Molson Canadian

Molson Canadian is a lager style beer which is the flagship brand of the Montreal, Canada-based Molson Brewing Company, a division of the Molson Coors brewing group. Molson is the oldest extant brewery in North America, having been established in 1786.

The brewery's founder, John Molson, left England for Canada at the age of 18 with little more than a "how to" book about brewing, money from his inheritance (both his parents had died), and a dream of opening a brewery in Montreal. His timing could not have been more perfect. As a result of the American Revolution, the British military presence in Canada was high, and refugee Loyalists from the former 13 American colonies were flocking into Canada. And these people not only proved to be the core of his early customer base, Molson even found his bride among the Loyalist refugees.

So, from the beginning, Molson was a success, and today, the Molson Brewery carries nearly 40% of the Canadian market. In 2005, Molson merged with the American brewer Coors to create a name that only a stockholder could like, Molson Coors Brewing Company, which has also proven to be a success, at least on Wall Street. The promised cost-cutting materialized better than expected, and they have effectively taken advantage of the slumping US dollar. So, even though its stock price is at an all-time high (as of this writing), analysts still have a "buy" out on Molson Coors (as of this writing).

To read my complete review of the beer at Helium, click HERE>>>

Peach Pit in Prague

This place is no joke. It's in Prague, on a little, hard to find street in the Vinohrady district. The interior is nothing like the Peach Pit on the television show Beverly Hills 90210, but it does takes its inspiration from the show. Yellow walls, covered in those old-fashioned vinyl albums, with some Art Deco ornamentation and furniture, along with some American flags.

It's not a restaurant, it's not a pub, it's more of a small, neighborhood, theme, music club. The kind that opens at 4 in the afternoon and closes at 3 in the morning.

In regards to beer, it's what's called a "Stella pub." It Prague, pubs only display one brand sign, and if that brand is Stella Artois, that means that the pub serves the Czech beer Staropramen, Stella Artois, and Hoegaarden.

Check out the website of Klub Peach Pit, here.

Generic Beer

This beer looks pretty tasty, eh? I purchased this small can of suds in Prague for about 15 cents. I have no idea by whom or where it was brewed, but it is marked with the brand of the Belgian supermarket chain Delhaize. In the Czech Republic, the stores were called Delvita. I use the past tense here because Delhaize recently pulled out of the CR and Slovakia. The store where I bought this beer is today a Billa, an Austrian supermarket chain.

Not that I have to say, but this beer was awful.

The Great Moosehead Beer Mystery

About three years ago, 15 August to be exact, a guy by the name of Wade Haines left the Moosehead Brewery in New Brunswick, Canada with a tractor-trailer loaded with 54,000 cans of beer bound towards Toronto. Neither Haines nor the beer arrived. What exactly happened has never been fully explained. The truck was found two days later in New Brunswick, but the beer was gone, as was the Haines. About a month later, the police would eventually track Haines down; he explained that since he thought he was going to be fired, and because he was frustrated with his girlfriend, he spontaneously decided to quit his job, and so he abandoned the truck in tact in a parking lot. The police didn’t believe him, and Haines was charged with the theft of $57,000 worth of beer. In the media, the police mocked Haines as being a “dumb criminal” because the stolen cans were ultimately destined for the Mexican market and were labeled in Spanish, which according to police, would make it impossible for anybody to fence the stolen booty.

Now, there is little question that Mr Haines is a tad on the stupid side. He has a criminal record for petty theft and even started referring to himself as the “beer bandit” while awaiting trail. The larger issue however is the stupidity of the police. Haines was clearly part of a larger conspiracy, but I wonder if the cops up there in Canada ever thought to ask Haines about it, or perhaps give him a little incentive to flip on his co-conspirators. Instead, in the end, Haines was prosecuted and sentenced to the max, about a year and a half in prison. Which brings us to the larger mystery, where’s the beer?

Nearly 8000 of the 54,000 cans were found soon after the theft, apparent victims of transit accidents. Presumably, the beer, which was packaged on pallets, was transferred from the tractor-trailer to numerous smaller trailers, trucks, and vans. But what about the remaining 46,000 cans? It’s been three years and the cops still have no idea what happened to those 46,000 cans of Moosehead beer.

So, who’s really the most stupid party here? The Canadian authorities assured the public that the beer could never be sold because of the conspicuous Spanish language labels. But if the beer could not be sold, where is it? Do they really want us to believe that somebody’s got 46,000 cans of beer (which has gone bad by now) buried in his back yard?

Of course, one can only speculate as to what happened to the beer. But the fact that this case is on the books as only partially solved doesn’t speak very well about the quality of police work involved, at least by those in charge of the case. And police assurances that the beer could never be sold in Canada due to the Spanish language labels or be smuggled into America because it lacks a proper manifest is both naïve and comical.

Then there is the matter the victim of this crime, Moosehead, which actually profited from it. One can assume that the cargo was insured, but more importantly, the great Canadian beer theft was reported on internationally and gave Moosehead countless thousands of dollars worth of free advertising. Moosehead even incorporated it in their own advertising, and today, three years later, has a page on their website dedicated to the theft.

The Package Store

Ah, . . . the package store! Young people today, reared on buying their beer at supermarkets and convenience stores, have been denied the classic beer drinking experience of the packie. Historically, the packie is a direct result of the 21st Amendment, which while repealing Prohibition, also allowed for all sorts of local regulation. And so, the package store was born. Created specifically to sell alcoholic beverages, they were usually located apart from general shopping districts and relegated to the less desirable areas of town. They were called package stores because the display of labels of beverages containing alcohol was not permitted in public, so these stores would "package" your wine, spirits, or beer, in accordance with local laws.

The packaging laws created in the 1930s have evolved, but they are still very much with us. Nearly all of the laws today regarding drinking in public are not concerned with the alcohol in the bottle but with the label on it. And that's why, people to this day, have been left to drinking out of paper bags.

Even Spock Drinks Heineken

I doubt that Leonard Nimoy, when he signed on to portray Mr. Spock on the original Star Trek series back in 1966, foresaw this. I also doubt he got any money for this Heineken ad.

Švejk, Barroom Philosopher

When visiting Prague, it's nearly impossible to not encounter one image or other of Josef Švejk, the hero of Jaroslav Hašek's seminal comic WWI novel The Good Soldier Švejk. The Czech people were reluctant participants in the Great War, and there was no soldier more reluctant than Hašek's Josef Švejk. Part genius, part idiot, Švejk is a barroom philosopher without equal.