Beer Song Challenge

Subject: Beer Song Challenge: Polygamy Porter
From: Bo Vandenberg
Date: 18 Feb 02 - 12:36 AM

With highest regards for Aine, I saw this story and felt that it had to form the a challenge for Mudcatters.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/0111/10/world/world21.html

Utah beer company's billboards produce an almighty brew-haha

By Candus Thomson, in Salt Lake City

Polygamy Porter tastes good. The question in Mormon-dominated Utah is whether the billboard advertising for the beer is in good taste.

Greg Schrif, the brewmaster and owner of Wasatch Beer, insists the slogans, "Why have just one?" and "Take some home for the wives", are in good fun.

But the Utah Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission and two local billboard companies disagree. The state agency has toyed with the idea of banning advertising that pokes fun at religion, while the billboard companies have refused to rent Mr Schrif space on their signs.

Although acquiring multiple wives has been illegal in Utah since 1890 - a ban required by the Federal Government as a condition for statehood - there are still pockets of practising polygamists. Civic leaders touting a cosmopolitan image consider it a sore point to bring up an activity once sanctioned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, as the Mormons are formally known.

That Mr Schrif would poke fun at Utah's embarrassing history has developed into a row that is taking on Olympic proportions.

"They're being thick-headed," Mr Schrif says. "With everyone watching because of the Winter Olympics, they don't seem to realise they are drawing more attention to themselves. I couldn't pay for this kind of publicity."

But Reagan Outdoor Advertising, which had a one-year contract with Mr Schrif, is resolute.

"We just do not want to be associated in any way with anything that associates in any way with polygamy," the company president, Dewey Reagan, told the Salt Lake Tribune.

"The entire ad is offensive."

Seventy per cent of Utah residents are Mormons, following a religion that forbids the consumption of alcohol and frowns on caffeine. Government at all levels, including the liquor board, is dominated by church members.

Park City, home to Mr Schrif's Wasatch Brew Pub, is not so sober-minded. It is Utah's party central, a skiing town about 45 minutes outside Salt Lake City. It is the perfect place for beers such as Polygamy Porter and St Provo Girl ("If you just said 'Oh my heck', it's probably not for you").

And Mr Schrif, a fun-loving guy with a beer-barrel shape, is no stranger to controversy. He wrestled with state regulators to license microbreweries and brew pubs in the 1980s. Two years ago he successfully tangled with Winter Olympics organisers over his 2002 Unofficial Amber Ale.

"I'll never understand that one," he says. "Which part did they have licensed? 2002? Unofficial?"

For now, Mr Schrif is the life of the party, selling beer and merchandise on his Web site, www.utahbrewers.com and promoting Park City.

"I'm getting 400 online orders for T-shirts every day. The beer is flying off the shelves.

"The church has been too helpful - I should tithe 10 per cent. It's the only right thing to do."

The Baltimore Sun

Subject: RE: Beer Song Challenge
From: Sorcha
Date: 18 Feb 02 - 01:35 AM

Now this is funny.......and, unfortunately, I believe every word of it. Spent 7 years in Evanston, Wyoming which is just 3 miles from the Utah border and only 80 miles from SLC.

State of Utah used to come to Evanston and set up illegal survelliance of liquor stores so that the Utah liscense plates got busted for "importing" booze from Wyoming into Utah without the tithe.

Evanston, Wyoming is also the site of the State Psychiatric Hospital.............

Subject: RE: Beer Song Challenge
From: artbrooks
Date: 18 Feb 02 - 08:21 AM

Sorcha, was it Evanston where the sign was near the border crossing that said "now entering Utah...set your watch back 100 years"?

I went to college in Salt Lake, and remember 3.2 beer with no particular fondness...American commercial beer is bad enough, but that stuff is (almost) not worth drinking. I guess that was the idea... I wonder how microbreweries survive there, but maybe there's a loophole in Utah's odd liquer laws.

Subject: RE: Beer Song Challenge
From: Genie
Date: 24 Feb 02 - 01:13 AM

I just saw this. No time to do a song right now, but I'll think about it. Good challenge, Sigurd.

BTW, wasn't there a beer (was it Schafer's?) that had the jingle "[da da] is the one beer to have when you're having more than one!"? (It was a couple of decades ago, at least.)

Genie

Subject: RE: Beer Song Challenge
From: BlueJay
Date: 24 Feb 02 - 05:45 AM

This is funny. I read about Polygamy Porter awhile back in the Denver Post. At that time they were trying to prevent the beer from being sold in bars during the Olympics. The powers that be had billboards removed etc.

While I applaud Greg Schrif's ingenuity, and agree 100% with his philosophy, his prices seem ridiculous to me. On the website, it costs fifteen bucks a six-pack. If the beer is "flying off the shelves", as he states, this is a real marketing coup.

I'll bet it's seven or eight bucks in the liquor stores. I haven't seen Polygymy Porter here yet, but since Utah borders Colorado, it'd probably be just as cheap to drive to Utah and buy the beer than to order it online.

Polygamy Porter, just over the border,
You've ruined the Olympics
Don't you see,

The judges, (now drunk)
Had conceivably thunk,
That the Gold should be split among many.

But I'll take my Fat Tire,
It goes down so smooth,
Brewed right up the road in Fort Collins,
I can't get to Utah, my starter has stalled,
And my bearings were last seen in Rawlins


(I just think it's funny, that out of all the places in the world where the Olympics could have been held, Utah is where two Gold Medals were awarded. Now can we get back to worrying about Clinton's dick)? Thanks, BlueJay

Subject: RE: Beer Song Challenge
From: Mr Red
Date: 24 Feb 02 - 11:15 AM

2FFW (too funny for words)
as a cider drinker (fading fast see feverfew thread) writing a song about hopsandsuch in the US may prove too alien for me but if anyone's having a go :-,
what rhymes with polygamy - big o' me (sic)? digamy (The state of having married again after the death or divorce of the first spouse) and the next stage on - trigamy - thanks SOED CD ROM. To which the Penguin Rhyming Dictionary gave me all the 'ogamies. Not much to go on there.
porter - oughta, caught her (eye), ripsnorter, manslaughter, and a raft of possibilities including jerkwater. And I suppose by a big stretch, break-water and sort o' piesporter (pronounced pees) could be made to sound crude. No short o' grist to the water mill there.
OK 'catters anyone pullin' legs or pints?
Utah - No! Ta!
Park City? Stark Pity!
Salt Lake? Alt Slake! Insult Lake?
Goes down a treat? - maybe not.
Me Offend? heaven forfend!
finally call me a pedant but.... if the beer is really flying off the shelves is it him that is drinking too much of it?

Subject: RE: Beer Song Challenge
From: SharonA
Date: 25 Feb 02 - 09:32 AM

Wow, no wonder they rioted in Salt Lake City when they announced "last call" at that beer garden party! Sounds like, when they say "last call", they mean "THE last"!

Gee.... nobody makes this kind of a fuss over the winery in Intercourse, Pennsylvania....

Subject: RE: Beer Song Challenge
From: Mr Red
Date: 25 Feb 02 - 04:25 PM

SharonA
Tell me it's true - wine in Intercourse!
Do they drink much? "nah spill most of it"
cue another song almost.

Subject: RE: Beer Song Challenge
From: Jacob B
Date: 26 Feb 02 - 11:18 AM

Genie, that was indeed Schaefer Beer. One of the New England breweries that is long gone, along with Haffenreffer and Narragansett.

Subject: RE: Beer Song Challenge
From: Mr Red
Date: 27 Feb 02 - 07:34 PM

Jacob B
call my thinking befuddled but if I had to ask for Haffenreffer and Narragansett after the fourth Haffenreffer or Narragansett I would probably just slur Coors. If I was a beer drinker that is. There is a marketing lesson to be learned here I think. Make the brand name short so it gets a larger typeface, and pronouncable. We had a brand called Satzenbrau, gone to the big drainage pit in the sky, and rightly so.

Subject: RE: Beer Song Challenge
From: Desdemona
Date: 27 Feb 02 - 07:39 PM

Middle Ages Brewing Company in Syracuse NY has some hilariously named brews: Druid Fluid, Grail Ale, Beast Bitter, et al.

Check them out at:

http://www.nycbeer.org/middle-ages/

Sigh....the middle ages, beer, & thou beside me, singing in the wilderness....and beer is paradise enow...!