Comments on: Watch and Learn

By: nick s

nick s — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 09:11:59 +0000

In American booze shops, Budweiser occupies a curious place in the spectrum. Most displays have two fridges: one that starts with 40-oz bottles of malt liquor, and one that ends with fancy imports and microbrews. Bud is either at the top of the cheap fridge or the bottom of the expensive one.

Also, the Bud advertisers in the UK are being a bit cheeky in stealing (phonetically) the name of a genuine ESPN anchor.

By: Jozo

Jozo — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 15:36:39 +0000

19 “at least as good as the best stuff the Germans brew”
Better. Germans beers are so unified and “lite-like”. On the other hand, I will beg for them, having American soft drink with alcohol (called beer there) as only other option.

By: spencer

spencer — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 00:06:30 +0000

The Rheinheitsgebot was and is a stupid law

This, however, is spot-on.

By: spencer

spencer — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 00:04:18 +0000

I will maintain to my dying day that their version of Budweiser is a fine product which everyone would be going gooey over if was labelled as coming from anywhere other than the USA.

Thanks for that laugh.

By: derrida derider

derrida derider — Sun, 18 Jun 2006 12:53:00 +0000

Ah, dsquared, you clearly first drank Bud while the balance of the mind was disturbed; it’s left your taste permanently impaired.

But you really have shattered my faith in your judgement forever (even if I endorse your comment about Macs and – especially – LaTex). In the light of this terrible solecism I’ll have to reconsider my position on the Iraq war.

By: ArC

ArC — Sun, 18 Jun 2006 09:42:06 +0000

slightly delayed reaction: Yglesias being an NBA fan is a plus in my book.

By: dsquared

dsquared — Sat, 17 Jun 2006 18:12:43 +0000

No, this is a truly held opinion which I have born the scorn of you lot for over the last ten years. Yes I do like rice added to beers; I like Asahi and Kirin, which are brewed by corporations no smaller than Anheuser-Busch and which are excellent products. Budweiser is not “piss-water”; it has the useful property of being one of the few beers that you can drink a lot of when you have a stinking hangover, which is how I discovered I liked it. The Rheinheitsgebot was and is a stupid law and the Germans are absurdly proud of it despite the fact that it was originally introduced to save wheat for bread rather than out of any concern with the quality of beer. Budweiser is ace, and Macs and LaTEX suck.

I’ll get my coat.

By: Seth Edenbaum

Seth Edenbaum — Sat, 17 Jun 2006 15:17:27 +0000

Rice beers are fine, it’s Budweiser that sucks.
And I assume DD’s praise for pisswater is another example’s of his dry wit that fails to come accross in writing. Otherwise his years as a broker have gone to his F’n head (instrumental reason and all that)

By: P O'Neill

P O'Neill — Sat, 17 Jun 2006 14:16:47 +0000

So dsquared—you like rice added to beer?

By: Brendan

Brendan — Sat, 17 Jun 2006 11:12:32 +0000

Oh come ON guys. Budvar is one of the great beers of the world. Budweiser tastes like piss. Case closed.

By: Adam

Adam — Sat, 17 Jun 2006 11:04:10 +0000

Even from the other side of the pitch, Carlos Alberto seems to appear from nowhere. Where did he come from? Thanks for the extra link!

By: Mrs Tilton

Mrs Tilton — Sat, 17 Jun 2006 10:25:39 +0000

BTW, Daniel, the Czech form wouldn’t be ‘Budowicer’ but ‘Budvar’. Don’t know what the label used in the UK looks like—perhaps it says only ‘Budweiser’—but in Germany ‘Budvar’ is there along with ‘Budweiser’. Do any Czech readers know whether they even bother with the German name in the home market?

By: Thlayli

Thlayli — Sat, 17 Jun 2006 10:24:00 +0000

Just finished watching the recording.

If Argentina keeps this going for another five games, people are going to forget Brazil-1970.

By: Mrs Tilton

Mrs Tilton — Sat, 17 Jun 2006 10:12:01 +0000

Sorry, Daniel, but your vaunted powers of oenological discernment obviously aren’t matched by judgement in matters malted. For all I know you might be correct about the relative strengths of the US and Czech brewers’ claims to the name. But even if you are, US Budweiser is still diluted ship’s bilge and would be no matter whence it came (and if it came from Germany, it couldn’t even legally be called ‘beer’, at least until Brussels nullified the Reinheitsgebot a few years ago). Czech Budweiser by contrast is some fine, fine beer, at least as good as the best stuff the Germans brew.

At the stadium here there’s nothing on offer but ‘Bud’. I’d heard reports that, to mollify the myriad bellows of rage at their seamy deal, FIFA and A-B had agreed to allow Bitburger to be served as well (Bit is a mediocre mass-market German ‘television beer’, but miles better than US Bud—it is at least recognisably beer.) But no, not a trace of anything but Bud, at least not here in Frankfurt. Add another to the many reasons why Sepp Blatter must roast in hell forever.

BTW, it’s quite common in the German-speaking world to use the old Germanic names for places now in Poland or the Czech Republic – Budweis for C. Budejovice, Karlsbad for Karlovy Vary, Breslau for Wroclaw etc. You’ll even hear this done occasionally for places farther afield (Laibach instead of Ljubljana), but that’s rarer.

By: Chris Bertram

Chris Bertram — Sat, 17 Jun 2006 10:04:23 +0000

I will maintain to my dying day that their version of Budweiser is a fine product

I’ll file this with your anti-LaTeX rants! Cmon the US version has a taste basically indistinguishable from Perrier and anybody with sense would drink something like Becks in preference to that any day. The Budvar version, otoh, has a wonderful background sweetness to it, with a hint of Jancis Robinson, and notes of something or other.