On hating megabreweries and the trade rags that glorify them.

Recently I had the ill fortune to receive in the mail one of those incredibly annoying “beer market” magazines, in which people like SAB-Miller’s international division chief prattles through endless paragraphs about “positioning” Italy’s dreadfully boring Peroni beer alongside other fashionable signature Italian brands like Gucci and Versace (like I know anything about fashion), but of course never delves into how much like every other international golden lager it really is -- how utterly forgettable, but "placed" on the menu at every Italian restaurant in the world, as though it has something to offer Italian cuisine.

There also was an in-depth analysis of the top 25 imported beers, and scanning the list, roughly half were Mexican, with perhaps two in all that I would drink before dedicating the contents of the cans to pet shampoo or drain cleaner -- but whaddaya get at every taqueria ...

Somewhere in the text of one of the articles was a grudging acknowledgement of heightened microbrew and craft beer sales, but in the main, most of it was cheerleading for multinationals, and the accompanying inbred Philistinism that makes it so difficult to locate a higher-up in the benumbed land of industrial brewing who knows or cares a jot about beer apart from extraneous factors attached to it.

Damn it, I want to taste smoked beer with enchiladas, and IPA with antipasto. Is it too much to ask?

End of rant.

Is it vacation yet?