The fire that burns in my heart is a hot one.

I’m a few days late with the official declaration, but I hereby welcome one and all to day eight of International Canned Beer Month. (Don’t judge the legitimacy of the month by that website. Those people clearly never put the can down to finish their effort.)

opie by kelly mac

Photo by Kelly Mac.

Upon remembering what month it was, I realized that WSATW may have been a little premature, but what’s done is done and there’s no use in crying over spilt milk after the horse has left the barn while saving and earning a penny with a silver lining in the bush.

While we are on the topic of canned beer, (and why shouldn’t we, be after all?) it was just two months ago that I linked the article about the new douchebag Greek owners of Pabst doing everything in their power to make the sub-brands suck. Obviously their first move was to turn awesome old Oly;

awesome old oly

(Not my computer, but it might as well be.)
Into crappy, malt liquor Oly;

Olympia Malt Beer

As a matter of fact, while discussing this issue with Handsome Dave Fenton the other day, he said he went to several small retailers to buy up their remaining stock before the orange plague overran everything. Interestingly he also noted that a number of said store’s proprietors mentioned that Olympia reps came in and replaced the old beer, actually removing cases of the stuff, with no fanfare whatsoever.

I would have liked the opportunity to sit in on that market research meeting;

“Our studies indicate that two things poor people like are the color orange and malt liquor.”

Interestingly (or not), it was just Saturday while talking with The Skipper about this issue that I finally realized this new terrible beer was to blame for my insane drunk (and even worse hangover) last week at PDW’s Circulus event.

If you’d like to drop a card in the mail or give them a call to tell them malt liquor is horrible, please do so.
Olympia Beer
P.O. Box 736
Milwaukee, WI 53201
1-800-935-BEER

Furthermore, as if the Virgo in me wasn’t all in a tizzy as it was, Budweiser has gone and changed their graphic;

new budweiser can

While I was a little bit put off, I realized this might be an indication of just how powerful my empire has become. Instead of slapping me with a cease and desist order for my appropriation of their graphics, they simply submitted and changed their design.

Someone who knows all too well about the power of canned beer is Ray, as proven in this clip that super star cyclocross styled athletic pursuitist and general ne’er-do-well, Jonny Sundt forwarded me;

It’s been said that ‘age is nothing but a number’, and ‘you’re only as old as you feel’, and a bunch of other clever coffee mug phrases that were probably come up with by forty-somethings while in the process of wrestling with their own mortality and mystery pains. While Ray is probably too drunk to realize how old he is, the rest of us don’t have such a luxury, and certainly not when slapped in the face with a piece of news like this that was forwarded to me by Lucho from The Cycling Inquisition;
Tom Araya is no longer able to bang his head.
As I am currently trying to figure out a way around my own shoulder issues, this was certainly not welcome news. The next thing you know, I will spend my days shuffling around the house wearing a bathrobe and slippers.

Oh, wait…..

Speaking of Lucho, he has made the grave mistake that other web loggers before him have made and launched a few clothing items specific to bicycle related athletic pursuiting;

Camisa Blanca jersey

Camisa Negra jersey

Media sci socks

If you might be interested in expressing to the world that you have taste in clothing and read a blog that makes you use your sexy brain, you needn’t look any further than here.

Finally, and only relating to canned beer in that they have been known to drink some, the proprietors of Handsome Bicycles got ahold of me with some petty bitchin news. It seems as though none other than Wakeman Massie was secured to design one of their newest offerings;

“Stevil,
The prototypes have landed. Sealed bearing coaster-brake hub. Final hub-shell design will be a little different, but here it is. All made possible by Wakeman;

handsome bogart

So we’re still working out all the gritty details, but the good news is we got what I think maybe the first sealed bearing coaster brake hub and it will be available with our 2012 line. Calling it the Bogart.”

Though Handsome declares that it already has a name, I still prefer to call it the ‘Wakeman’.

And at the risk of partially letting the cat out of the bag, this will work pretty snazzily when coupled with a special little something or other that Handsome and I have collaborated on;

ahtbm handsome surprise

The fruits of the collaboration will be unveiled next month in Las Vegas, unless the Handsomes realize their folly and pull the plug on the entire thing.
It is with that, that I raise my freshly opened can in a toast to your Monday(s).

A few dozen down, several hundred to go.

newlittleskull

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11 Responses to “The fire that burns in my heart is a hot one.”

  1. Brent August 8, 2011 at 5:41 am #

    Nice jumping, but what is more important is that you have found the original A-Team van (as seen in the background) which the Canadians were suspected of stealing from Mr. T in 1983, but never recovered. Nice work Sir.

  2. Bob August 8, 2011 at 10:46 am #

    > Olympia reps came in and replaced the old beer, actually removing cases of the stuff, with no fanfare whatsoever
    My wife worked for a beer distributor, they had a “breaker cage” where that would’ve ended up along with short quantity packages due to breakage, nearly out of date, etc. Employees could buy out of the cage for for pennies on the dollar. Everybody there was an alcoholic, and it was getting close to that for us before she got out of there.
    “Nobody ever gets mad because the beer truck just pulled up out front”

  3. el presidente August 8, 2011 at 11:07 am #

    oh Canada!

  4. dead liver August 8, 2011 at 12:03 pm #

    I’m angry about beer now.

  5. pkf August 8, 2011 at 2:56 pm #

    i am by no means an expert but i believe the 95% malt tag is only letting it be known that the beverage is made with 95% barley malt as opposed to 65% barley malt with corn and rice used as a substitute for fermentable sugars(like AB,coors,miller,and other american style pilsners). i dont think it implies it is malt liquor in which extra corn sugar is thrown in the mix to increase alcohol content

  6. Stevil August 8, 2011 at 8:02 pm #

    Yeah, I don’t really know myself. I do know that it tastes differently than it used to, and I know the difference between a watery pilsner hangover and a crappy, sugary beer hangover (I’ve done my time with King Kobra).

  7. Brad Parker August 8, 2011 at 10:11 pm #

    I also just purchased the new OLY tall boys (or drive homes, as we call em here). Not too stoked on the flavor, and was wicked hungchow the next day.

  8. irishpunk59 August 9, 2011 at 8:24 am #

    Bud did the same to Rolling Rock, while it was never what I would call a great beer it was our beer, hard drinkin hoopies outta the hills of western PA

  9. Andy Reimer August 9, 2011 at 11:32 am #

    My folks used to live about 10 miles north of Rodney Ontario. I can assure you that Ray is not short of like minded company in that there part of the world. FYI: the LCBO he refers to is the Liquor Control Board of Ontario… also known as the Beer Store.

  10. curtis August 9, 2011 at 3:10 pm #

    I’ll stick to my north-western independent brews, I guess.
    As my dad is prone to say, “I don’t think anyone has ever lain on their deathbed and thought, ‘damn, I should have spent less money on beer.'”

  11. MF39 August 9, 2011 at 5:56 pm #

    I was punished that weekend in the same manner.
    Oly hasn’t been right since the first time it stopped coming in stubby 11oz bottles.