suds series vol 2

Tonight, in our ongoing Suds Series, St. Louis vs. Milwaukee, we look at mascots: both in the baseball realm and in the beer realm.

First up, baseball. The Brewers have Bernie Brewer: A blonde haired, blue-eyed, mustachioed drunken man who slides down a beer slide every time the Brewer's hit a homerun. In theory: awesome. But in practice, not quite as cool. Why, might you ask? Well, when actually at the game, Bernie has to stay really close to his "dugout" in the outfield so that he can be ready to slide down his slide whenever the Brewers are up. This limits the amount of interaction that Bernie can have with the fans. He leaves it to the Bratwursts to hang out in the stands and throw t-shirts to the crowd. Sure, the Brewers gave us the Sausage Race. But do you really want a hot dog dressed up in a baseball outfit or a bratwurst  wearing lederhosen giving you free things? Well, maybe.

The Cardinals have the ever-popular FredBird. 

FredBird is admittedly more fan-friendly (and kid-friendly) than Bernie. He hangs out in the stands, runs around with flags when the Cardinals win, has a build-a-bear (bird?) store in Busch Stadium, and likes to touch people with his beak -- in a good way, of course. Michael's niece and nephew both love FredBird.

Sausage Race? Beer Slides? Or touching fans with your beak? Hmmm. Let's think about this while we ponder the mascots of the breweries.

Budweiser has a slew of mascots: Bevo Fox, the Dalmatian, the Clydesdales, the Eagle (All American!), Spuds MacKenzie, the frogs, the lizards, the penguins. I think there isn't an animal on earth that Budweiser hasn't used to promote their beverages. Next thing you know they'll be using red pandas or something.

Bevo Fox

And yet, when I google Miller Beer mascot, this is the first thing that comes up:

Miller!! Seriously?! It's a beer bottle holding more beer bottles. Yes, you have The Girl in the Moon. And apparently a beer bottle mascot type thing. But I don't think it's going to cut it against all of those animals listed up there.

So where does that leave us? I think that because Miller can't even come up with a decent mascot, despite the beer slide and bratwurst race at the stadium, it's tipping in favor of Budweiser.

We are all tied up:

St. Louis: 1
Milwaukee: 1

Tomorrow: advertising!

moosehead

This is a big day here at Super Cool Bottle Caps. It is my 100th post. I'm so excited that I have made it this far! I hope I have lots more bottle caps to blog about in the coming days/weeks/months. I hope that I don't drive my friends and family too crazy with this little obsession of mine.

Todays post has to be special, I think. I wanted to blog about a cap that has one of my favorite elements: animals. Yay!

Moosehead was another beer that was procured during the fruitful trip to the Midwest. Before we sat down to gorge ourselves on horseshoes, we had some tasty beverages while waiting for our tables.

One of the beers available was Moosehead, Canada's oldest independent brewery. Michael and I took a trip to Canada a few years ago, but didn't venture outside of Montreal. And I don't recall us drinking any Moosehead. The closest we came was poutine, which I guess, sort of reminds me of a horseshoe. Just substitute cheese sauce for cheese curds and texas toast for gravy. Or something like that. In any case, the horseshoe beats poutine by, like, a mile. On a bad day.

Moosehead Lager has one main thing going for it. It has a moose head on the bottle cap. You didn't even have to take the advice that I would have given, Moosehead (i.e. put a moose head on there). You figured it out yourself, and for that I salute you. Never underestimate the Canadians, our neighbors to the north. I just wonder how you all survive those winters.

Happy 100th post everyone! Hurray!

new belgium brewing

Having six people who are all very supportive of an obsession with bottle caps comes in handy -- mostly in bars.

During the Midwest extravaganza, we spent an evening at D'Arcy's Pint in Springfield, IL: home of the horseshoe. If you're not from central Illinois, you might not be aware of this culinary delight. In so many words, a horseshoe consists of meat on texas toast covered in french fries and smothered in cheese sauce. The first third of a horseshoe is pure bliss; the next two-thirds...well, let's just say that you'll feel it the next morning. Needless to say, a horseshoe is best eaten with a bottled beer. 

One of the fun discoveries at D'Arcy's was New Belgium Brewing's Fat Tire. Unfortunately, according to their Libation Location, it is unavailable in the NY Tri-state area (which is probably why I haven't heard of it yet!)  

The best part of finding New Belgium, besides the fun bike on the bottle cap, is its tie-in with the Tour de Donut (mentioned earlier in this blog) -- the 32 mile bike race where you can eat as many donuts as you can at two pit stops to knock 5 minutes (per donut) off your time! Apparently, a competitive eater from Kansas City participated this year and ate 40 donuts and still finished the race. Michael and I ate 38 fewer donuts than that between us, and that was enough for us. You gotta love the food out there in the Midwest.