Inflation explosion

[gowlerk 1,905]

8 minutes ago, lippy said:

 Bill,

From a brief meeting at Eloy years ago to reading your posts here, I’ve had nothing but the upmost respect for you…please don’t ruin that by telling you’re a fan of Molson. 
 

 

Beer snob? Why not, we already have a wine snob and a whiskey snob here!

[lippy 771]

7 minutes ago, gowlerk said:

Beer snob? Why not, we already have a wine snob and a whiskey snob here!

I think I’m just beer butt-hurt. Been stuck in TX for way too long….just landed in Toronto all pumped to get some Alexander Keith’s in me but there’s not a drop of it to be found in the airport! And the bars will all be closed by the time I land in Sydney tonight….not a snob, just butt-hurt

[billvon 2,395]

1 hour ago, lippy said:

 Bill,

From a brief meeting at Eloy years ago to reading your posts here, I’ve had nothing but the upmost respect for you…please don’t ruin that by telling you’re a fan of Molson. 

Let me tell you about my beer experiences over the years.  (Warning - long digression)

The first beer I ever tried was Schlitz, at a neighborhood barbeque when I was about 14.  I thought all beer tasted like that for a while.

In high school I worked as a busboy and I had a 6'4" friend who could get beer whenever he wanted.  (Also helped that the drinking age was 18.)  But at that age, the sort of beer we preferred was . . . whatever we could get.  Molson was actually considered higher up on the list than our usual beers - fine brews like Schlitz, Rheingold and Ballantine.  This was also the age where I started driving and going to that aforementioned Dairy Barn because the parents needed milk and eggs and I was home that night.  And I would occasionally get a six of Molson and feel like I had pulled off a very clever trick.

Then in college I still had the problem of having absolutely no money.  We had a beer co-op and again the beer that I bought for it was the cheapest available.  Red White and Blue was a popular one.  The most disgusting beer we had was Kappy's.  Kappy's was a nearby liquor warehouse that would get cases of off-brand rejects and relabel them as Kappy's.  But you couldn't beat the price.

One day I was at the Warehouse and there was a sale on a new beer called Sam Adam's.  I got a case (it was almost as cheap as Red White and Blue due to the sale) and brought it back.  I liked it, but got no end of grief because I spent more money on strange and different beer.  So that was the end of that.

By senior year I could see that I was going to be able to make my last tuition payment - barely - and I stepped up to Budweiser.  I thought that was a big step up, to be able to have actual bottles of Bud in my own dorm fridge.  Life was good.

After college I met Amy, and she was from Portland, and thus I got to experience some bizarre new beer.  I found a new favorite - McMenamin's Ruby - and started exploring IPA's, pales and ambers.  At that point there wasn't too much craft beer out there, and I sort of assumed that you had to go to the Northwest to find it.

About a year after that I got sent to Tulsa, OK for a month to work on American Airlines airplanes (one of the first inflight wifi systems.)  And while there I discovered that they were selling Blue Moon in bars.  Up until that point I hadn't thought of bars as places to find decent beer; they pretty much all just had Bud, Coors and Miller.  But the times they were a-changin and after that I started looking around for bars that had good beer, and not waiting until I was in Portland.  I mean, if they had a witbier in TULSA of all places  . . .

Then came the brewery explosion in San Diego (156 at last count.)  And we discovered Lost Abbey and Tomme Arthur, and thus discovered Belgians, stouts and barrel aging.  We would spend hours there every weekend after skydiving at Perris. Then came homebrewing and a few awards at local competitions.  Then came the Beer Judge Certification course, and a handful of beer competitions as a judge.  Then came Kelsey and his desire to open a brewery, and we invested in a big way.  And that brings me up to today, where we have access to an amazing amount of good beer in San Diego.  The brewing scene here has become so good that a brewery that makes good beer gets passed by these days for the breweries that make amazing beer.

And around the time that I started homebrewing it became fashionable to look down one's nose at Budweiser (and even poor old Molson.)  They weren't craft beer!  They were like sex in a canoe!  Only losers drank such swill, perhaps even formerly penniless losers like me.  But after I brewed for a while I realized that a really skilled brewer is not the brewer who can make a one-off hazy IPA that's amazing, but hard to reproduce.  It's the brewer who can make exactly the same beer, that tastes exactly the same, over hundreds of batches with changing water chemistry, changing malt starch content, and evolving yeast.

So I won't go so far as to say I like drinking Molson or Budweiser if there are other options available - but I have a lot more respect for the people who make it than I used to.  And occasionally I'll get a Bud because it's what's free at whatever event I'm at, and I don't hate it.

And with that I return us to our regularly scheduled Speaker's Corner topic.

[gowlerk 1,905]

11 minutes ago, billvon said:

They were like sex in a canoe!

Which is awesome when done correctly.

[brenthutch 383]

The White House claimed inflation was transitory and caused by supply chain disruptions.  They now claim to have fixed the supply chain.  So good news everyone!  If the White House is correct inflation for December should be back to the Feds. target of 2%.