Hey everyone, and welcome back to another CSU-Pueblo weekly beer review. My name’s Eric, I drink beer, and I’m broke as hell.
Yep, money’s been tight these past couple of weeks. The energy bill has a start-up fee, cable internet has an installation fee, and with my Monte Carlo sucking up $4 gallons of gas, the world’s greedy hands are manhandling my cash and leaving me with moths in my wallet and burger king in my belly.
When July comes around, there will be a glimmer of hope. My long awaited stimulus check will arrive and extra hours at work will help with these tough times. The last few days of June will be grim, sure, but with some careful spending and a few sacrifices, things will surely work out.
Sacrifices like…my beer budget.
You got to do what you got to do, I guess.
So with all that being said, let me introduce you to American Beer, the dirt-cheap crown jewel of the Pittsburgh Brewing Co.
American Beer has been a bit of a curiosity in my life. I’ve been working at the liquor store for close to a year now, and as far back as I can remember there has always been a corner in the back store-room stacked to the ceiling with this stuff. A pretty dusty corner at that, for while other beers have come and gone, American Beer has stood strong, safe in the fact that crap beer just doesn’t sell well.
As I stacked and fetched cases from around this monolith over the months, I grew a strange form of bond to it by making it an inside joke with my co-workers or apologizing if I bumped into it while working. In my strange little mind it was almost like a mascot for our store, a humorous constant in a room full of never-ending change.
Attention spans dwindle and jokes fall flat, eventually, and as more months passed, American Beer was forgotten again, left to sit its lonely vigil over the other beer in its dusty corner unwanted…until last week.
It was a dark, dull night when the college girls showed up.
They said they were broke.
They said they were tired.
They said they wanted American Beer.
As I went to grab a 12-pack, a subtle grin spread across my face, a kind of grin that only comes up when you see an old friend you used to cause mischief with in some back alley bar.
I handed them American Beer, and as I rang them up I asked if it was any good. They replied simply, “Eh, it’s better than Natty light.”
They drove off, leaving me in my curiosity, and since I was broke as well, I too left with a 12-pack of American Beer that night.
That was one hell of a ramble…my apologies. I’m just trying to delay the truth.
American Beer is pretty bad. It can’t be helped. For $5.99 a 12-pack, you get a watery, foul tasting beer that, I swear on my grave, makes you sweat. If it’s better than Natural Light, it must be in the price.
I finished the 12-pack, sure, but it was no treat. It’s more comparable to that gravely Tylenol pill you take to kill a headache. This beer was produced to get you drunk at an affordable price, and at that it succeeds, but as far as enjoying the trip there, good luck.
I give American Beer a 1 out of 5, and when I walk by that stack of 12-packs again, I’ll have a better, more mature understanding of why some mysteries are best left unsolved.
Itsmecolo • Feb 1, 2012 at 12:53 pm
I used to deliver ALOT of that beer to Pueblo and the surrounding communities… drank many of them myself, the cases break easily and sometimes as a driver I had access to a few of the cans after they stopped rolling around on the ground. Yea, I too had a wierd tie to that beer… Not sure why, as it does taste freakin’ awful… but maybe thats one of it’s charms.. the sheer cheapness of it.
BJL • Nov 6, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Worst. Beer. Ever.
Maggie • Sep 23, 2008 at 10:42 am
american brand beer > old style/pbr any day.
Dave • Sep 8, 2008 at 10:55 pm
American beer? Its good, I would rather have an American beer than a Bud, Coors or any other domestic. The thing is that, American is wheat heavy and and lacking in hops, obviously done to keep costs low. I for one really like the taste, I understand that you may not but, telling readers that it is simply “bad” is not very responsible. I forgive you though, its not really your fault perhaps when you mature a bit more you will understand that taste is a matter best left to the individual and that insulting any beer, even those that live in dusty corners in back rooms is very wrong.
David Peralta • Jun 26, 2008 at 11:00 am
Eric, I have become a regular reader of your column and must confess that it is the main reason I read the school paper (No offense to the other writers). I too am a beer drinker and a beer brewer. I actually was a Brewmaster at the Irish Pub before the big sellout, and I still home brew. At any rate, I drank my first micro-brew at the Sam Adams Brewery in Boston. I was and still am, hooked and in awe. What tha? Beer made from oats, beer from wheat, dark beer, darker beer, Ales, Golden Ales, and the hops; Cascade, Hallertau, Tettnanger (my personal favorite)!! Upon my return to Colorado, it was actually pretty cool for a while because my friends were still stuck on Bud Light. I could go to a party stick my Fat Tire, Sunshine Wheat, Wicked Ale, Sam Adams, Boulder Beer, or ever changing high dollar selection of the night into the refrigerator and no one would touch it! Oh the good old days! I digress. Now back to your column, and American Beer. I lived in Manitou Springs for a while. It’s a great place, but on occasion, the high rent forced my roommate and me to experiment with our “low end” beer purchases. On one particularly cash strapped occasion, we too found ourselves with a $3.99-twelve pack of good ole American Beer. We learned rather quickly that this beer was best suited to drinking as near frozen slush; and we would only drink a few of them before we would split a bomber of something exceptionally good like Boulder Beer’s -Hazed and Infused. Good stuff! Eric, I have to admit that I kind of miss those times, and patriotic American Beer definitely contributed to the aura. Thanks for bringing back some great memories! Happy beer day! David Peralta.