Bottomshelf Beer Reviews: Milwaukee's Best Ice

When I started this blog I thought it would be kind of cool to do a bottomshelf beer review.  Not too long after my review of Mickey’s, I was at my local grocery store and I saw Milwaukee’s Best Ice.  I remember kind of laughing to myself and thinking, “one day I might even have to review that shit.”  Little did I know it at the time, but the bottomshelf beer reviews would become far and away the most widely read section of this blog.  And so when I went to the grocery store to get taco fixin’s I saw Milwaukee’s Best Ice staring back at me from the shelf, and knew what I had to do.

Me and this guy have EVERYTHING in common!!!

There are plenty of beers I love that I haven’t had in a long time, like Three Floyds Alpha King or even a simple 30 pack of Lacrosse Lager.  On the other hand, I haven’t had Milwaukee’s Best or “The Beast” in years, This is no accident.  I don’t remember what “The Beast” tastes like, and since I turned 21 I honest to God can’t remember drinking it, even once.  I DO remember swearing it off for the rest of my life, like a Samurai Warrior that’s made a vow to God never to kill again.  But like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Commando, I was forced out of retirement.  Arnold had to fight a pudgy Australian in a chainmail shirt. I fought “The Beast” Ice AKA “The Yeti” for you, dear reader.

Milwaukee's Best Ice AKA The Beast Ice AKA The Yeti doing what it does best.

Everyone knows that Ice Beers are disgusting, whether it’s Gameday Ice or Asshouse (Icehouse,) but what makes an Ice Beer “Ice?”  Well, to answer that you have to understand that alcohol, for all intents and purposes, doesn’t freeze.  When they brew an Ice beer, they make it a little colder than usual, so some of the water and other stuff forms ice crystals.  They filter that shit out, and since the alcohol didn’t freeze what’s left has more alcohol and less water.  So whereas normal beer is like 5% alcohol; “The Yeti” is 5.9%.  Many Bothans died to bring us this information.

"Brewing Ice Beer is a delicate process..."

Scene from the Ice Beer Wars

The first Ice Beer was Molson Ice released in 1993, shortly thereafter the so-called “Ice-Beer wars” began.  Brewers competed to make the cheapest beer that had one or two percentage points more alcohol than the competition.   Millions died, and as was the case in Norse mythology, only a few of the Ice Beers or “Frost Giants” survived Ragnarok (the 1990’s.)  “The Yeti” is one of the grizzled survivors of this ghastly conflict; it’s outlived its usefulness, a relic of a forgotten era, like the Samurai after the collapse of the Shogunate.  So it just sits there, on the shelf, costing seven bucks for two six-packs.  Fuck, how bad could it be?

It’s…actually…not that bad.  I was expecting the worst.  It doesn’t have a lot of taste, but that’s a good thing.  It tastes like someone topped off a watery beer like Keystone Light with maybe a shot of Gameday.    Not good mind you, but not as evil tasting as Asshouse or Steel Reserve.  It has some of that disgusting copper taste you get with beers of this ilk, but it doesn’t taste like someone put a handful of pennies and rotten fruit in it when you weren’t looking.  I actually drank four cans of this stuff last night, and as long as it was cold I could barely tell they cut corners to make a cheapo beer.

That is, until I woke up today.  I had a motherfucking headache, and I don’t get headaches from drinking.  Despite what the Castro brothers will tell you, I am not the Superman of drinking.  That being said, I don’t really get hangovers.  If I get completely shitfaced I’ll wake up with cottonmouth or a queasy stomach.  But I sure as shit don’t wake up with a headache after four fucking beers.  I didn’t even get drunk last night.  What kind of shit are they putting in this stuff?  Turpentine? 

The secret ingredient

I can only recommend this beer to people that plan to die before they wake up the next day, and serious Prohibition Era history buffs.  Like the bathtub brewed swill of yesteryear, this shit is a liquid headache.  I won’t be surprised if I go blind.  Carrie Nation died too soon.

Carrie Nation is awfully fug, so here's a picture of Carrie Underwood where you can kinda see her nerps.

 

Childhood Stories: The Deep Sea Battle

Danny O'D age 8

This post is part of a series of my childhood stories.

Ahh a sequel, (to The Monk Battle) I bet you were all waiting with baited breath.  This story like the one before was written for extra credit in Mrs. Lynn’s second grade class.  Specifically it was written on May 1, 1991.  This story was also inspired by an illustration from The Great Waldo Search; however it has far less to do with the original illustration and bears little in common with the source material save for the fact that they both take place under the sea.  It is also shorter than the first story, because a paragraph at the time was defined as being ten sentences long and a paragraph was the minimum I had to write to gain the extra credit.  I could’ve written more…IF I WAS A SUCKER! Daaammnn!

Note the lack of any sort of battle.  I seem to be moving away from plagarism.

  THE DEEP SEA BATTLE

                      by Dan O'Dwyer

Once upon a time, in an ocean by where the monk battel was.  There where

a lot of things under the sea.  And the things that lived on land

where going to do plan X.  Who would know about good old plan X ?

The water things would(I would  write a Dum-Dee-Dum-Dum thing but,

I can't write music).  So the battel came around the sea.  No whon

could get in but,the person who was in power of the mane controll

broke a nail.  And scremed so loud she broke the controll.

                                              EEEEEEEEEEEE

TTTTTTTTT    HH       HH    EE

    T                  HH       HH    EE

    T                  HH       HH    EEEEEEEEEEEE

    T                  HHHHHHH   EE

    T                  HH       HH    EE

    T                  HH       HH    EEEEEEEEEEEE

    T                  HH       HH

                  END

Rereading this story now, the plotline is a little (read: a lot) incoherent.  In retrospect I should have written a few more sentences explaining what the hell was going on, but that would have diverted valuable cartoon watching time.  What is plan X?  How would it help the land creatures fight the sea creatures? 

As the author I wish I could shed some light on the subject, but I undoubtedly forgot before I was old enough to grow hair in “funny places.”  There’s also a strong possibility that I never actually had the details of Plan X figured out; however I can guarantee that if I did have it figured out it undoubtedly involved ninjas, M.C. Hammer, surfers, dinosaurs or some combination thereof.

Plan X?

This is also one of the only stories I’ve ever read that contained music within the narrative, which I think is a nice touch. Unlike the songs in the Lord of the Rings novels which were just fucking stupid.  The “music” in this short story is also superior to the music in the LOTR because it’s short, relevant to the story, and not about shoving an elf penis up a hobbit’s ass. 

Typical woman

The joke that women freak out when they break a nail seems a little sexist in today’s PC culture.  I have since seen the error of my ways and I would like to apologize for this stereotype.  Women don’t need to break a nail to flip out; they’ll flip out for any or no reason because they are insane.  Glad I could clear that up, but seriously she broke a nail! Get it?  Ho ho ho! I slay me.

The end of the story is spelled out quite literally in giant letters, although the reader can’t be quite sure exactly what happened in the story at least they know that the story came to a definite (and sexist) conclusion.  I do remember that writing the word “THE” took more time and planning than writing the actual story itself, leading me to give up on writing the word “END” in a similar fashion and instead simply typing the word out.

I wish I could tell you things have gotten a lot better since then, but I wrote this commentary on The Deep Sea Battle a few years ago.  Lazy, lazy, lazy. Granted I had a busy week at work, and I’ve got a cold.  It took a herculean effort just to post this.  I’ll have something brand new for next week.

Sorry for falling BEHIND!  I don't want to BUM you out! Also Jessica Alba has a nice ass.

Bottomshelf Beer Reviews: Coors Light

Coors was founded in 1873 by Adolph Coors.  They are now the third largest brewer in the United States, after Miller and Anheuser-Busch.   In 1873 America was largely racist, sexist, homophobic, and anti-union.  Things have changed a lot in America since 1873, and at Coors, well…at least they stopped having Klan rallies on company grounds.  In 1984 William Coors was talking to a group of blacks and said that, if they thought it was “unfair” that their “ancestors were dragged here in chains against their will…I would urge those of you who feel that way to go back to where your ancestors came from, and you will find out that probably the greatest favor that anybody ever did you was to drag your ancestors over here in chains, and I mean it."  Jesus Christ, that’s pretty fucking harsh.  In fairness to Coors, that was all the way back in 1984, and now the can says, “Do something cool. Recycle.”  Progress.

Tap the Rockies with Lindsey Vonn's boobies

Coors is not only America’s most progressive beer company.  They also make the biggest deal out of coldness.  If you go to their website it’s all icy peaks and ski lodges. They also talk a lot about how Coors Light is cold brewed and cold filtered and all their trucks are ice-cold.  I mean I like cold beer, but I don’t see the connection between beer brewed in an igloo and phenomenal taste.  It’d be kind of like if I had an instant coffee factory that I kept at a scalding 212 degrees.  Who cares?  And I got news for you, all lager is cold brewed, that’s what makes it a lager.  The can also has some mountains on it that turn dark blue when the beer is cold enough, which I think is actually kind of nice.  There’s nothing worse than warm beer, except Lo Pan.

Oh shit! It's fucking Lo Pan.

Catherine Bach as Daisy Duke.

Coors and Coors Light used to only be available west of the Mississippi, and were considered a delicacy in the Eastern half of the country.  This was the subject of the 1977 classic Smokey and the Bandit, which is probably my second favorite hillbilly movie, after 2,000 Maniacs.  In the movie Burt Reynolds and Jerry Reed are hired by two Boss Hogg-like brothers to smuggle a truckload of Coors from Texas to Georgia, and hijinks ensue.  The film’s only flaw is that Sally Field’s part should have been played by that chick from The Dukes of Hazzard.  Nowadays, Coors is available everywhere, and no one really cares that much.

Look, I don’t hate Coors Light, but I don’t really like it that much either.  Usually if Coors Light is available something I like better is also available at a cheaper price.  As far as light beers go it’s far from the worst.  It’s certainly better than Miller Lite, but as a general rule I don’t like light beer.  Light beer is like beer flavored Kool-Aid.  It tastes like beer in many ways, but you can tell something is missing.  Light beer compared to beer is like Major League II compared to the original.  When you’re flipping through channels you might get taken off guard for a second then you realize the jokes aren’t that funny, there’s no swearing, and what the hell happened to Wesley Snipes?  Light beer happened to Wesley Snipes (that and tax evasion.) 

Coors Light might not be the best beer in the world, but at least it’s drinkable.  It doesn’t taste like much, but at least it doesn’t taste bad.  And what it lacks in flavor it makes up for in racist right-wing ideology(?).  But my biggest gripe with Coors Lite is those fucking commercials where they take NFL press conferences out of context and have a couple of fucking idiots pretending to ask the coach questions about Coors Light.  They’re not funny and I usually see like ten of them during a typical game, which is ten too many.  Fuck your marketing department Coors Light.

Unless of course, your marketing department made this.

Childhood Stories: The Monk Battle

This entry is part of a series of my childhood stories.

I feel old, and kinda creepy

This is the first story I could find on my hard drive.  The file was last modified on April 22, 1991, meaning that I wrote this before Miley Cyrus was born.    The date would seem to indicate that this was written in the latter part of the school year, but I thought I started writing before Christmas.  I might have deleted some of my earlier work; in fact I seem to recall cleaning some things off the hard drive in the fourth-grade because my Doom mods were taking up too much space.  Whoops!  It’s also possible that I modified this story at a later date, although one could ask what revisions were made; I obviously didn’t fix the spelling.  In any case, this seems to be the first thing I wrote on a computer that still exists.         

                      The Monk Battle

                      by Dan O'Dwyer

    Once upon a time  some pople where  pigging out.  intill one day a

    wizard came to the land.  Althou he was a bad wizard who made

    tarer in the place, but his brother was a good wizard.

    Then is when the monk battle started.  They fought on rocks

    but, there were lots of holes in the ground.  Some of the holes

    were volcanos.  There were clifs, mountains, rivers, motes, and

    bridges,and reuins.  And the monks baddled for millions

    of years.  People got destroyed, I'm not going to tell

    how (you don't want to no how).  Anyway, the wizards

    had a BIG FIGHT and they all retreated because they got tired

    and hungrey.  The bad wizard made a  maze so good gys could not

    get in the casel.Not a good idea because he never put

    a brain in the beasts in the maze.He sent all of his

    men out with a lader he didn't want to waste his migic.

    The bad was winning intil the good used magic. The

    brother went in maze the other brother pland for him

    to get knocked dead, but he was a wizard, so he survived.

    Then they fought and the good brother won.  And the bad

    army melted.        THE END

This story was written for extra credit in Mrs. Lynn’s 2^nd grade class, as are many of the other stories in this collection.  Like many of the other stories I wrote for Mrs. Lynn’s class, this story is eerily similar to an illustration from Martin Hanford’s “Where’s Waldo?” series.  I would also like to point out that William Shakespeare only wrote two stories that were not based on history or legend.  I guess that makes me a pretentious dick, and a plagiarist.  Oh well, it wasn’t really my fault.  I got a Waldo book for Christmas in the first grade, and I would spend literally hours soaking in every nuance of the insanely detailed illustrations.  I guess I could’ve watched more TV, but we didn’t have cable because my parents were cheap.

Note bridge, river, rocks, holes in ground, and monks

My original copy, ruined by cookie stained hands

Now, the two wizard brothers were probably inspired by the 1977 animated film “Wizards,” which I remember being fucking awesome.  The reason I didn’t tell the reader how people got destroyed was…laziness.  Definitely laziness.  The armies getting “tired and hungrey” was no doubt inspired by the two biggest problems in my 8 year-old life.  Twenty years later you can add sobriety to the list. 

After the bad guys go into the maze with a “lader” the story gets a little choppy choppier.  You can still tell what happened, but there are absolutely no details.  This was probably because I’d already hit the minimum limit for the extra credit and decided to bail.  So the good wizard didn’t get knocked dead, and he defeated his evil brother (somehow.)  Then the bad army melted, which I would contend to this day is a pretty sweet ending.*

Not hot

*I was trying to find some babes to spruce up this article, so I searched for “sexy Waldo” expecting a bounty of hot chicks dressed as my favorite literary character in a low-cut candy cane striped sweater.  No such luck, apparently the only girls that dress as Waldo are really fucking nerdy.  I did find a sexy Waldo costume available for purchase.  I don’t know how sexy it is. I mean, it’s certainly a costume, I guess.  If you’re trying to dress as your Aunt for Halloween I guess it might work, provided you’re trying to have sex with your Uncle.  On the other hand, if you’re trying to get a nerd boyfriend, just dress as Princess Leia from Return of the Jedi.  

Now that's more like it.