Hockey hits also happen in the seats

The Stanley Cup is awarded to the NHL champion. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Don’t close the lid on that ‘special relationship’ coffin just yet. It seems there is still stuff that unites John Bull and Uncle Sam after all.

The publication of the kind of NHL standings that the league office would probably rather keep mum about, ranks all 30 NHL hockey arenas in the order of their beer prices.

At current conversion rates (all prices are apparently in $US) that makes top whack £6.16 a beer and bargain basement £3.87. Note that a UK pint is equal to around 19.2 US ounces.

From this not so much mouth-watering as eye-watering display of profiteering pricing strategies, it would appear that English Premier League football fans can take heart.

Their North American cousins are being every bit as royally screwed as they are.

Cheers!

The scariest words a drinker will hear – “Brewed in the UK”

The essence of Luton

Welcome to Brahma; latest in a long line of serial offenders brought to you by the big-league brewing industry.

It is, the bottle informs me, Brazilian Beer since 1888 and brewed “to the authentic Brazilian recipe”.

Exotic as it sounds, it is also cursed by the most damning phrase any drinker will ever hear – “Brewed in the UK”. I knew its father, you know: “Brewed under licence”.

We’ve been here for 30 years now and as one who has tasted the real thing where the likes of Castlemaine, Molson and Budweiser are concerned and knows only too well how “Brewed in the UK” usually translates as “nothing like the original”, I call hogwash on that “authentic Brazilian recipe” claim.

From the very first sip, I detect no hint of Copacabana or samba. I detect what I always do in a bottle bearing the “Brewed in the UK” curse: bland, unremarkable beer that tastes just like all the other beers that result whenever big brewers decide that they can find the taste of Brazil, America or Canada by going no further than Burton on Trent or Luton.

Whatever the difference may be between this ludicrous fiction and those far eastern hawkers who flog fake Rolex, I’m struggling to spot it.

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Brazil’s Brahma beer goes global - in the company’s defence, it does at least come right out with it in this masterpiece of corporate-speak. I considered satirising the quotes from Devin Kelly, Inbev’s vice-president for global brands, but realised I couldn’t possibly improve on the original.

[Pic courtesy of timkas23]

A wee dream

Cheryl Tweedy via last.fm

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Three Glenmorangies before bed while ‘networking’ at a press do in Northumberland last night. Promptly dreamt that I was Cheryl Tweedy‘s second husband.

A bottle of Glenmorangie for Christmas please, someone.

Midnight Mass – you thought the manger was rough…

Given that it wouldn’t be Midnight Mass without at least one societal wild card in the congregation, do you opt for the drunk in the kilt and tam o’shanter who wets himself in the pew (2009) or the bloke who’s waited all year to tell the vicar how Jesus is related to Alfred the Great (2007)?

Just ushered in Christmas by mopping up celtic pee and I kind of miss the ‘Alfred the Great’ guy.

Merry Christmas from the front line…

[pic courtesy of Jim & Claire]