When is Beer Not Beer?

When it's 3.2, that's when. There's a battle going on in the statehouse of Kansas regarding the sale of beer. Current law requires some stores, particularly grocery and convenience stores, to sell beer that is no more than 3.2 percent alcohol. Even the most occasional of beer drinkers know that beer comes in a variety of alcohol levels - a cornicopia, as it were.

So, what's the big deal? The big deal is that if you buy your beer in a Kansas liquor store you get the beer the rest of the normal world gets. If you're on your way home from work and just feel like stopping by the local convenience mart on your way home you get the watered down stuff. The Kansas House and Senate will be weighing in on the debate that is, according to KSN.com, driven by the larger grocers. In the online article, Quik Trip spokesperson Mike Thornbrugh says “We know the law, and we will always do the right thing. Quite frankly, we're getting tired of their same old story. They really don't want competition and they need to be truthful about it."

Of course, the sage and wise stewards of liqour stores are not concerned about competition. To them, it's a matter of policing underage drinking - more stores selling real beer means more policing and that, in turns, means more cost to the state. Sounds reasonable - surely the big grocers have great difficulty calculating and verifying a buyers age when reviewing the Kansas driver's license.

There is Bad Beer After All

Some beers really are not worth having more than once and today we take a look at two. This is not to say these respective brewers make all things bad but every once in awhile even the best lay an egg.

Breckenridge Brewery's Remarkable Vanilla Porter. So, it's actually brewed with real vanilla beans (as opposed to the fake beans). The label boasts that this original recipe is "seldom seen" and "never duplicated" and for that we are thankful. The beer is a bit light in color for a porter but it has great head (that's what she said). Get a good snootful of this and there is a mild vanilla background but on the front end there's a solid alcohol smell - not exactly ideal. Take a swig and it's like drinking carbonated vanilla extract. According to the fine folks at Breckenridge we're tasting a nice herb and spice beer. Of course, when talking spices you have to use great geography and these folks do it up right talking big on the jungles of Papua New Guinea and Madagascar - pretty fancy.

Bell's Cherry Stout. We are actually big fans of Bell's other brews but the Cherry Stout - not so much. On the pour, from a bottle into a pint glass, it looks great. Dark in color with the nutty colored head you would expect from a good stout. Take a deep breath over the glass and you come away with a nice stout feel backed up with faint cherry. Our expectations at this point were high. The taste is where things get tricky. At best the cherry flavor is fake and forced on to the palette. In the end it's closer to a cherry cough syrup than a good, reliable stout.

Generally we prefer that these fancy flavored beers have more hint in the after taste. Of course, these things are highly subjective and we encourage you and yours to try these out and judge for yourself. We're not exactly experts or judges - just schmoes who like to drink too much. Anyway, this has been fun but we're going to find a real beer.

All I Wanna Do Is Zima Zima and a Boom Boom

As far as we can tell the official death of the '90s arrived on October 20, 2008. It started with the death of Layne Staley and ended yesterday with the announcement that MillerCoors LLC will stop making the malternative beverage, Zima.

Zima has been called a lot of things - crap, awful, Sprite with alcohol. To us, Zima is the godfather of today's pop-malt beverages in the same way Neil Young is the godfather to alternative music. Were it not for Zima we might not have Mike's Hard Lemonade, Smirnoff Twisted, and any of the lame beers now being pushed with lemon and/or lime. For better or worse, there's a market for these drinks.

It's not the drink itself rather the memories it evokes. Wearing flannel and work boots with shorts like Eddie Vedder. Pretending to like Mudhoney because they're from Seattle. Wondering why Metallica dressed alternative and still played heavy metal (please remember to get your Metallica music legally!). Most importantly - watching Singles with your girlfriend and running off to the house party hoping to get her drunk on Zima while you forced down Natural Light Ice - because every beer was "ice" back in the day.

So, good bye '90s. Today we grow up and pretend to care about our jobs. Zima - well, we actually thought you left years ago.