Sunday, January 08, 2006

You’ve been told wrong, Jack.


Lebanon, Ohio (Associated Press) -- What’s a can of 24-year-old beer worth? What if the can was a tribute to the Cincinnati Bengals' first Super Bowl season?

The Bengals play Pittsburgh Sunday in their first playoff game in 15 years, and tickets are going for hundreds of dollars over face value. There's also a brisk market for clothing with Bengals logos, and all kinds of memorabilia.

Jack Chrisman of Lebanon, Ohio is willing to part with 150 cases of Hudepohl beer in cans he's been holding since that Cincinnati brewery issued them in 1981. They have Bengals stripes and “Hu-Dey” markings reminiscent of fans’ “Who Dey” cheer – “Who dey, Who dey, who dey think gonna’ beat dem Bengals?”

Chrisman, who had a business that served beer, sold 250 of the 400 cases he bought and stored the remaining 150 cases -- four six-packs of cans to a case -- in his garage.

“I’ve been walking around them in my garage for years,” Chrisman said. “I’ve got three stacks 10 feet high. I’d like to get rid of them.”

He figures now is the time and has placed classified ads asking $12.50 per 6-pack.

“They’re in really good condition, just like brand-new, and still full of beer,” said Chrisman, who paid $7 a case 25 years ago.

He just isn’t sure what beer with a born-on date of 1981 tastes like.

“I’ve been told the longer they sit, the better they get, Chrisman said.

Curmudgeon's note: The Bengals lost the game, a previous version of this story is here, and the photo credit goes to Melvin Grier of the Cincinnati Post newspaper.

1 comment:

edward parish said...

Billy Beer 2006