Pabst

Photo by E. Ford, Jetmore, Kansas, "all rights reserved"

American president Dwight D. Eisenhower, on October 17, 1960 said, "the American working man can own his own comfortable home and a car and send his children to well-equipped elementary and high schools and to colleges as well. He is not the downtrodden, impoverished vassal of whom Karl Marx wrote. He is a self-sustaining, thriving individual, living in dignity and in freedom."

The way it once was and we miss it !

Self-discipline, hard work, responsibility, self-restraint, and loyalty are the essence of our character. Baseball or Football is our favorite game.  Ordinary moments and simple pleasures are what make us unique amongst the world’s populations.  The last few years have been hard for the American working man and woman.  Between 2009 and 2010, the US unemployment rate has hovered around 10%.  Through it all there has been Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer, to me Pabst is the epitome of the American working man’s beer, yes there are other lagers, and then there is PBR.

It's how I really feel

I remember during my early beer years... Evangelist Billy Graham inspired Americans to publicly express faith and patriotism and wage battle against "godless communism."  Did those commies too... love lager beer?  I doubted it only to find myself years later during the Cold War, walking the streets of East Berlin with an E6 friend of mine who spoke fluent German... well here we were the two of us sitting down at one of those fake for Westerners Beer Gardens which you know were loaded with hidden microphones and every one of the staff was a graduate of the Hungarian Western languages schools for spies, probably here to practice their English before stepping out of a submarine one moonless night off the shores of the United States to illegally assume residence in a coastal town, take a job us as a house painter or car mechanic and wait for orders certain to come one day from the Kremlin.  Did he drink Pabst Blue Ribbon beer so to fit in with the regular guys at the local tavern or Sportsman's Club? You just can't be certain about these things... anyway back at the Beer garden were sitting near my friend and I... a bunch of East German Army NCO's, E 5's and E 6's... they kept staring at us.  I was thankful for the beer but had tasted better, and the stuff I was drinking wouldn't have held up to the taste of a Pabst... trust me!

Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer is something to sing about

Perhaps like me you lived in one of those nondescript, working-class neighborhoods situated on Poverty Street. Where we suffered in agony pizza parlors, corner gas stations, hair dressing salons and discount liquor stores frequented by those no longer able to resist in an America where Pabst was king.  A world where the minimum wage was $1.25 an hour, a gallon of milk was 95 cents and a first class postage stamp cost 5 cents.  Gas (petrol) was 31 cents a gallon... that's 3 gallons of gas for $1.03... A ticket to a major movie was also a dollar and on special days as low as 25 cents.  I saw the opening of The Beatles "A Hard Day's Night" for 25 cents, popcorn cost the same.  A six pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon then was 95 cents... a little less than an hours wage.

You won't find a more patriotic color scheme... and it won a ribbon once !

I grew into my beer drinking years in a nine-to-five world (hasn’t that all changed?), where men (working a blue-collar job) supported their wives and children at home where jobs usually involved hard physical labor. At the end of the day the traditional male breadwinner had a lager beer. We are better educated than our parents were but they held on traditions we later inherited and are still important to my generation today, lager beer being one of them.  I love traveling the UK from pub to pub in search of and then imbibing Traditionally Aged in Cask... Malt Ales...there is no experience like it anywhere else on Earth  But here back in the states I very much enjoy lighter fare, specifically the non-complexity of a Pabst Blue Ribbon beer.  Yes, I do micro brews; yes I love chewy dark malty Porters and equally as well quaffing down the occasional modern Trappist experiment coming out of Canada.  But at the end of the day, trendy or not... there is much to say about a suburban taste for PBR.  Pabst will run you for a 24 pack about $12.00 at COSTCO.  One bottle of a Trappist clone or for that matter the Belgian King of them all... imported... "CHIMAY" will on average here in the states cost you the same... taking about $12.99 out of your wallet to own one bottle.  Yes I will go out and do $6 pint of Pacific Northwest specialty brews with the best of them, and I am not one to turn down a Sam Adams (except for the Rauschen or Pumpkin flavored), but when it's two for one special time... the first will be a micro and the second will be a Pabst.

Title:  "I have got a crush on you," by Tor Alden

Pabst is experiencing record sales today and has for the past few years as it has been adopted by the "Trendy Types."  Rest assured the foundation of sales is steadfast because of the loyal American working man's taste for a cold beer.  Uncomplicated, familiar to the pallet, a quality beer for the suburbs... that still means Pabst Blue Ribbon served really cold.  There are those who prefer Pabst on tap, others are satisfied with a bottle and for me...gimmie a can as I connot forget humble beginnings. Established in Milwaukee in 1844 Pabst was once one of America's most popular beers right from the start... it has been available in a can since 1935. Today Miller-Coors brews and bottles Pabst Brewing Company brands.

The Pabst Brewing Company actually owns lots of beer brands including Old Milwaukee, Colt 45, Schlitz. Blast, Lone Star, Heileman’s Old Style Traditional Lager, Rainier Beer, National Bohemian, Olympia, “Primo” Hawaii’s original beer, Stroh’s, Stag Beer, Blatz, Pearl, Schmidt’s Premium Beer, Shaffer, McSorley’s Black Lager and Irish pale Ale, Special Export by Heileman, Champale, St. Ides Malt Liquor, Schlitz Malt Liquor, and Ballantine Ale... Pabst Blue Ribbon is the company's flagship brand generating 30% of total sales... Miller - Coor's brews Pabst for us... Miller - Coors... waddayagonnado ?  Look at it this way, in keeping with the Honorable former Speaker of the House, Tip O'Neil who said "all politics is local..."  Pabst is keeping alive all these local brands, imagine a Texan without his Lone Star?

If you don't catch the humor... Google the story...

Billionaire C. Dean Metropoulos purchased the company for about $250 million dollars in 2010, he then moved the Pabst Brewing Company headquarters from a Chicago suburb to Los Angles, supposedly for the convenience of his two sons, Daren and Evan, who live in Los Angles and are attributed to now be running the company... along with their father, who lives back on the East Coast in Greenwich, Conn.  There's all sort's of negative to mildly interesting folk lore about the sons and their life style and what impact they may have on the brand... you can find all you want about that aspect of the story from Google... I find it boring as the whole meaning of this post is to say Pabst was cool before Pabst was cool and I do not care about trends, hipsters, and all that flash in the pan meaninglessness that comes along with popular fads, I don't care if PBR is trendy... I'm not.

Uncomplicated Pleasure...

Yes, I love Pacific Northwest micro-brews.  Yes, I love traditional Cask Aged British Malt Ales.  Yes, I will chew on a cigar with the best of them while sipping another Courvoisier under the stars.  For all this I have not abandoned my taste for a Pabst, nor the myth's associated with the traditions that accompany the lore of Pabst that go back 150 years of American History.  Pabst is like no other American lager with a German history.  It's strictly from working class, it's "regular guy" beer, best on tap but when ya gotta do what cha' gotta do... a can will do.

Sunday 16:04, 26 August 2012

Moonraker Ale "6.5 AVB"

What I like the most about it, is the taste !

For all these years I have been on the Ale Trail I have always wondered what AVB meant.  I know, he's an American... "Hey my money's as good as the next tourist in this pub," I say!  Anyway, for Americans like me who did not know, now you do... AVB means: Alcohol By Volume (abbreviated as abv or ABV) it is a standard measure of how much alcohol (ethanol) is contained in an alcoholic beverage... that is to say what portion of the total volume of liquid in this bottle of Moonraker is alcohol.  In this case... Moonraker is loaded at 6.5% AVB.  Everclear on the other hand, a nasty evil drink... is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as "190-proof..." that's up there at levels higher than 95% pure alcohol.  Here's a bit of information about the name "Moonraker."  There was a time when smuggling was a significant industry in rural England.  The county of Wiltshire (see map below) is strategically located between the coastal counties of England and the capital city of London to the east and Bristol to the west and is home to major highways that lead to and from those cities... perfect for use as smuggling routes.

It is here in Wiltshire in the late 1700's did the story, now legend, of the Moonrakers take place.  In fact people who come from Wiltshire are refereed to as Moonrakers. For the American tourist traveling to the UK, many on their first trip will do central London, then head west to do Bristol - Bath and then head south east to Wiltshire, to Avebury, home of the Avebury Stones Circle and then on to nearby Silbury Hill.  Wiltshire is home to the city of Salisbury and it's beautiful cathedral.  Not far south... millions each year will travel to visit the ancient monument of Stonehenge situated on the Salisbury plain.  My uncle Ron lives in Warminster and is a hero to me for he fought in World War II with the Lancaster Rifles.  Ever hear of those mysterious Crop Circles popping up on English farm fields?

A summer crop circle in Clatford, Wiltshire

Pretty much most of those crop circles have shown up in Wiltshire farm fields.  So it's a fairly interesting place that will have something for everyone.  For me I'm here for the Ale.  My brother in law Richard is a connoisseur of Malted Cask Aged British Ales brewed in the traditional method, served at about 57 degrees but certainly not refrigerated unless it happens to be a larger, and every time he gets a chance to show off another English Treasure of a Ale with me... he will.  Last time we were together his son Ryan who is my nephew with the expensive sports car brought over 12 bottles of Moonraker, I had a glass and then took advantage of so many bottles and set them up to photograph them for this article.

When you have more than one...

What's the deal with the Moonraker legend?  You can Google the question and find many answers as I did, let me save you some time.  During the late 1700's in rural Wiltshire on a highway to London were some Wiltshire-men trying to beat the taxman at his game.  A taxman found them one night out on the highway, and it looked to him like smuggling... but before he caught up to them they dumped their smuggled Barrels of brandy into a pond ( the Crammer, a pond at Southbroom, Devizes ).  Now this was on a night of the full moon.  The tax man caught up, found nothing and was soon on his way.  He turned around to sneak up on the smugglers and almost caught them in the act of pulling the barrels out of the pond with rakes.

ALC 7.5% Vol  (is this the same as 6.5% AVB?  I am confused... )

The smugglers heard the taxman coming and so they let go of the barrels just as he came upon them.  He asked what they were doing and they said they were raking cheese from the reflection of the full moon on the surface of the pond.   I know... weird story... then again this is from the late 1700's and who am I to argue with legend?  The taxman started laughing at the Wiltshire-men... I suppose thinking to himself they were idiots, country bumpkins or fools, which of course we all know they are not!... not then and not now... and since then Wiltshire-men have been called "Moonrakers."

all that AVB will soon have an effect on your mind, yes it will.

So Rich and Ryan... wicked Ale, thanks... and in another posting I will write about another treasure Richard introduced me to... "Ilse of Jura," the very best single malt Scotch I have ever tasted... and that was way back in the mid 1980's.