Hints of lakes and sunset breezes, or: A life thus far in shitty beer.

[roadrunnertwice]

States in which Rainier Beer may be feasibly obtained:

(Obligatory links to other stuff from the visited states map dude.)

Train of thought? Well, sure, since you asked.

So this evening, I'm swilling some Hamm's. Established in the Twin Cities, Minnesota, 1865; brewery constructed over artesian wells. Motto: "From the Land of Sky-Blue Waters." Best-remembered advertising campaign: Something involving a cartoon bear and a very very sincere theme-jingle.

Somewhat before I was born, Hamm's was bought by the Olympia Brewing Company. (Signature brand: Olympia Beer. Motto: "It's the Water." Brewery constructed over artesian wells in Tumwater, Washington. Best-remembered advertising campaign: "The Artesians.") I got to tour the Olympia Brewery with Katie, Chris, and my dad when I was somewhere in the neighborhood of nine years old, and one of the things I remember best about the brewery, back in those final stages of its glory days, was the huge inflatable Hamm's Bear up on top of the thing. That, and the chest-rattling train whistle that the building would let out when the day's work was done. And that thick, damp smell of half-brewed beer that would spew out over Tumwater in the evenings while Katie and Chris and I were finishing our janitorial job down at the dentist's office where my mom works, or while I was driving home from my Japanese class at Evergreen with my windows down. (After the Olympia Brewery shut down in 2003, my next encounter with that smell was outside my flat in Cork, Ireland, which was two or three blocks away from the Beamish & Crawford brewery.)

Back up. Two years before I was born, the Olympia Brewing Company merged with Pabst. Pabst currently operates as a "virtual brewer," contracting all actual brewing operations out to SABMiller while maintaining ownership of their brands, their recipes, and their $20 advertising budget. ("Kalmanovitz's idea, apparently, was to buy up ailing ales, slash all associated costs and let them 'decline profitably.' ") The year after I started college, Pabst Blue Ribbon started experiencing a resurgence in Portland, Oregon. Mostly because the Lutz put it on permanent special for a buck a can after they had to stop selling Blitz, but later because of the hipster cachet surrounding any brand that's been too broke to generate annoying beer ads for the last 30 years.*

During the Pabst era, in the the '80s and '90s, the Olympia Brewery acted as a sort of magnet for ailing and/or failing beers from the Pacific Northwest, and they wound up brewing Rainier beer for a period between 1999 and 2003. And while Rainier is currently part of Pabst's stable of brews, same as Oly (the Hamm's brand went off with Miller after said company ran the brewery in Tumwater into the ground), it came there via via Stroh's. The two breweries were an hour apart on I-5, but they didn't bother to join forces until they were both bought by a Texan-owned company originally from Wisconsin, which has been, as of late, operating through a company owned by South Africans.

No, back up again.

Hamm's, then? That old Twin Cities brand with the quirky ad campaigns, which was bought by that old Olympian brand with the quirky ad campaigns? Well. Can't say it'd been on my mind, but. Remember that Pabst renaissance I mentioned earlier? Turns out that outside of the Pacific Northwest, it's not popular on account of being dirt-cheap but still this side of potable; it's popular on account of hipster cachet. So retailers seem to have bumped the price a bit ($7.59/12 cans, and that's at the cheap liquor store in my neck of the woods), since they've realized that brand loyalty will keep it moving off the shelves anyhow. Hamm's, I discovered today, is still in the stage of its life-cycle that Pabst was at in Portland in 2002. Which is to say, it doesn't taste like complete ass, and I can get a half-rack for six bucks. So the bike ride home from Chicago and Lake was when I started thinking about brewery tours and driving around and inflatable bears and whistles and smells and interstate commerce and the fate of unfashionable beers. What can I say? I'm broke, it's hot out, and I reckon I'm still shaking off the hangover from an extended four-year course in spinning the significant out of the banal. You learn to expect the occasional thousand-word brain hiccup.

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Hey: If you drive into the one-horse town of Rainier, Washington from the west, traveling along Rainier Road, the second intersection you'll come to, after going down the hill and passing under that skinny-ass railroad bridge, is the intersection of Olympia St. and Minnesota St. The intersection before it is Minnesota St. and Seattle St.

It's all just shitty beer anyhow, and I reckon this is just the banal spontaneously mimicking significance. I may have been all about the Oly Stubbies, but I didn't even drink Rainier, and damned if I can figure out how Schlitz fits into the mess. But I tell you what, I've had the oddest evening of presque vu over all this.

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* Wait, speaking of Cork and beer ads: When Sarah Lucas and I were watching some flick down at the Kino one night (this would've had to be The Barbarian Invasions, since I'm pretty sure I saw Capturing the Friedmans with Amelia), the commercial break before the show was saturated with these wretched Beck's ads made up of rapid-fire vignettes of attractive people hanging out on rooftops or something. And then there was this single Murphy's ad that was simply an old codger in a hat walking up to the bar and ordering a pint of Murphy's, waiting and staring around for a minute and a half, then taking a huge satisfied slurp, while the camera zoomed in really close on him to catch one of those intense foam-shots that Irish stout CMs get all perverted about. Yeah, guess which ad made me want to drink their beer after the show?

Though actually, I think we went down to the Washington Inn and drank some Bulmers. Wait, was I going somewhere with this? Never mind.