More commercials; HOPS

Miller Lite hops their beer three times during the brewing process.

I'm not sure if you knew this before or not, but apparently they do. I don't know if you've ever tasted the hops in their beer, but I don't think I have.

Here's the short version of the commercial.



This commercial is probably in retaliation to the Budweiser Idaho Hops commercial.



So, it's Idaho Hops, versus triple hops. Either way, there's no hops flavor whatsoever in the watered down version of beer.

Interestingly, in the Miller Lite commercial they ask "How does Miller Lite get all that great Pilsner taste?"

The answer should be pilsner malts and saaz hops. Miller just claims it's from triple hopping.

In the long version of the Miller Lite commercial, they show a brewer pouring hops into the brew kettle from a 5 gallon bucket. Doesn't Miller have an automated process for this? Heck, Dogfish Head has Sir Hops Alot, so they don't have to pour the Hops in 3 whole times during the brewing process. Does Miller use whole leaf hops as the commercial suggests? Don't they use hops extract?

Is Miller just trying to show themselves as a craft brewery? They tried that, it didn't go over well. Miller does own some darn fine breweries, and can produce some good beers if they want to. But parading around as a pilsner, that doesn't taste like pilsner (but is good for hydration) is misleading. Victory Prima Pils, is a good example of an American made pilsner. Miller Lite, Budweiser... aren't.

So, there's some more commercials I hate.

I'm sure you hate them too.

If anyone knows the URL to the long form of the Miller commercial, let me know.

There are several other blogs that complain about these commercials too, so I'm not the only one.

BeerJanglin'; Wine Snobs Become Bud Geeks!

Slashfood; Miller Lite Now Touting "Triple Hops"

There's more out there. See, I'm not the only one.

that Cingular (AT&T) Commercial, redux

By now, you probably know my feelings on that Cingular Commercial. Well, I'm not sure if they changed it, or what they did to it (or why they did it) but last night, while watching the NCAA Men's basketball tournament (do I haveta put a copyright or trademark symbol behind that?)that frakking Cingular Commercial was on several times.

I pretty much know all the words to it by now.

BUT, last nights was different.


If you look at the screen shot (exactly half way on youtube) you'll see it says; "ANOTHER SALE IN DALLAS!"; the other text message sent between the seller (distributor) and the brewer include, "BOSTON LOVES US".

Here's the original.



Here's the one I saw last night.



At 11 seconds, there the first commercial said, "BOSTON LOVES US" it now says "SPAIN LOVES US" (just noticed, it's a different phone too). The 15 second "ANOTHER SALE IN DALLAS" has been removed.

The end of the commercial now says "Best Coverage Worldwide".

So why was the commercial changed? Did they think it would be a good commercial for showing their world wide coverage?

I still get pissed off about that commercial.

In other commercial news; tonight is the final episode of Battlestar Galactica. How many Extenze commercials will we be treated to? The commercial normally pops up, after some commercials, and they have a sci-fi promo, where (I think) a christmas bulb smashes into the Sci-fi Logo, and then a buncha elves pop out; then one waves a magic wand at you, and boom... extenze commercial.

I hate that commercial as well.

At least SAVE BY ZERO is gone.

That Cingular commercial really gets me pissed off!

You've probably seen it. If not... here it is.



This commercial angers me (probably more than the whale angers Tro-jon, but that's another story).

Here's the dialog.

"You sure can brew it," says the sales guy.

"Question is, can you sell it?" counters the brewmaster.

This commercial sums up pretty much everything I hate about the way beer is distributed in America, and beer laws. When I see that commercial, all I can think of is the 3-tier system. That archaic system, originally put in place to prevent breweries from having too much power, has instead put too much power in the hands of the distributors. Mostly, it's taken the power away from consumers.

How many states now will not allow beer sales on Sunday? Why do they do that? Mostly because modern politicians are too afraid of the religious community to make that change.

Georgia politicians are too afraid to even vote (thanks to Monday Night Brewery for link)

The stupid laws about the three tier system, are what kept Bells out of Illinois for several years. Well, Bells is now back in Illinois. It made it into Chicago about a year ago, and just now it's making it's way downstate. Why did it take so long to get here? It's not like the trip is that bad (well, unless you are coming from Chicago, because they really hated to have to come down here when the Bears played here). No, the problem getting here was once again the distributor (my opinion).

I've heard from a couple of bar managers now "Fuck, Bells". I've wondered, why the hostility towards them? These managers told me that they were told that the only way that they would be able to get some of the more interesting (better) Bells beers, like Hopslam, Expedition, Double Cream... would be that they would have to have Amber on tap... permanently.

In Champaign-Urbana, having a beer like Bells Amber on tap... permanently makes no sense. There are bars that have outstanding beer selections here, but tap space in this town is at a premium. Blind Pig and Radio Maria are 2 of the only ones that have 20 or more taps. Everyplace else is significantly less, between 8-10. Forcing Amber into a bar, so that maybe they can get a 5 gallon of Hopslam once a quarter, is just plain mean and wrong for consumers.

Ok, so far, I'm angry at distributors; I'm angry at religious people who think that selling beer on Sunday will somehow tarnish their day of worship. I'm mad at politicians who won't even vote for fear of a religious uprising.

FYI, Georgia, you lost whatever taxes there are on my most recent purchase of beer; which wound up being about $330. So, whatever taxes there are on that amount went to North Carolina, instead of to you. Additionally, you lost tax revenue from the breweries because I couldn't buy their beers on premise.

I've never bought beer in Alabama, and I doubt I will.

Tennessee, you lost money from me too. Because your stupid state doesn't allow beer and liquor to be sold in the same store, well, unless the beer is above a certain ABV, but then, most of your liquor stores don't carry beer because people don't go there to get beer.

Indiana has lost money from me too, due to no sales on Sunday.

Back to the commercial...

It was on TV on Friday night (I think). Kridz and I were sitting there, and I started laughing at myself. As I was watching it, I wondered how many people see that commercial and think about the three-tier system. I wonder what Cigar City Brewing thinks about that commercial?

Let's look more at the commercial. The distributor makes sales in Boston, and Dallas? Where is this brewery located that would make sales with that kind of distribution? Where did they get copper a copper brew house?

I guess that's enough ranting about that commercial.

Wait, one more; who would get into a full blown brewing operation without having existing sales? Did they just brew and brew and brew and then have stuff sitting around? No wonder there's banks collapsing. If they are giving money to upstart breweries that have no customers... what if that guy couldn't sell?

Ok, now that's enough ranting.