RAAIINNEEEEEERR!!!
tim_dudley
(Brett Carlson) writes:
>A couple of awful beers that I don't think have been mentioned yet:
>
> ...
> --Rainier, from Washington. I do kinda miss the commercials
> that they used to have with the frogs croaking out
> the word "rainier", tho....
>
>
I *still* strongly disagree !!! (except about the commercials.) The reason
Rainier hasn't been mention in this discussion thread is because it's a Very
Good Mass-Produced Beer. (I'd go on and on about this, but as you all
know, we had the Rainier discussion in this group a couple of
months ago...)
Nice try , Brett! :-)
Tim
Brett Carlson
>I *still* strongly disagree !!! (except about the commercials.) The reason
>Rainier hasn't been mention in this discussion thread is because it's a Very
>Good Mass-Produced Beer. (I'd go on and on about this, but as you all
>know, we had the Rainier discussion in this group a couple of
>months ago...)
>Nice try , Brett! :-)
I must confess that I was not aware that it is still being brewed, since
I no longer live in the great Northwest but have moved to Arizona...
But I stand by my original posting. As of the last time I had Rainer,
it still tasted like pond water. But the commercials, featuring the
frogs, motorcycles, etc. will live in infamy.
Sorry to reawaken a sleeping dog....
--Brett
Robert Paolino
>Tim Dudley writes:
>Gosh, I'm sorry I missed that discussion. Rainier is so bad it almost
>makes Olympia look drinkable. Almost. No, I take that back. Neither one
>of them is drinkable, but still... The Rainier commercials were the
>*only* good thing about the stuff. Of course, there's Green Death:
>Rainier Ale. Several years ago, I was in Produce Row (in Portland, maybe
>300 beers in bottles and a dozen on draught) and overheard two guys
>complaining that RA wasn't on draught. "We used to get it in here, we
>loved it!" Response from bartender: "Oh, you're the guys!"
>--Jeff Frane
>>Nice try , Brett! :-)
>>Tim
>>
>--
>gumm...@techbook.COM ...!{tektronix!nosun,uunet}techbook!gummitch
>Public Access UNIX at (503) 644-8135 (1200/2400) Voice: +1 503 646-8257
>"Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to
>know how to lie well." --Samuel Butler
Out here in the midwest, Green Death refers to Special Export.
As for Rainier, I recall a witty little description that went something
like, "Rainier Beer comes from here," and the person speaking it points to
his crotch.
Jeff Frane
Gosh, I'm sorry I missed that discussion. Rainier is so bad it almost
makes Olympia look drinkable. Almost. No, I take that back. Neither one
of them is drinkable, but still... The Rainier commercials were the
*only* good thing about the stuff. Of course, there's Green Death:
Rainier Ale. Several years ago, I was in Produce Row (in Portland, maybe
300 beers in bottles and a dozen on draught) and overheard two guys
complaining that RA wasn't on draught. "We used to get it in here, we
loved it!" Response from bartender: "Oh, you're the guys!"
--Jeff Frane
>Nice try , Brett! :-)
>Tim
>
tim_dudley
>Rainier Ale. Several years ago, I was in Produce Row (in Portland, maybe
>300 beers in bottles and a dozen on draught) and overheard two guys
>complaining that RA wasn't on draught. "We used to get it in here, we
>loved it!" Response from bartender: "Oh, you're the guys!"
>
Well, I hate to beat a dead horse (which is where I understand they get
Olympia from - that's why there's a horseshoe on the label. It's a
picture of the factory. But I digress...), but Rainier Ale is also one of the
best Mass Produced Dark Ales you can get in the US. But you gotta get it
before it goes skunky (and just to divert a bunch of hate mail, yes, you CAN
tell the difference!! :-) )
Tim
(And for you who don't believe the horse story, why do you think Olympia has
"Tummywater" on the labels?)
>
RDH...@psuvm.psu.edu
Dave Breneman
>
>Well, I hate to beat a dead horse (which is where I understand they get
>Olympia from - that's why there's a horseshoe on the label. It's a
>picture of the factory. But I digress...), but Rainier Ale is also one of the
>best Mass Produced Dark Ales you can get in the US. But you gotta get it
>before it goes skunky (and just to divert a bunch of hate mail, yes, you CAN
>tell the difference!! :-) )
>
>Tim
>
this group...
I always was partial to Rainier Ale as a "Supermarket Beer". That is,
something you pick up when you only got a few bucks on you (just made
your car or computer payment) and want something with a hint of flavor.
It's gotten a bad rap for two quasi-well-deserved reasons -
1) It comes is a green bottle
2) It's not an ale
and a third one, *usually* irrelevant us to natives-
3) Heileman, who once owned Rainier, also brewed it at the National
brewery in (forget the city), Arizona, and that product tasted rather
like Henry Weinhard's "Ale". I know because in the early 80's, our
local Rainier distributor (Cammarano Brothers) "accidentally" brought
up a trainload of "Arizona Ale" in lieu of Mickey's, and it took 6-8
months for it to work its way out of the distribution system. ---Less
than 40 miles from the Rainier brewery! I got this info from the
brewmaster at Rainier, whom I called to complain to about the situation.
The people at Rainier are still very accessible and quite decent folk,
like most northwest brewers.
But to tie all this together... You can do a lot worse than Rainier
Ale when you only have ~$4.00 for your sixpack (lets see... Budweiser,
Miller, Coors, anything Mexican, anything sold in the US as Canadian,
anything with more than one city on the label, anything that advertises
on television, anything marketed to an Inner-City Target Group, Schiltz,
Blitz and/or Weinhard's, Killian's, any beer that your parents drank
when they were your age...) Who DARES dispute this?!? :-)
--
David Breneman ################# Kill Jim Harriot
The Spud Goodman Show ####### ####### before he
d...@rosedale.uucp ##### ##### creates another
...uunet!camco!rosedale!dcb (_) - - - Ciao. Dan Lewis
Jeff Frane
>But to tie all this together... You can do a lot worse than Rainier
>Ale when you only have ~$4.00 for your sixpack (lets see... Budweiser,
>Miller, Coors, anything Mexican, anything sold in the US as Canadian,
^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^
>anything with more than one city on the label, anything that advertises
>on television, anything marketed to an Inner-City Target Group, Schiltz,
>Blitz and/or Weinhard's, Killian's, any beer that your parents drank
^^^^^^^^^^
>when they were your age...) Who DARES dispute this?!? :-)
Well, personally.... If I only had $4 for a six-pack, I'd buy three
bottles of Full Sail Amber, Sam Adams, or Bridgeport Blue Heron. And
anyone who thinks Rainier horsewinkey is better than Negro Modelo, Dos
Equis or Henry Weinhard's Private Reserve needs to take his tastebuds
in for retread!!!!!!!
Better yet, make your own!
--Jeff Frane
Robert Paolino
>d...@rosedale.uucp (Dave Breneman) writes:
>--Jeff Frane
I, too, wondered how the original post-er could LIKE Rainer and bash
Henry's. I'm not exactly a fan of HW's, but it's certainly respectable
cheap swill, especially compared to Rainer. And I have had the chance to
try Full Sail and Blue Heron (and many others from WA and BC) during my
trips to the P-NW and found them quite satisfying brews.
RPAOLINO.polisci.pol.umn.edu Bob Paolino
"Help, I've fallen and I University of Minnesota
can't reach my beer!" Department of Political Science
"The laws of gravity
Are very, very strict
And you're just bending them
For your own benefit"
--BB
Dave Breneman
>
>I, too, wondered how the original post-er could LIKE Rainer and bash
>Henry's. I'm not exactly a fan of HW's, but it's certainly respectable
>cheap swill, especially compared to Rainer. And I have had the chance to
>try Full Sail and Blue Heron (and many others from WA and BC) during my
>trips to the P-NW and found them quite satisfying brews.
Well, now that you mention it...
From my high school days up until the time that Henry's gained a
national cachet from advertising, the name Weinhard meant only one
thing - Ocean Jag. The cheapest beer available in the greater
Aberdeen/Hoquiam/Ocean Shores/Grays Harbor area was Blitz Weinhard
approx $5.00 a case, as I recall. Anyone who grew up in the Ruralpolitan
Puget Sound area has in their distant memory the adolescent ritual of
driving to The Ocean and party'ing with many cases of Blitz, and
regretting same the morning after. The whole notion of Henry
Weinhard's Private Reserve (when it first was announced) was greeted with
the same warm feelings you would get from the announcement of:
1) Rheinlander Private Reserve
2) Buckhorn Private Reserve
3) Columbia Private Reserve
4) Regal Select Private Reserve
5) Brown Derby Private Reserve
(the list goes on...)
Of course, as we all know, one of the stellar feats of marketing
obtained - Blitz is almost universally forgotten, and Weinhard
is a respected name across most of the country. It's not at all a
bad beer, to be sure. I must confess that my provincialism was
getting the better of me in that post. Nonetheless, as I sit here
typing this article, trusty bottle of Rainier Ale to hand, I
Uh, what was I saying? :-)
tim_dudley
Breneman) writes:
>In article <rpaol...@polisci.pol.umn.edu> rpao...@polisci.pol.umn.edu
(Robert Paolino) writes:
>>
>>I, too, wondered how the original post-er could LIKE Rainer and bash
Ha! I'm the original post-er, and it's easy: Rainier tastes Good, Henry's
tastes mediocre (if you can taste it at all...)! And Rainier Ale "...goes
glunk! glunk! down your throat."
>Of course, as we all know, one of the stellar feats of marketing
>obtained - Blitz is almost universally forgotten, and Weinhard
>is a respected name across most of the country. It's not at all a
>bad beer, to be sure. I must confess that my provincialism was
>getting the better of me in that post. Nonetheless, as I sit here
>typing this article, trusty bottle of Rainier Ale to hand, I
>
>Uh, what was I saying? :-)
Now, there's some light on the subject.
I suspect that my fondness for Rainier has something to do with nostalgia
and loyalty - Rainier kept me relatively sane during my college days in
Montana (when you had to drive to Idaho to get Coors, which people
actually did - never understood that. But I digress...). There's something
really
good about getting home, going to Albertson's and buying a couple of sixes of
Rainier Pounders (named for the 16 oz. bottles, not the headache...), then
heading up into the mountains and sitting on a stump, and enjoying some of
them. And remember that, in Montana, drinking beer doesn't count as drinking.
Back to my college days - the alternatives to Rainier were Lucky Lager,
Olympia, Hamms (the beer refreshing), and the old traditionals - Schmidt,
Buckhorn, and something else from Butte (that I mercifully can't remember
the name of), etc... Given those choices, I'd have drunk Rainier even if I
*hadn't* liked it.
Tim