That Ain't Beer, Son

Things that tell me it must be spring in Michigan: baseball, 12 days of straight rain and the release of frou-frou seasonal beers. Specifically Bell's Oberon and Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy both of which I will be griping about today.

Oberon

I don't know when this stuff was first released but it entered my consciousness circa 1997. In those days, sophisticated beer drinkers drank things like Michelob Light and Lowenbrau.  Then along came Oberon.  Poor college kids would pool their money to afford a six-pack for $4.50, split it five ways and leave one in the fridge as a conversation piece.  There was nothing else like it and everybody loved it.  A couple years later I found myself working in a restaurant that happened to have Oberon on tap.  Now, the restaurant was struggling big time and a busy night might net a server twenty bucks. As recompense, our understanding manager would let us do some damage to the bar after closing.  Naturally, we college kids went for the good stuff choosing to dull the indignity of working in a failing restaurant with a schooner of Oberon.  Or two schooners.  But not three.  You see, the Oberon of the late 90's is not the stuff we have today with its own annual release party and found on the fountain at Burger King.  The old stuff was sweet tasting rocket fuel with chunks of tree bark in it that if abused could take you out of the game for a night or two.  At some point between then and now they messed with the recipe either to produce it more cheaply or make sure people could drink their fill.  The present version, I am more likely to use for boiling noodles or putting out grass fires.

Summer Shandy

There's a great marketing case-study here somewhere.  Bartles & James, Zima, Mike's.  All of these wine-cooler products had their success but ultimately fell back into a niche and eventually obscurity.  What Leinie's did differently is they called their wine cooler beer, sold it in brown beer bottles next to real beer and then eventually in cans and on-tap.  Shandy let people say "I like beer too."  And it's good, not saying it isn't.  But you know what's better (besides actual beer)?  A real shandy.  Here's the recipe: pour real beer in a glass, pour real lemonade in the same glass with the beer.  You literally can't screw it up unless you miss the glass and it's 10 times better than  capital "S" Shandy.