# Cheap Beer **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 26, 2009, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheap-beer/497721 "2009-05-26T18:59:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2009, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheap-beer/497721/1 "2009-05-26T18:59:03Z")
This weekend I was at a friend’s cottage up on a blue collar lake. Upon my arrival, they had just finished doing all the chores they could possibly get down for the 4 day weekend and decided to call it good late Sunday afternoon. Excellent timing, on my part, if I do say so myself. Because my friends are like family, I instantly went to the fridge to get a beer for everyone, only to find NO BEER. No beer at a cottage is an abomination, afterall, what is a cottage for other than repairing 30 year old roofs, gutter, windows, putting in docks, getting the boat engine to work, mowing foot high grass and cleaning the place after a long winter of being shut up. To drink and boat, naturally. And in my case, to drink their beer and go on their boat rides. I told my friends that they were dangerously close to losing their 5 star Rating for their craptacular cottage of which I am envious for and of, except for all the cottage repair job that grind them down to the point where they just go, " Fuck it, it costs too much to fix it and cuts into the sitting in the drunk chair watching the drunks go by in their fancy pontoon boats going WOOOOOOO." time. The beginning of the Drinking Season always starts out with an honest attempt to Better the Cottage. By August it is firmly tossed aside. Being a good sport, I volunteered to run to the local store ( 7 miles away) to remedy this horrendous oversite. I was given an assignment to find kebob skewers, so as to make this a legit trip. Beer runs are for locals, apparently. Beer runs on an Amigo scooter. Beer runs on a lawn mower. Beer runs in a golf cart. Beer runs on a bicycle. And, if times were really tough, beer runs on foot, too show you the kind of dedication the locals have to getting drunk. I hollered out to her husband, " I’m getting beer! What kind do you want?" “Labatt’s.” “That’s kinda fancy, don’tcha think? Y’think I’m made of money?!” I left as I watched him stare at the docks that wouldn’t put themselves in and he couldn’t do it with his bad back and two women helping him ( three if he counted his Mom, which he never did.) Giving me the Redneck Farewell-Safe Journey gesture, I was off to the local grocery store. Fruchey’s. ( pronounced " Froo-chee" ) is a small town grocery store that the majority of teenagers and possibly twenty somethings have never dealt with in the age of Walmart and other MEGAstores. The selection is not as grand. The prices are higher. The produce looks limp and lacking in color. The staff are mostly graduates of Special Ed classes, only not as friendly ( too much to tell in this missive, but you will have to trust me.) I didn’t look at the meat section in fear of being made an instant vegetarian. The magazine stand has a wonderful selection of hunting, car, motorcyle and tattoo magazines. Many word search puzzle mags but no crossword puzzles that I could find. Finding a word is much easier than figuring out a five letter word for fruit that starts with A and ends with L-E. In the back corner of the store is the mecca for all the local drunks. In a wall of coolers resides every major beer available to drinking kind, mostly American beers with a few fancier kinds from Canada. Mostly, though the CHEAP ASS BEERS that any decent beer drinker gives up after he or she turns 21 out of self respect. There, sitting in a case on the floor was a brand I had never heard of. [Beer 30 lite](http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/1422/32918). A case sold for around $10. ( I think.) Not wishing to make such a commitment to a case of beer, no matter how tempting the price, I opted for the six pack that cost $3.29 . $3.29 for a six pack. Think about that for a moment. Knowing if I went back to the cottage with just some Cheap Ass Beer I would be skewered with the chicken kebob stick that I had just bought for a kebobby’ dinner. I also grabbed a 12 pack of Labatt’s, knowing that _Good Beer Opens Doors_. Because of this economic downturn, our vacations will be at this cottage mooching off of friends until someone drops a wheelbarrow of money at our front door, until then, it is best not to insult my congenial hosts with offending brewski’s. ( I can make fun of the neighborhood, the falling gutters, the second rate pontoon boat, the weeds that use to be a flower garden, the smelly well water that is barely fit to shower in. But beer is not something you screw around with.) To show you how serious I am about my friendship, I used my credit card to pay. My general rule about credit cards is to never put anything on the card that by the time the bill comes in the product will be in the sewer or ozone layer. This philosophy has kept our family out of Serious Debt. We only have Mildly Amusing Debt. Arriving back, I found my friends working diligently on using masonary glue on the Steps Of DEATH that lead down to their dock. The brick pavers always need to be re-glued each season and with my help of picking out the proper adhesive at Lowe’s ( 1 hour away) with my friend, we might have actually bought the OUTDOOR kind-a glue necessary. ( Years of buying INDOOR kinda glue probably as not helped matters.) The fact that the old glue was not chipped off in anyway to give it a clean edge for the new stuff to cling too, just spooged on to the old clumps of glue, will probably render this job ‘half ass’. As I told my friend this information, only receiving a _look_ that told me he had gone a weekend without beer and his wife AND mom ( part owner in the cottage. Another story, entirely.) offering advice to him constantly told me he need TLC in the long necked form. So, as I crack open a Labatt’s and give it to the husband, telling him that all home repairs must be accompanied by a bottle of beer to ensure Proper Drunkeness ratio to Getting Anything Done ratio. I am referred to as His Favorite Wife and then I bring out the Beer 30 Lite for my friend. She calls me a few names that are not repeatable in even impolite soceity and mentions how cheap I am. I ignore her gaucheness and we both take a sip. " Is there any beer in this?" “All I am getting is a water taste.” I say. “Maybe the beer taste sank to the bottom.” She says. “Like poop?” says her husband, who wisely refuses any taste testing. The taste was more water than beer and by midnight I consumed the remaining four cans by myself, having not found another person in the zip code to fob it off on. Even the three college students from U of Michigan turned their noses up at the offer of FREE BEER. WHAT is this world coming too! Five beers in me and I didn’t even get a buzz. I am usually Two Beers and Done, kinda gal. So, this was kind of a big deal in a not-so-climatic kinda way for me. I did get up four times in the night to go to the bathroom, something that even a decent beer can’t get me to do, so I guess it has a medicinal value for cleaning out my kidneys. I had no ill effects, not even cotton mouth or beer breath. In the world of cheap beers, this has to be the lowest of the [low](http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/beer-30-light/62528/20415/) and, I feel, would be an excellent way to dissolve any tenous friendships or business dealings by bringing a case of it along to your next party that you are dragged unwillingly too. It has the ability to reach mythological proportions of badness in the right setting. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2009, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheap-beer/497721/2 "2009-05-26T19:01:42Z")
That is a brilliant name for a crappy beer. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2009, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheap-beer/497721/3 "2009-05-26T19:05:05Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > That is a brilliant name for a crappy beer. I agree. The funny thing about the packaging is there is a clock. On the clock there is a \*\*30 \*\*every fifteen minutes. _THAT_ really messes with the mind. Either every fifteen minutes you need a Beer 30 lite to get a buzz or every fifteen minutes of drinking Beer 30 is like thirty minutes. Or they are just fucking with us in such a mathematical way that Stephen Hawking could only understand. ---
**Author:** ![Athena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/35a633/32.png) [@Athena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athena)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2009, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheap-beer/497721/4 "2009-05-26T19:31:50Z")
Boy, you better stay out of the UP with that stuff. We take our cheap beer very seriously. If it doesn’t taste good, it sure as heck better get you drunk! ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2009, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheap-beer/497721/5 "2009-05-26T20:50:06Z")
> [@Athena](#): > > Boy, you better stay out of the UP with that stuff. We take our cheap beer very seriously. If it doesn’t taste good, it sure as heck better get you drunk! The interesting thing is it has 113 calories per can and is brewed by Melanie Brewing Company, Cincinatti, Ohio. Fun fact: I’ve had some rather spectacular smelly farts since partaking in Beer 30 Lite. Coincidence? I think not. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2009, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheap-beer/497721/6 "2009-05-26T20:51:21Z")
[Melanie Brewing Company](http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/1422) doesn’t seem to cater to higher tastes. ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2009, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheap-beer/497721/7 "2009-05-26T21:02:45Z")
I find it mildly amusing that you consider Labatt’s to _not_ be a cheap beer. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2009, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheap-beer/497721/8 "2009-05-26T21:35:30Z")
I’ve had Beer 30 stout. That shit will mess you up 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2009, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheap-beer/497721/9 "2009-05-26T22:05:56Z")
I enjoyed the OP. On rereading it, I have one question: Are you one of my relatives? ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2009, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheap-beer/497721/10 "2009-05-26T22:21:49Z")
According to the knowledgeable sages at [The Beer Advocate](http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/1422/32918) > [@](#): > > I would highly recommend this beer for anyone who likes beer that tastes very bad… > > Take everything you like about your favorite beer and reverse it… > > almost made me cry… > > I swear to god this stuff smells like watery scaly ass Maybe I’ll skip a personal tasting 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheap-beer/497721/11 "2009-05-27T02:14:55Z")
> [@mnemosyne](#): > > I find it mildly amusing that you consider Labatt’s to _not_ be a cheap beer. That’s what I was going to say. Great OP, though. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheap-beer/497721/12 "2009-05-27T02:15:29Z")
I so want to try this beer. I have not seen it in Michigan. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheap-beer/497721/13 "2009-05-27T02:24:42Z")
Let me submit to you some photographic evidence of this beer. [the 30 Pack](http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i254/azarstrongarm/beer30.jpg) [The Can](http://www.beercankorner.com/graphics/beer30506.jpg) [A Brave soldier, drinking a tallboy](http://www.40ozmaltliquor.com/40ozcrew/motm/2008/memphis12.jpg) I like the motto: Anytime is the right time. The cheapest beer in Michigan is Red Dog, which I sometimes buy for $13.30 for a 30 pack. Not bad, for a very average(below average, really) beer. ---
**Author:** ![GameHat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ed655f/32.png) [@GameHat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GameHat)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheap-beer/497721/14 "2009-05-27T02:31:16Z")
My brother swears by Beer 30 Light. You’ll notice the logo has a clock prominently featured? I believe the slogan is “Any Time is the Right Time” Of course, he’s still in college. ---
**Author:** ![Athena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/35a633/32.png) [@Athena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athena)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheap-beer/497721/15 "2009-05-27T03:01:21Z")
When I was in college, I used to buy Goebel’s in the “buy 5, get 1 free” plan. That is, it was about $3/six pack. Then add in .60 for the Michigan can discount. So after 5 six-packs, you get $3.00 back from returning the cans for the deposit. Perfect! What’s even worse is that the bar down the street sold tap beer for 65 cents a glass, and the other bar would have Goebel’s long necks on special for 75 cents each. And what’s the most depressing is that I remember this, almost 20 years later. What ever happened to Goebel’s? ---
**Author:** ![NinetyWt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/cc9497/32.png) [@NinetyWt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinetyWt)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheap-beer/497721/16 "2009-05-27T04:24:20Z")
> [@Shirley\_Ujest](#): > > Either every fifteen minutes you need a Beer 30 lite to get a buzz or every fifteen minutes of drinking Beer 30 is like thirty minutes. Or they are just fucking with us in such a mathematical way that Stephen Hawking could only understand. I bet it’s supposed to be “beer-thirty”. Like, you know the crack of dawn is “oh-dark-thirty”. Get it? Every fifteen minutes it’s beer-thirty!! Har har har. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheap-beer/497721/17 "2009-05-27T11:40:07Z")
> [@mnemosyne](#): > > I find it mildly amusing that you consider Labatt’s to _not_ be a cheap beer. In the beer case, Labatt’s was possibly the most expensive beer there, which tells you something for the area. ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheap-beer/497721/18 "2009-05-27T14:35:22Z")
That’s a little frightening. But then again, my husband and I are turning into beer snobs; how can we not be, with [this selection](http://depanneurpeluso.com/photos.htm)in a local dépanneur? Early beer-drinking on my part was done with [St Ides](http://11after11jc.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/stides.jpg), which was terrible shit, but with a high alcohol content and 3.25$ (CDN) for a 40, it seemed like a good deal when I was 15. My friends and I soon decided to spluge a little, though, and spend the extra 0.25$ on beer we could actually stomach the taste of, such as[Molson Ex](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3386/3213343628_83da7effb5.jpg?v=0) or Labatt [Blue](http://www.40ouncebeer.com/pics400/labattbluebottle.jpg). We were so sophisticated in that underground parking lot with our massive bottles of “high- end” beer! ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheap-beer/497721/19 "2009-05-27T16:06:08Z")
> [@Athena](#): > > What ever happened to Goebel’s? [Goebel’s](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goebel_Brewing_Company) was bought by Stroh’s, which went out of business in 1999. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2009, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheap-beer/497721/20 "2009-05-27T16:15:38Z")
> [@](#): > > I did get up four times in the night to go to the bathroom, something that even a decent beer can’t get me to do, so I guess it has a medicinal value for cleaning out my kidneys. I had no ill effects, not even cotton mouth or beer breath. My diuretic doesn’t seem to be working so well right now. Perhaps I’ll try this beer. On the other hand, if it’s really that bad, perhaps I’ll respect my liver and not try it. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheap-beer/497721.md?page=2)