Budding Star

Budding Star

Recently, our hockey team has had games scheduled at rinks we have not played at before.  While this is no big deal, finding a bar we like afterwards is.  Our players tend to be creatures of habit, going to the same bars on the regular rink routes.  The other night, we found ourselves at a different rink…and a different bar.  Not knowing how clean their beer taps were, or even the last time a pint was poured from them…I ordered a bottle of Bud.  The others were shocked this beer connoisseur ordered such a common man’s brew.  But there was a time when that was all I would drink.

As a teen, I dabbled in different flavored froth.  The summer before college, I finally bed down with Budweiser.  Hey, drinking age was 19 back then, so don’t look at me like that.  Once I arrived at college, I needed to feed my Budweiser fix.  The local beer distributor had cold cases of Bud for $9.99.  That’s around 40 cents a can….what a bargain!  My friend and I would go on beer runs for our entire floor.  His car would be consumed in cases, but the Bud ones would wind up at my door.  When we went out, I needed to find a place that yielded Bud.  Our local campus bar, the Jailhouse, fielded much lesser fare.  The upperclassmen pointed me towards a local pub, Doc Watson’s.  Bud on tap, $3 a pitcher.  It was clean, crisp and cold.  The beer would hardly settle into my mug before a refill was necessary.  Also, we would attend sporting events at Veterans Stadium…when we could score free tickets.  Vendors served 16-ounce cans of Bud for $2.50.  Many a morning after I would wake with a pocket full of quarters from the change.  Dividing them by two would let me know how many I consumed the night before.

But even at that, a college kids budget is limited.  There would be a lot of free beer from keg parties, and it was less than Bud quality.  I proclaimed that Budweiser was so much better, and the others said you probably couldn’t even tell the difference.  That brings me to Meister Brau.  In early 1984, this upstart company from Chicago started with commercials offering a taste test against the giant…Budweiser.  To promote this, they took it on the road.  What better place to go than to college and Drexel was among the chosen.   It was only a few years earlier Drexel had appeared in Playboy Magazine’s top 10 beer drinking colleges…ranking #3.  They stated that on any given night our undergrads could raise the Schuylkill River several inches.  I would assume that is why Meister Brau came a knocking.   By the end of my freshman year, I had developed a reputation as a Bud drinker.  Those who did not know me by name simply referred to me as Bud Man.  There was no doubt that I would be selected as a taste tester.

In life there are always the haters.  As much as most of the students wanted me to succeed…there were those that wanted me to eat, umm, drink my words.  As the day approached I never altered my Bud intake, however, now I referred to it as training.  It was a Friday evening in April when the Meister Brau crew arrived.  A stage was assembled and the crowd began to gather.  To a chorus of cheers I approached.  The buxom beer bimbo blindfolded me.  It was time.  Beer was poured into Cup A and Cup B.  The brands were concealed from the crowd so I could not be coerced.

It was at this moment I realized I never actually had a Meister Brau.  What if it DID taste just like Budweiser…I had no reference.  With all the bravado and beer consumption, I never thought of taking a practice run at the taste test.  Oh well, too late now.  I was handed Cup A.  The contest was over.  This was Budweiser.  That familiar taste hit the palette like a returning friend.  I was going to get cocky and pass on Cup B, but thought better of it.  A swig from the second cup and the competition wasn’t even close.  The blindfold was removed, the brands revealed…Bud Man was victorious.

I would learn my success would also be my failure.  Since I DID tell the difference, this taste test would not be among those featured on the commercial.  I had never thought of that.

Maybe I should have thrown the competition…