Drink-a-Pint

Same great taste, but newer packaging that’ll make it… uhh… err… look better?

After testing the rebranded beer in 45 Outback Steakhouse restaurants, MillerCoors saw double-digit sales increases and are now rolling out the new oil cans and 12-packs to retail outlets this month with kegs to follow in September.

Personally, I’m going to stick to my tried and true blue oil can. For some reason, everytime a beer I like puts out (or renames themselves as) a “premium” line, it just never tastes better and I always end up back where I started.

I’m an insane pumpkin devotee. As Fall draws nearer, I sometimes find myself yearning for a Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte, a pumpkin pie ice cream sundae, some pumpkin bread or a dozen yummy Krispy Kreme Pumpkin Spice Donuts… ahhhh, pumpkin spice season… Some people talk about packing on a couple pounds during the holidays. For me, the weight-gain season spans September, October, November, December and possibly even into January depending on what tasty pumpkin foods and drinks are still lingering. (I even started a Squidoo page dedicated to pumpkin spice a few months ago, but never really finshed the thing…)

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I’ve had a couple people say to me that I should bottle and sell some of the homebrewed beer I’ve mixed up over the past couple years. And, while hearing that always makes me smile from ear to ear, there’s always the little things to think about: licensing, production, marketing, distribution, financials… yikes… I’m fine doing it up one case at a time, thank you.

But, the guys at Samuel Adams are here to make that dream happen with the Longshot - American Homebrew Contest. Each Spring, a couple of lucky homebrewers actually get to see their beer on liquor store shelves from coast-to-coast, without having to worry about all the stuff it takes to make that happen.

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I haven’t written much about Belgium-based InBev’s efforts to buy Anheuser-Busch over the past couple of weeks because it involved staggering numbers that made my head spin ($52,000,000,000?), was being talked about in every major newspaper and, quite frankly, I didn’t think it’d actually happen. I mean, what drinks are more American than Budweiser? You’ve got Coke, Pepsi and… and… yeah, that’s about it. Budweiser, as much as I hate to admit it, is the American beer and I never imagined it’d be anything other than that.

Well, you can imagine my surprise when I heard the news this morning that InBev had finally convinced the Anheuser-Busch board to turn over the keys to a foreign company. The Clydesdales, the Budweiser Frogs, the Real Men of Genius, those annoying Wazzzzuuupp guys and even the Clydesdale Donkey are now officially foreigners as another piece of America is sold to the highest bidder.

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$50 in 2008 doesn’t go nearly as far as it used to. Hell, I can’t even fill up my Jeep Liberty for fifty bucks, but apparently I can become part-owner of a new brewing company.

That’s the plan for BeerBankroll.com, which my friend James sent my way the other day. They’re looking to combine “crowd funding” with brewery ownership to “create an online community for beer lovers to share their ideas and at the same time create a brewing company.”

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