A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.
Stagecraft is an essential component of the craft brewing business. If not, Dogfish Head’s Sam Calagione would be on the couch watching television, not gleefully hawking his wares on a television series like a modern day PT Barnum, and Jim “Sam Adams” Koch might finally retire that hoary, Horatio Alger shtick about vending cases from the trunk of his car.
I acknowledge the theatrical in my daily role as carnival barker for the New Albanian Brewing Company, and to vary the routine, I’ve found it quite useful lately to play against type – with one major exception, because my deep-seated aversion to mass-market lager in the form of world’s Buds, Coors and Millers remains wholly intact.
Even more so for their low-calorie, light-this-and-that bastardizations. How many times have perpetually timid palates begged and pleaded with me?
Roger, can’t you be realistic and compromise? C’mon, Rog, can’t you just agree that even if “real” craft beer is preferable, there are times when these nice, light, ice-cold barley pops really fill the bill?
Actually no, I still cannot sanction these detestable liquids, even if they started me down the path so many years ago. I cannot accept mass market swill, and I cannot condone what the planet’s monolithic brewing companies have done to the essence of beer and brewing. I have little interest in accepting the light, lighter and lightest beers they’ve devised as their chosen means of decimating beer’s diversity. My position is clear.
But what if my long encroaching cynicism at last compelled me to do exactly that, and issue an apologetic for the indefensible?
What if, while watching this week’s episode of Project Runway, a paper cup of white zinfandel in hand and a Rally’s dollar combo meal a mere arm’s length away, I suddenly elect to dispense with my pride, and climb aboard the Silver Bullet Express to Tasteless City?
A clue lies in use of the word “pride” itself, suggesting a possible course of rhetorical capitulation, because many of us recall pride being mentioned during certain Sunday sermons of remotest youth – the last time I ever went to church for any reason other than softball eligibility, organ concerts or weddings was prior to the age of ten – and pride long has been considered one of the 7 Deadly Sins.
It’s true that in the hands of a trained professional (pick me), this septet of intemperate emotions provides essential lessons for a life of sustained debauchery, but it takes experience of an entirely higher order to render them into theoretical, nudging, winking, facetious counterpoints.
Accordingly, I’ve managed the remarkable feat of staying awake while culling through the self-indulgent dross printed in dusty back issues of “Advertising Age” and “Beverage Dynamics,” and have identified 7 Deadly Reasons why a craft brewery actually SHOULD sell venal, industrial swill, as voiced by entirely fictitious owners and customers.
Wrath
I’m so goddamned tired of listening to Roger Baylor tell me what to drink, I could explode. He thinks he’s so smart for having a Lite Free Zone since 1994. I hate his guts, and that’s why I come to this brewpub here in Louisville, where I can look at the shiny brewery tanks while sipping on a triple-hopped Miller Lite, just to spite that bastard over in Indiana.
Greed
Our group of venture capitalists selected craft beer as a vehicle for the expansion of our investment portfolio precisely because the growth rate is so hopeful in these uncertain times. However, to ignore the huge segment of the marketplace occupied by light, low-calorie lager makes no sense from the perspective of our blushing, bottomed lines.
Sloth
Look, we could take time to educate the clientele about the beers we’re paying these crazy hippies to make, and probably win a few medals while we’re at it, but why waste the effort? Customers want the lowest common denominator: Light beer, some box wine and lots of diet coke – and they all get advertised in the media everywhere, all the time. After all, we’re a restaurant. We can’t turn anyone away, right?
Pride
My girlfriend heard about this brewery place from her brother’s wife, you know, she’s an architect and all uppity trendy and %^$, and now I’m sitting here looking at this beer list, and what the %$@* does any of it even mean – but I can’t possibly let her know that I’m a absolute, stereotypical dullard, seeing that’s no way to get a piece of ass … hey … wait, they have Miller Lite in cold-activated bottles! Hot damn. Whew. That was an awfully close call.
Lust
The red hot college chicks all hang out at trendy Bud Light bars, and without them for eye candy, we’ll lose all the male customers trying to escape the grim reality of their married, child-filled, workaday lives – and how can we expect them to find consolation in geeky concoctions like oyster stout and Belgian IPA? We need some buckets for those boobs – I mean, those longnecks.
Envy
Yes, I know: What we’re doing here is unique, and we’re a niche business with a promising growth curve and all that, but just once, wouldn’t you like to be Cheeseburger in Paradise, with all those nice fake trees and a gift card in every Wal-Mart from here to the Keys?
Gluttony
These barley pale hoppy black bock beers are so heavy. If I had me a good ol’ light beer right about now – well, they taste great AND they’re less filling, so there’s always room for that extra portion of gnarled goat gnocchi.
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