Every once in a while I'm shaken out of my comfortable bubble when I read that, for example, the most popular comics in America are Jeff Dunham and Larry the Cable Twat or that the best-selling periodical is
TV Guide. But when I read the attached article listing the 20 Top Selling Beers in the country, I really started to lose hope for the future of this culture. Bud Light - #1 - seriously, people? With the advent of the micro-brewery revolution, there simply isn't any reason to drink that piss.
If you want to torture yourself with the full piece, you can access it here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/03/top-selling-domestic-beers_n_1846582.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false#sb=1196391,b=facebook
6 Comments:
Oh my! It will surprise none of you that I haven't had one beer in the top 20 in ages. . .
The only beer that I have had in the top 20 in the past 20 years is Blue Moon Belgian White Ale.I agree with BD that we need to be concerned for the future of our culture after these results. I was already aware of this , but the results of this survey confirm what I had sadly suspected.Other than Blue Moon and that Steel whatever(haven't heard of it), they are all definitely pisswater beers.
One of the interesting wrinkles here is that the majority of the top ten beers are "Lite" beers. Unless we think that women are making up the sales numbers here, this means that there are a lot of red-blooded American men drinking light beer. That represents quite an advertising coup over the years, but I fully expect to see a gay-baiting Sam Adams commercial before long.
Sam Adams has that reputation, but people fail to realize that Sam Adams drinkers are more cultured drinkers.I guess as long as they don't have some grungy, grizzly guy in the commercial then they have accomplished their task.
Absolutely, MUR. To my mind, Sam Adams should be the bog standard beer that you go to when more interesting things aren't available. That's the kind of country I'd like to live in.
When I posted this thread on FB, I got lots of former students rationalizing their Bud Light habits based on price. I think this reflects a difference in drinking culture. Whereas I'm very happy to nurse a really good beer or two that has over 5% APV over an evening, I've noticed that among my students, they prefer the sense of conviviality that comes with sharing five or six pitchers of really watery beer with a group of friends.
That's a young drinkers perspective and one I had in college. Mr. Henry's on K Street just off campus had bucket of Rolling Rock Thursday nights that we very seldom missed because you could have 4-5 beers for the cost of 1.5 Sam Smiths over at the Brickskeller.
I'm a lenient judge of a bar I think. As long as there's the offer of a Sam Adams, or Sierra Nevada, I can make do. What kills me are the places that can't even make that kind of token effort. How often have I gone back to a hotel thinking I'd stop off in their bar before going to my room only to find that part of their corporate branding is a Bud-only, or worse, Coors-only menu. Hampton Inns, I'm talking about you.
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