Some of you may be surprised to learn that I rarely spend more than 23 hours a day on my computer looking for those choice tidbits of Catholic news to exite, inspire, motivate or rile you.
Sometimes I even read other news (of course with a Catholic connection). Bill Donohue, mild-mannered street radical who has been tasked with leading the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights is currently mastermining a boycott of the Miller Brewing Company (legal name: SABMiller plc) for their having sponsored a homosexual party or meeting or convention in San Francisco (there, it's hard to make a distinction between those types of events) using a photo staged mockery of DaVinci's Last Supper mural painting on a will in Milan, Italy. A Miller Lite beer logo was featured on the advertisement.
If you know anything about Donohue, he doesn't quit once he gets started.
Well, I was surfing away this morning after St Anthony's Marian Mass and Holy Hour up Nordeast and came across a news article about beer, one of my other loves. It mentioned how the big guys who control well over 90% of the beer market, are nervous about that other 5% owned by the "craft brewers", the little guys. So the big guys like Bud, Miller, Coors, etc., are putting out "craft beers" theirselves under names that don't identify them as owners.
The article mentioned that Miller owns Leinenkugel's in Chippewa Falls, WI, one of my favorites. I thought it was owned by Coors. So no more Leinie's for me! So I decided to check and see what other brands that Miller might own.
And lo and behold, when I did my Google search and found the SABMiller plc home page, I clicked and what did my wondering eyes see but the following paragraph:
US residents under the age of 21 are not permitted to enter this section of the SABMiller plc website. No persons under the age of 18 are permitted to enter this section of the SABMiller plc website and will be redirected to the home page.
Please enter your details below and click 'Enter':
So now it is illegal to read beer ads?
Now avid readers of Stella Borealis might recall that in an earlier post today I made note of the fact that computers are more than science and electronics and don't always work properly. Just now, SABMiller's computer told me that my birthday is wrong and that I was born in Egypt.
So I can't tell you what brands of beer they sell.
I can tell you to boycott Miller including MGD and the Leinenkugel brands.
3 comments:
Americans have rediscovered how beer should taste, which is why the major breweries are worried.
Since 1934 (according to IRS records) major American beer companies have steadily increased the percentage of corn and rice. In 1934 corn and rice were 18% of the beer making materials. In 1974 they were 32%. (In Germany, using these grains is against the law.) Beers made by major American breweries are also apparently often loaded with sugars, syrups, stabilizers, artificial coloring, preservatives, clarifiers.
Additionally, in 1934 37 million pounds of hops were used in 58 million barrels of beer. In 1974, the same amount of hops produced 145 million barrels of beer.
Source: Syracuse New Times, September 28, 1975
Thanks for the comments, Vincenzo.
I was in the U.S. Army in Bad Aibling, Germany, 40 km or so southeast of Munich for about 30 months and drank a lot of different beers, some good, some not so good. But all better than American beers.
But we weren't so much connoisseurs of beer in those days so much as we were young and poor and we would drink anything put in front of us after I returned home.
But many of the new "craft beers" compare very favorably with European beers. But as the article says, they have a very small percentage of the market, and are more expensive. But as you get older, you drink less and then price becomes less of an object.
I paid $4.50 today for an excellent craft beer ("Summit") to go with a sandwich for lunch. I used to be able to buy 48 bottles (2 cases) of beer for $5.00 in the 70s. But it was pretty bad beer: White Label.
I never have liked Budweiser ("Bud") which is made with rice and have probably spent less than $10 dollars on it in my entire life. But one time I recall talking to a friend of my brother and he gave me one good reason to drink Bud. "It always tastes the same." They make it in such huge quantities that they can afford the quality control equipment and procedures necessary to turn out the same tasting beer from a half dozen different breweries around the country.
Of course, to me it always tastes like p-ss, so who cares?
I understand that the EU is attempting to force Germany to repeal their beer "purity laws" that date back hundreds of years to allow other European beers access to the German market. I haven't heard how that is going.
I was told as well my birthdate was wrong and I was from Egypt
Post a Comment