Monday, November 12, 2012

How'd I Get On This Catalog's Mailing List?

Over the weekend, I got a Northern Brewer Homebrew Supply catalog in the mail.  When I saw it, I laughed out loud.  I really did.  Not because it's a humorous catalog, but because it's hilarious that I'd be on the list to receive it. 

I really can't figure out how I would be on Northern Brewer's mailing list, given that I'm not a super lush-nuts beer drinker.  I'll have a beer now and then.  I'm not against.  But I'm not really a beer enthusiast, either.  Every time we get a 12-pack of Yuengling in this house, 11 of the bottles will stick around for a year or two (true story), or I end up going to a Tastefully Simple party, buying a bunch of their beer bread mix, and using up the Yuengling that way.  If we go to Pearl Street Grille in Buffalo before a Sabres game, I'll drink one of their micro-brewed beers before we get to the Arena, where I don't drink beer, because I want to be alert enough to avoid flying pucks, fighting fans around me, and other people's falling beers.  And I'm a notorious lightweight.

The closest I've ever come to being a beer aficionado is in 2004, when Shane and I were at Busch Gardens, and we attended Beer School.  Somewhere, we still have our diplomas to prove it.  I remember they subjected us to tasting Bacardi 02, which was an orange-flavored malted beverage.  It made the regular Busch taste that much better.  At least I know that much about beer to keep beer beer and leave Bacardi and their orange flavoring out of it. 

I'm certainly not that much into beer to warrant a whole catalog being sent to me, featuring such items for the home brewmeister as reusable beer bottle labels, carboys, kettles, hops... I know what those things are.  I've read things about home-brewing in passing, and I remember the things I read.  But I don't have a burning desire to gather up such things and make my own PBR here at home.  PBR- that's what the hipsters are drinking now, right?  Pitchers of PBR.  I'm also not cool enough to be a hipster, so.....

Northern Brewer was a fun departure from the usual steady stream of Victoria's Secret (I like their jeans.  I'm not a siren by any stretch of the word, but I get a kajillion VS catalogs a week, so you'd think I were some kind of hotster!), Champion (workout wear!), kids' educational toys catalogs (I was getting these for years before Zoe came along), Knitpicks, and the Fire Mountain Gems jewelry maker's catalog.  Even though it's headed for my recycle pile, it was kind of fun to imagine myself as someone who'd order out of Northern Brewer for the few minutes it took me to look through the catalog.  And it makes me wonder.  If there's a catalog called Northern Brewer, is its southern counterpart Southern Moonshiner?  Just wondering.

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