A Rant the Easy Way, a big F*** You to the Proud Macro People.

So the Super Bowl has been over for a couple of days now and we are all still talking about bad calls on the one yard line, and the overall greatness of that game. In my opinion the best Super Bowl I have seen since the Giants played the Bills, if not better. That is not why I am here today writing though. The reason for this entry is as some of you saw, and others who know me well know what’s coming. In the middle of this epic game there was a commercial for Budweiser. It was called brewed the hard way, or something to that effect. It’s caused a stir with folks that enjoy good beer and these are my thoughts.  

The first thing I would like to do is congratulate them on being proud to be a Macro Beer. Good for you Budweiser, good for you. I am glad that you are proud that you brew beer in factories, and that you can produce carts with horses and puppies in commercials for 4.5 million a pop that cater to that working man or woman and not us people who don’t work hard. Or have a brain, an opinion, or are remotely close to having an independent thought. Bravo.

Now on to my rant. Fuck you and shut the FUCK up. The people depicted in your 30 second masterpiece that fussed over beer and dissected it were an obvious stereotype of a beer geek. The guy with the handlebar mustache with his nose in the snifter of some sort of stout, and the table of other guys who were dressed similarly. Nice profiling. Guess what, I and MILLIONS of other people do not remotely resemble your high schoolish finger pointing, locker room style bull shit. I listen to Slayer, I drive a 2010 Dodge Challenger, watch football and NASCAR, I work my ASS off every day, and guess what there is no way in HELL I’m drinking a Bud. EVER. I don’t quote Nietzsche, drive a smart car, or listen to Mumford and Sons, which is what your marketing team was going for right? Those are the only people who drink craft beer.WRONG again, we are all different types of people you bunch of dopes. We just like good beer, something you fail to recognize or produce for that matter. So by this system that you have put into play who drinks your shit in a bottle? I am assuming that they are the Bro crowd of spray tanned fauxhawk, tribal tattooed guys and or that crowd that doesn’t drink beer except to get hammered, and hang out with their “Guys” ( see Meat Head Rob Lowe, or Creepy Rob Lowe from his direct TV commercials).

You are also catering to the crowd that also believes that Olive Garden is great Italian Food and P.F. Changs is great Chinese. The zombie like masses who do what marketing tells them. (See the last sentence of my first paragraph).In other words American Idiots.

Let’s go over the hypocrisy of the ad as well. So if you are all about your beech wood aged beer for “drinking” get out the horses show me a puppy happy good time beer, then why may I ask, do they have stakes in craft breweries like Widmer and Goose Island if they are so dead set against craft beer? Why then are there 50 different types of Shock Top? They are losing to us freaks, that’s why. They want their shelf space back so they can put 500 different bottles of bullshit in a case near you. So they turn to the masses, wave the flag, bring their horses and puppies out and essentially call us dweebs. Nice.

In Closing I would like to say that I am a craft beer dork, I do fuss over my beer, I do dissect craft beers, because they have flavor and are WORTH MY TIME, unlike your “drinkable”, “smooth finishing” yellow flavored water in a bottle. I would like to add with 2 middle fingers raised to the sky, Drinking an Arrogant Bastard, and listening to VoiVod, take your horses, beech wood barrels, puppies, frogs, football playing bottles, and whatever your team of Marketing losers come up with next, and cram them straight up your Macro ass.

The Beer Can Chicken Experiment Pt. 2

                Part II

Now on to part 2, since the first part I tried a couple of others. So I added one of them that I felt came out great. Now keep in mind as I have continually said in past posts, just because it cold out is no reason to put the grill away in storage. Use it all year, after all it is fire and last I checked fire beats snow and cold. Plus your neighbors will think you’re crazy, which is also fun. So here we go the next one. For this one I used 6 point Sweet Action which is a nice hearty cream ale that has some orange and honey notes with a mild bitterness. I thought that this would be a good spot to do one with a BBQ seasoning mix. It’s a really simple mix that you can use on just about anything from chicken to pork to beef.

 BBQ Seasoning Mix 

1/4 c. brown sugar

2 Tbsp. dark chili powder

1 Tbsp.  Paprika

1 tsp   smoked paprika

½ tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp   onion powder

1 clove garlic minced

1 tsp tomato paste

1 Tbsp. salt

1 tsp black pepper

Mix everything together in a food processor and rub it all over the chicken. A side note here in regards to the tomato paste. One great tool or short cut is to get one of the tubes of tomato paste (they are similar to a toothpaste tube that you can find generally with your Italian/international aisle in most if not every grocery store) instead of getting a can. It’s a little more expensive but you don’t have leftover tomato paste in your fridge that you end up throwing out anyway. With the tube you can use as much or as little as you need, put the cap back on and it lasts for a good long time. Just don’t mistake it for your toothpaste, because that could be weird and pretty unpleasant.

Cooking instructions are on the first installment of this 2 parter. On to the next one which I used Arcadia Wit Sun but any Belgian Wit or “wheat beer” (look for lighter wheat beer with coriander and/or orange peel in them) will work. I used this one because of its availability to me. Other ones that can work well with this one are Bell’s Oberon, Avery White Rascal, Revolution Bottom up, or one from your local area that you like. For this I did something similar to a Coastal French/Provencal rub. Fresh herbs, garlic-type rub.

Herb Rub

¼ c. olive oil (The type is up to you)

3 cloves garlic minced

1 shallot minced

1/4 c. fresh thyme, chopped

¼ c. fresh Rosemary, chopped

¼ c. fresh oregano, chopped

½ c. fresh flat leaf parsley, chopped

Juice and zest of ½ lemon

Salt and pepper

The best way to do this one to get everything chopped fine is in a food processor, rub the mix on the outside of the bird and use the same cooking instructions as the others.

This one is a late addition to my experiments and an easy one to boot. Not that the others were hard but for this one I kind of cheated and it came out great. For the final one, in the now 5 types, of beer can chicken I did a Harissa rubbed chicken. Harissa is a Chili paste used mainly in the Mediterranean coastal countries of Africa (Tunisia, Libya, Algeria, and Morocco mainly). You can make this spicy paste on your own or do as I did and purchase a pre-made one (the cheating part). You can find good Harissa at most Mediterranean or Middle Easter markets or in some better grocery stores. The beer I used for this was Oskar Blues Dale’s pale ale. The reason being that I wanted something with a decent hop presence for some nice flavor and aromas but not a high powered APA or IPA that could have over powered it. The procedure is for this is pretty simple, as are the others. Rub the outside with the Harissa and use my standard technique to cook it.

I hope everyone enjoyed this little bit of experimentation and craziness from me, you can expand upon my insanity by coming up with your own combos and such, just remember fails happen it’s not the end of the world, after all it’s just chicken and beer.