Comments on: Splutter, splutter.

By: Harl Delos

Harl Delos — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 11:44:56 +0000

Harl, if you are in Lancaster, you’ve no doubt tried Straub’s and Stoney’s.

I’d never even heard of those brands before you posted. Straub’s appears to be from up near Erie, and Stoney’s is made in Pittsburg. Pennsylvania is a BIG state, and we’re closer to Baltimore, or Washington DC, or even NYC than to either of those.

There’s are three locals. Lancaster Brewing seems to have a really popular beer in Milk Stout, and their Amish Four Grain and their Strawberry Wheat are carried by a lot of local restaurants and beer wholesalers, too.

Bube’s, just down the road in Mount Joy, has a faithful following.

Iron Hill Brewery just opened a location next to Franklin & Marshall College, but I’m not sure they actually brew here. They’re really a Wilmington company.

Microbrews tend to be really hoppy, which is fine if you like hops, but I’m allergic. It really doesn’t add much to everyone else’s enjoyment if you’re halfway through supper and make a mad rush for the john, because you suddenly need to erupt at both ends….

A shame, because brewpubs looks like they’re really fun places. Have one for me, OK?

Pennsylvania has strange beer laws. Restaurants can sell you six packs to go. Beer stores known as “distributors” even though they don’t sell wholesale, can sell full cases to go. Nobody is allowed to sell 12-packs. You have to go to the state store or to the winery to buy a bottle of wine.

But then, other states have strange laws, too. Ohio will let you sell 7-ounce creme ale, but beers have to be 12 ounces or larger. West Virginia, last I knew, could sell 6.0 beer, but not 3.2 and not malt liquor.

Indiana wouldn’t let me eat lunch at a working man’s bar when I had my 3-month-old son with me, even if I didn’t order beer. I couldn’t leave him in the car alone - and being diabetic, skipping meals could make it dangerous for me to drive elsewhere. Does anyone *really* think babes that can’t walk or talk are going to be harmed by being in a lunchroom that serves beer?

By: Dexter

Dexter — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 05:39:01 +0000

I remember drinking cheap beers like Koehler’s and Hudepohl, too. Also Buckhorn and Fall’s City, which made Billy Carter’s “Billy Beer”.
Harl, if you are in Lancaster, you’ve no doubt tried Straub’s and Stoney’s. When I was driving through PA, I’d always drive right to the Straub retail store for cases of Straub beer.

http://www.straubbeer.com/history.htm

By: Harl Delos

Harl Delos — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 23:30:57 +0000

R.I.P. Dith Pran.

He was the Cambodian-born journalist whose experiences inspired the movie The Killing Fields. In fact, he coined the term “Killing Field” after seeing the remains of victims of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge regime.

He died of pancreatic cancer this morning; he had been diagnosed about three months ago. He was 65.

By: John

John — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 11:13:36 +0000

re:Crumb

I had “Fritz the Cat” in (NetFlix) a couple months ago. It has aged well in that it was just as funny now as it was (or not) 35 years ago. Watched “One-Eyed Jacks” yesterday. Karl Malden was great in it and Brando was pretty good himself.

By: Kafkaz

Kafkaz — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 03:31:55 +0000

There’s really no such thing as a pure documentary in the way that folks often think of that–as something that purely documents facts and events, or somehow captures what really happened, with no spin, no angle. The moment someone turns on a camera and begins recording, decisions have been made. Even if you just put the camera on a street corner and let it run, you’ll still have selected the kind of camera, the corner, the time of day, and even the duration of the recording, and that makes all the difference. Once you start adding in editing, music, and all of the rest (including the way the very presence of the camera impacts the events that unfold before it), it seems to me that most every documentary film is an essay. They all have a thesis to advance, an argument to make, and an interpretation of events to put forward. Documentaries are meant to be persuasive, and the best of them are very carefully constructed, indeed. Most also have fictional elements: they focus on the emergence of certain characters, for instance, and they construct narratives.

One of my all time favorite documentaries is Streetwise. It has an interesting history–including both how it came to be, and how the makers of the film have followed up on one of its main characters–and it’s great for classroom study of the form with college students. Old, as these things go, but still resonates.

By: Jeff (the mild-mannered one)

Jeff (the mild-mannered one) — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 03:06:30 +0000

First Old Style, then Rolling Rock . . . next thing they’ll be telling me Guinness isn’t made with the waters of Mother Liffey.

Speaking of lost horizons…

By: Kirk

Kirk — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 02:54:08 +0000

It’s owned by Anheuser-Busch now, so you know it has to suck.

By: Jeff (the mild-mannered one)

Jeff (the mild-mannered one) — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 02:32:33 +0000

If Rolling Rock isn’t made with artesian spring water from Latrobe, PA any more, i’m not drinking it.

By: basset

basset — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 23:42:32 +0000

probably was a plastic bottle, my memory of those days is a little fuzzy for some reason… definitely was called a “Big King,” though.

(brief pause while I do a quick search)

hmmmm. looks like Little Kings are still around, but brewed in Pennsylvania… Hudepohl/Schoenling sold out to Sam Adams in 1997 and Sam is brewed in the old Cincinnati plant now.

By: del

del — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 22:15:37 +0000

Danny mentioned Tony Snow and Helen Thomas. Nance might be interested to know that Tony Snow lived in Grosse Pointe city for a time, and Helen Thomas is a graduate of Wayne State.