TSITS: Average Beer

Did you know that Portland, Oregon has the most micro-breweries per capita in the US? Have you ever seen what appears to be a bottle of wine but instead is some crazy beer from the Czech Republic that cost $45? Ever offer to grab some beers and have one of your friends request a beer that was extra hoppy and not know what that means?

Welcome to the world of micro-brews. Now, please leave. Why? Because this isn't called "That shit isn't the shit" this is called "That shit is the shit" and you know what's the shit? Average beers.

Let's be clear here, I'm not against micro-brews, I like them, they make you feel good by supporting some little guy in a brewery on either the
Northeast or Northwest coast who looks like Geppetto bikes to work buys wind energy and is just passionate about his craft blah blah blah.

Good for you (GFY), and I hate to kill the buzz from your 17 different varieties of barely, but average beers are the shit. Miller High Life is, obviously, my favorite. Why? I don't know. I just know that I can buy a six pack for less than $5 take it home sit down and drink one, four or six of them and have myself a nice little night. Or I could go buy a case of Coors Original, "The Banquet Beer" and bring them over to a friends, dump them into a kiddie pool of ice and settle in for a nice long pretension free night.

Why else are average beers the shit? Quite simply, they have to work to stick out from the pack. So what do they do? They put in superfluous technology and that is also the shit. Like color changing mountains - just in case you lose your sense of touch you can rely upon the rockies turning blue to warn you that you are about to crack open a nice cold one. Disaster averted, "Christ, to think I was about to have luke warm Coors Light? Thank the Gods for these blue mountains." Or take the vortex bottle, which seems to be just a bunch of grooves on the inside of the bottle. This is designed to make the beer pour smoother - which we all know has been a long standing problem with Miller Light. "Damnit, my Miller Light is all foamy. We can put a man on the moon but we can't get my ML to pour smoothly? Is there no justice in this world?" Those are the technological advances that are seriously the shit.

I'll always remember being in college and friend's parents coming to visit and laughing at our 30 racks of Keystone Light. "How do you guys even drink that stuff?" they'd ask. I just figured that no longer drinking cheap beer would be a right of passage as you get older, like backhair. But you know what? I still love seeing 'stones in the fridge, and still like sitting down with the old reliable blue can and putting on the Pearl Jam DVD now as much as I did then.

So it's for their full bodied flavor that always fills you up and never lets you down that average beers are seriously the shit.