How’s this for perspective?
One of the provincial-run liquor stores in downtown Halifax has a nifty little display of “Beers of the World.”
One of the beers is Old Milwaukee.
Well, it is imported. Made me ask myself a different question: Where is Old Milwaukee the local beer?
So I’m standing in a gas station in semi-rural Maine admiring three cooler doors wide of craft beers — mostly beers of the region — when a woman opens one of the doors and shakes her head.
“Did they get rid of all the regular beer for this specialty stuff?” she asks, apparently speaking to me.
I look on down the coolers and noticed beers like Corona, Bud Lime and Michelob Ultra. Then I look behind her. Two doors of there was Budweiser, Miller Lite, Coors Light, etc. I point to them, she smiles, grabs a bright red 12-pack of Bud and heads on her way.
No, I don’t see gas stations getting rid of “regular beer” any time soon.
Our travels through Wisconsin allowed us to update our photo of the “World’s Largest Six Pack” i LaCrosse.
We’ve got a little collection of the “world’s largest . . .” going on this trip. We’ve seen the world’s largest cross country skis, the world’s largest fly fishing rod, America’s biggest mall and more. So an update seemed like good enough reason to drive through the heart of LaCrosse.
When Heileman, then Stroh, owned the brewery the six pack, as you can see, featured cans of Old Style. When City Brewery bought the operations the cans were remodeled as LaCrosse Lager. Prettier, don’t you think?
The sign with information about what in the lagering tanks may have been touched up a bit, but otherwise looks exactly the same. It says there’s enough beer inside to fill 7,340,796 12-ounce cans and placed end to end these cans would extend 565 miles. They would provide one person a six pack a day for 3,351 years.
Thought you needed to know that.
I love the name of this store in Banff, Alberta.
Although I think the name is meant to imply it’s a place for locals rather than tourists the cooler included a few regional beers.
I grabbed Hop Head from Tree Brewing in Kelowna, B.C., located about half way between Vancouver and Banff. The clerk was less than helpful — “It tastes like the name” — but the beer was fresh and focused.
To answer a question, since I received a friendly (it seemed friendly) e-mail asking why I wasn’t posting more drinking notes . . . Yes, one of our goals on this extended adventure is to eat and drink local products, but I have no plan to write about all of them. We’ve had some excellent beers, which I may eventually mention, and some duds, better forgotten.
They point of our journey is better summarized by what occurred in a few seconds along U.S. Route 2 in Minnesota.
Driver: (There’s the) Big Fish Supper Club. (We’re keen on supper clubs.)
Navigator: Look at the fish.
Driver: Holy shit!
Passenger: Laughing loudly as driver tries to brake without the contents of the RV banging around too wildly.
We managed to turn around without any damage, just to capture this photo.
There’s more about the journey at The Slow Travelers, but I’m running behind on updating Flickr photos because campground wi-fi connections continue to suck.