorders, and that not everyone would need a psychotherapist if your problems are minor enough to be pushed aside with a nice mild buzz.
Clearly, the response to this story is sensationalized, as Hecken was speaking off the cuff during a meeting of German health insurers and wasn’t positing any actual plan that replaced therapy with beer, but if he actually decided to make that policy it would be the most German policy ever enacted. “DAST FEELINGS? DRINKEN BEER!” is what we imagine everyone would say. Or something like that. The hell if we know, we don’t speak a damn word of any language other than English, and even then we tune out all of the non-American English terms.
Congresswoman Aims To Lower Tax On Beer
It’s pretty easy to get cynical about the state of the Legislature in America. We all are only a month removed from a government shutdown that affected everyone from breweries to military veterans with medical costs, so we’re not exactly tripping over ourselves to find reasons to praise members of the House. That said, U.S. Representative Annie Kuster of New Hampshire is doing what she can to fix this through the best way possible—beer. Kuster is co-sponsoring legislation that would drop the federal excise tax in half on the first 60,000 barrels of beer for craft breweries that produce fewer than 6 million barrels a year. This basically means that microbreweries (which you might recognize as the breweries that make the best beer) will have an easier time competing in the market, which means more beer for everybody, and we can’t find any fault with that.
Sam Adams-Flavored Cigars Exist Now
Ted’s Cigars in Louisville recently decided to partner with Samuel Adams to make a cigar that has been seasoned with craft beer. This isn’t their first product that mixes alcohol and cigars, but it is the first time they’ve done so with beer (their other products include Makers Mark, Jim Beam, and Grand Marnier flavored cigars). Ted’s Cigars is a wholesale and online seller, which means that you don’t have to go down to Louisville to try this delicious product. Samuel Adams is releasing the cigar in conjunction with their 2013 batch of Utopias (which you might recall as being one of the most alcoholic beers in America) so it’s the perfect tobacco product to purchase if you would like to have some kitchy offering from Samuel Adams but don’t feel like shelling out $199 for a single limited-edition beer. Of course, if you want a 10 pack of Utopias cigars it’ll be setting you back around $110, so you might as well buy both if you’re comfortable swinging that kind of cash for alcohol novelty purchases.
Drunk Turkeys Are The Tastiest Turkeys
New Hampshire turkey farmer Joe Morette is raising about 50 turkeys this year for the Thanksgiving Holiday, but his gobblers have something that Butterball doesn’t—one helluva booze tolerance. Every year since 1993, after his workers accidentally spilled a can of beer and the turkeys started drinking it, he has been feeding his birds a diet primarily consisting of beer. Morette feels that the turkeys have a richer, more juicy flavor, and that the beer makes his birds fatter and delicious. While this isn’t the first time someone has used beer or alcohol in the feeding of livestock, it does feel like the ultimate way to celebrate Thanksgiving—if you’re going to get drunk with your family and eat turkey, shouldn’t the turkey also get drunk too? It’s what the pilgrims would have wanted, dammit.
And come to think of it, it’s what we want. Looks like we’re going to have to go down to New Hampshire and get one of these drunk birds before all you vultures get there first.
America Fun Fact of the Day 