duff

Happy One Year Anniversary, SCBC readers!  It was a year ago on Feb 19 that I started this blog. Wow! So much has happened since then, and I've tasted so many sodas, beers, maltas (yuck), and other bizarre beverages, all with bottle caps of varying degrees of coolness. It was a great year, and I'm looking forward to another one.

What better way to celebrate one year than with a bottle cap that covers a lot of territory. The last time I mentioned Duff beer, I was talking about Horny Goat, Milwaukee, and fake TV beers. But NOW, I can talk about Duff beer as an actual beer. Which, amazingly, it is. I can't get it here in the U.S., but thanks to this funny thing called Ebay, I was able to get a Duff bottle cap quite cheaply. (Thanks Internet!)

This bottle cap sort of has it all. It's a fictional beer that is now real. It uses the real Simpsons font. It is related, in some way, to a TV show that is awesome (well, used to be more awesome than it is, but DID just celebrate its 500th episode, so they must still be doing something right.) I'm still waiting for the DVD of just Itchy and Scratchy cartoons to come out, which I can't believe hasn't been done yet. That's gold, people. GOLD. Duff Beer has already been made. We need something else, now.

And how do they keep thinking up couch gags?  I wonder if there is just one person whose job it is to think up new ones. I would very much like that job. Just saying.

three stooges

When I first realized there was a Three Stooges beer, I was in St. Louis at the restaurant Blueberry Hill (owned by Chuck Berry). In the hallway near the bathrooms, BH has some fascinating display cases with pictures of famous people who have been to the restaurant and also some great collections of tv, music, and movie memorabilia. My favorite was the Beatles display, but, on my way out, something else caught my eye: a display of Three Stooges memorabilia, complete with the Three Stooges Beer, made by Panther Brewing Co.  Clearly, I missed the boat on this beer when it was being made, but that didn't mean I couldn't go on a quest to find the bottlecaps, which feature Larry, Moe, and Curley on them.

It didn't take too long, what with the internet and all. A search on eBay produced exactly what I wanted: a complete set of Three Stooges bottle caps -- with BOTH Curley crowns.

I have spoken about TV shows and their fake beers before and how there needs to be more fake-to-real beers made. I have also spoken about Monty Python's Holy Grail Ale and the awesomeness that is their bottle cap. But this is the first time I've seen the actual TV/movie stars ON the bottle caps. And who better than the Stooges? Maybe the Marx Brothers, but that might be asking a lot.

Is there a Beatles Beer that I'm not aware of with John, Paul, George and Ringo on the bottle caps? Someone should get on that, stat.

By the way, I think it goes without saying that these are definitely Hall of Famers.

And a last note, here is Moe, Slap Happy. Enjoy!