Booze Thoughtz: Coors Banquet Beer

Because most of the readers of this blog also happen to be related to me, you will all no doubt be aware that I grew up in the peaceful little hamlet of Grand Forks, B.C. Drinking in the bush made up a substantial part of my high school experience. I usually drank beer (sometimes a mickey of Smirnoff), even though I never really started to like beer until I was about twenty-one. It's hard to remember, but I think I mostly drank Budweiser or Kokanee, and sometimes MGD or Heineken. Whatever the brand, I only ever drank generic lagers, which continue to be my favourite beer to this day.

I'm not really in any position to judge anyone's beer preferences, but I've always struggled to understand people who are deeply committed to big brand generic beers, like Budweiser or Kokanee or Coors Light. A lot of people drank Coors Light in Grand Forks, but Coors Banquet Beer was not available in B.C. (or at least not in Grand Forks), as far as I can remember, so it was always a big deal to pick it up in the States. I always assumed this was just because it was so much cheaper in the States, but it turns out that Coors Banquet has a substantial loyal following.

So in the spirit of Food Thoughtz, I broke down and bought two tall boys of Coors Banquet last weekend. These are my stories:

• It's too expensive. There is no way I am going to spend $2.45 on a tall boy of Coors Banquet when [Old Style] Pilsner is only $2.00 and sometimes inexplicably even less.
• I hated the first can I had because there was something too sweet about it. The second can was better, in the sense that it tasted more or less like any other generic lager beer. It still wasn't anything special, and not only is Pilsner a cheaper beer, I also maintain it is a better beer.
• The can design is okay. I kind of like the colour combination of a rich blue and the light beige. I guess the design has a kind of classic quality to it. I don't know. I think it was only just okay.
• I don't understand why it's called "Banquet" beer. I would be so embarrassed to serve this at any kind of banquet. Unless the banquet was, like, a smörgåsbord of literal garbage.

After I took this picture I moved the can back into the recycling. Unlike
everyone else in this hellish province, I don't throw out recyclables.

In conclusion, yeah, I just don't get the appeal of this beer or why it has such a dedicated following.

Who the hell is drinking Coors?

I guess someone whose taste but not pocket is poor.

Food Thoughtz Update: Alcohol

Well, everyone. I have finally decided to expand the scope of Food Thoughtz to include alcohol. The series will probably be called "Drink Thoughtz," or something equally unimaginative. I live in a house with a roommate, and these shelves are a big part of our living space and our lives:

Over the past two years, I've really gotten into the world of cocktails—which has in part been encouraged by this unruly liquor collection, but also by Midge Deak's relatively new found interest in cocktails (her favourite drink is something I call the "Midge Deak" and consists of vodka and plain tap water).

The series will likely run the gambit of alcohol, including beers, ciders, coolers, and hard alcohol. Perhaps wine sometimes too, but I am not really into wine unless it's cut with soda. You might be wondering what authority I have to pass judgement on different kinds of alcohol. The answer is precisely none, which is the same level of authority I exercise when it comes to food.

**Update** The famed Midge Deak has recommended the series be called "Booze Thoughtz," and I agree.

Booze Thoughtz: Rosé fröccs with a single frozen strawberry

Hungary has a long list of accomplishments under its leather-satchel-affixed belt: it was a Hungarian who first isolated vitamin C; it was a Hungarian who invented the rubik's cube; and it was a Hungarian who invented the ballpoint pen (fun fact: his name was Bálpont Zoltan, which is where we get the word "ballpoint" from*). But perhaps their greatest achievement of all is fröccs, a delicious wine-soda water hybrid that probably isn't Hungarian in origin at all, but rather Austrian (?), which is why we normally refer to the drink as a spritzer and not a fröccs. Even so, my first encounter with the drink was in Hungary, and even though I also procured a wife from Hungary, by far my greatest takeaway from that proud nation has been fröccs. 

Recently, as I was browsing the fröccs hashtag on instagram, I came across a delicious looking rosé fröccs with a frozen strawberry as an icecube, and I had to have it. A week later I bought one of the cheapest bottles of rosé I could find a proceeded to recreate the drink. The results were anticlimactic. It wasn't bad by any means; just uneventful. A normal food critic might not even bother with a review of such an unimpressive drink, but here we are. The strawberry, despite being a better-than-average organic Ontario strawberry, did nothing to improve the taste of the fröccs. In fact, its addition wasn't even noticeable. The biggest disappointment, though, was that the strawberry actually tasted worse when infused with wine than it did in the first place.

So while the drink wasn't terrible, I definitely wouldn't recommend trying this on your own. Or, I mean, do, but be prepared to be underwhelmed.


*Not true. His name was Bíró József, which is why the English call it a biro.