Aluminum Gold: Volume Three - Regional Beers

Iron City - Ah, a taste of Pittsburgh. They’ve even put it in aluminum bottles to make it more authentic. Just like the city, it peaked in the 1970s, but still can entice naive college students with its aesthetic qualities. It carries on a rich tradition of being unable to let go of the past. Unlike Pittsburgh, it tastes a lot like carbonated butter. The perfect beer for watching a 10-1 Pirates loss.

Rating: Defeated.

Genesee Cream Ale - A product of the Genesee River in upstate New York, Genesee Cream Ale is a direct effect of what pollution has done to America’s waterways. Evidently, cream is one of those words that have different meanings in different places because I could have sworn that I tasted soap, but no sign of anything "creamy".

Rating: Mislabeled.

Sam Adams Light - What a time to live in Boston. They come out with Sam Adams Light, and then immediately the Red Sox and Patriots start bringing home titles. They produce a new Summer Ale and Kevin Garnett gets traded to the Celtics. In fact, rumor has is that the Patriots Super Bowl XLII loss is directly related to the failure of a Sam Adams raspberry hefeweizen beer that was labeled "even too gay for New England." Maybe if they come out with a low-carb beer alternative Dispatch will get back together. Then what will those assholes have to complain about? Huh?

Rating: Pretentious.

Old Style - The official beer of the Chicago Cubs. See Iron City.

Rating: Historically defeated.












Sierra Nevada Pale Ale - About as regional nowadays as Sam Adams, this is just a fucking mean, bitter IPA. This is the beer you drink and then lie about how good it tastes through locked teeth to look cool in front of your friends. "Sierra Nevada? I put that shit on my corn flakes, bro!" Of course, the bottle design is cool and it's available for relatively cheap almost anywhere, so both yuppies and hipsters alike can enjoy it. Congratulations Sierra Nevada, you're the new Michelob!

Rating: Pass me another Sierra, bro, I'm too drunk ride my bike to the hookah bar.

THE HERBSTREIT: IF YOU LIVED HERE YOU'D BE HOME NOW

River views. New kitchens. Party perfect. Ze Herbstreit. An oasis from the vile obscenity of the human condition.


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For only $3-4 million you can own a deeper connection to your Buckeye roots. It's Dreamboat Kirk's house! That's Kirk E. Herbstreit, aged 38 years, of Onandaga Drive in the Upper Arlington outer borough of Columbus, Ohio. For $1.95 more I could have purchased a detailed report. Isn't the Internet awesome?

Grizzlies to Fans: Fuck You.

He's all yours, Los Angeles.

In a completely baffling trade today the Grizzlies, who had only one marketable player on their whole roster (I don't count Darko), traded their one star to the Lakers for the worst #1 overall pick ever (Kwame Brown), a late round, third string point guard (Javaris Crittendon) and two future first round picks that will likely be in the 20s.

As a result, the Lakers add a franchise player to a team with a bonafide superstar (Kobe), a versatile all-star caliber forward (URI product Lamar Odom), a bursting-with-potential young center (Andrew Bynum), and several valuable role players (Fisher, Farmar, Turiaf, Walton, Ariza, even Radmanovic). Meanwhile, the Grizzlies starting lineup will look something like this:

PG - Mike Conley
SG - Mike Miller
SF - Rudy Gay
PF - Kwame Brown
C - Darko Milicic

My God, unless Rudy Gay can start putting up 50 points per game, this squad is in trouble. I don't know if they could beat the University of Memphis right now. To his credit, former Celtics GM Chris Wallace has done a superb job of uniting two of the biggest busts the NBA has seen since 2000. Their combined influence on a team of youngsters can only have a positive effect, right? It'll only be a matter of time before Mike Conley starts whipping no-look passes into the stands and questioning himself.

Clearly, this trade is part of a larger NBA conspiracy to reignite the Celtics-Lakers rivalry from the 80s. At only the expense of two small market teams (Memphis and Minnesota), both teams now look like legit title contenders. Both teams that were fleeced were run by former Celtics employees (Wallace and McHale). This is the only scenario where this trade AND the KG trade make sense, right?

Oh well, I guess it works out for some people.

Everything's coming up Milicic!