Nobrainer’s Think Tank

I read this AP article this morning, and it brought to mind an exchange from the movie Trainspotting. In it Sick Boy details his grand theory. The exchange ends thusly:

Renton: So we all get old and then we can’t hack it anymore. Is that it?
Sick Boy: Yeah.
Renton: That’s your theory?

So the article was about health care.

The budget office concluded that premiums for people buying their own coverage would go up by an average of 10 percent to 13 percent, compared with the levels they’d reach without the legislation. That’s mainly because policies in the individual insurance market would provide more comprehensive benefits than they do today.

For most households, those added costs would be more than offset by the tax credits provided under the bill, and they would pay significantly less than they have to now.

That’s the fucking plan? That’s the savings? The savings plan is to force prices higher and say they’re lower by adding further complication to the tax code via new credits? Brilliant!

Geezus. It’s 9AM and I’m so ready for a Guinness.

The news says that New Belgium Breweries will be making their Fat Tire, and some other assorted beers, available to South Carolinians as of June 1, 2009. That sounds like good news for beer consuming South Carolinians and New Belgium.

The bad news for New Belgium is that their website is a fucking disaster. Perhaps to be fair, it isn’t that bad. However in my opinion, it shouldn’t be so difficult to find the FAQs.

Good news, especially for Wha.

Fat Tire beer is now being sold in Tennessee, and as I read on, Tigernet, even East Tennessee.

I guess this officially kills any loose plans I had to drive to west of the Mississippi in what would have been one awesome beer run.

Here we see a demonstration of how to open a beer bottle with a functioning chainsaw.

I’m serious about the safety glasses. It’s cool to have a cold beer that you opened with your own chainsaw. However cold beers are less enjoyable when a bottle cap is wedged in your eyeball.

Thanks to Tigerhawk, who also points us to Adirondack hacks, which includes such pertinent information as how to build your own trash-can smoker. Not really sure why you’d want to smoke a trash can though.

I’m hilarious.

Old Schlitz is coming back!

The beer that made Milwaukee famous hopes to stage a comeback by returning to a brewing formula discarded over 30 years ago.

Louis Glunz Beer was the first distributor of Schlitz in Chicago, where a few taverns and liquor stores on Monday began carrying a classic version of the modern-day brand. Glunz, a fourth-generation family business, began distributing Schlitz in 1893.

Schlitz had been available only in cans for several years until the brand’s owner, Pabst Brewing Co., began selling it in bottles last year in Minneapolis and Tampa, Fla.

That bottled version of Schlitz, which uses a traditional recipe last used in the early ’70s, was snapped up by older baby boomers who remember the beer from its glory days, before Jos. Schlitz Brewing Co. cheapened the formula. On Monday, 10 Chicago taverns and liquor stores began carrying the bottled version.

If demand expands, sales of classic Schlitz could spread to Milwaukee and other cities, Wortham said.
Changes not popular

Schlitz was advertised for decades as “The Beer That Made Milwaukee Famous.” By the 1950s, it was the nation’s largest brewer, with additional breweries outside Wisconsin. But in the ’60s and ’70s, Jos. Schlitz Brewing Co. did some things that affected the beer’s taste.

In 1967, Schlitz patented a process that accelerated fermentation, according to the book “Breweries of Wisconsin” by Jerry Apps. That was followed by apparent changes in ingredients, including a different type of barley and the use of corn instead of barley, Apps wrote.

Drinkers noticed and turned away, said John Gurda, Milwaukee historian and author.

“That stuff was undrinkable in the ’70s,” Gurda said. “It had a very pronounced chemical taste.”

My experiences over the last few years have taught me that quality control has not been a recent point of emphasis for Schlitz. Still, I’m excited about this. I think a B-double-E-double-R-U-N is in order. With one solid road trip we (as in anyone else who is willing and I) can pick up some Schlitz (maybe some Stroh) and definitely some Fat Tire.