The simple pleasures of beering locally. I'm older now, and simple beer pleasures are the most meaningful to me. They tend to be encountered locally. It is my aim to get unplugged and explore some of them, slowly and thoughtfully. I'd tell you where it's leading, except that I've no idea ... and that's the whole point of the journey: To find out.
Sunday, June 11, 2006
The World Cup choice: Hooter's in Jeffersonville or Schlenkerla in Bamberg?
It’s hardly a surprise to open the Sunday sports section of the Louisville Courier-Journal and find World Cup coverage relegated to page A-15.
That’s out of 16 pages.
In today’s local New Albany Tribune, the square-headed (and barely literate) sports editor wrote about a recent excellent adventure at Hooter’s and bemoaned the absence of quality sporting events on television during the month of June, conceding that the NBA Finals might be worth a passing glance, but dismissing the World Cup as little more than another good reason to “hate Europe.”
Verily, the wondrous Dave Kindred is to the slack-jawed Mike Hutsell as hoppy Jever Pilsener is to insipid Miller Lite … but Lite wasn’t the problem at all as the World Cup’s opening matches were recorded.
The Houston Chronicle is one of many newspapers to report the disheartening news:
Some Germans are crying in their beer; They're bitter that Bud is official World Cup brew.
Let’s try to forget Hutsell’s provincial ignorance and Anheuser-Busch’s worldwide assault on taste and decency, and turn instead to “Why the Germans should win", in which Michael “The Beer Hunter” Jackson offers an elegant consideration of the German brewing classics:
Which great beers are produced in, or near, the cities were the soccer World Cup games will be held?
Ahh, that’s much better. Only two and a half months …
World Cup Soccer? What in the world is that? And who seriously watches it? Idiot journalists and Hooter's customers probably don't, but for entirely different reasons.
ReplyDeleteThe reasonable thinking person would not want to watch it for the sheer boredom of it all...though I'll admit, I do like watching 100,000 grimy Europeans cheer on a bunch of guys trying desperately to score just one goal in the gazillion minutes they have to play. I must eat too much meat to watch soccer seriously.
Besides, tennis is much more dignified.