Grabbing A Bottle Or Can Brings Out The Blogger’s Pride In America
With baseball bats cracking around the nation’s ballparks, summer here and the Fourth of July approaching, Budweiser has struck up a patriotic tune with red, white and blue beer cans, plus similar labels on its bottles.
The cans, especially, make you want to reach out and grab one. They have white stars on a blue background and red and white stripes. It’s like wrapping your hand around the flag.
It is, quite literally, a true taste of America.
Budweiser, you see, is the beer I most associate with in America. I tend to think as Miller and Coors being regional (Milwaukee and Colorado, respectively) and while Budweiser is of course closely associated with St. Louis, in my mind it has a more national appeal.
Maybe it was seeing those Clydesdales commercials during televised baseball games as a kid, the fact my dad would always crack open a Budweiser after mowing the lawn on hot summer Saturdays (and a few years later, just having the Budweiser on the porch while I, of course, mowed the lawn) or of seeing hard-working and hard-faced patrons drinking bottles of Bud the first time I walked into a dive bar.
To this day, I describe a certain type of establishment as a “Budweiser bar.” That’s the type of bar where there’s neon beer signs cluttering the walls, a pool table with the Bud light hanging over it in the smoky distance and a working class personality to the place. The second I walk into it I say to the bartender ,without a second’s thought, “I’ll have a Budweiser.”
The Silver Spigot in San Diego and The Hideaway in Honolulu are two such bars (see links below for more on each of those bars).
When I grab one of these red, white and blue cans or bottles, I feel a bit more patriotic, a tad more proud to be an American. It’s my way of saluting those who helped build the country – in particular Adolphus Busch, who created refrigerated rail cars that enabled Budwieser to be shipped all over the USA – while enjoying a little cold, liquid refreshment for myself.
Cheers!
RELATED STORY LINKS:
• The Silver Spigot, San Diego
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