Benton and Bryant getting along?

Folks, I've been a lazy blogger lately.

I've not been following my usual routine of checking up on blogs, making inane comments here and there, generally being a pest, etc. Why? I've been busy lately for reasons (work) that are just too tedious (my job) to go into (work) without boring you folks to tears (job, job, job).

Ah, but I've got a doozy of a post for you good people tonight (that's a "daisy" of a post for you people all wacky about Val Kilmer's portrayal of Doc Holliday in Tombstone). I don't know if it's exactly a doozy of a post, but it's at least not as bad as the junk I typically put up here for people to see and ask, "What the hell was the point of that?"

Take a look at the commercial at the top of the post. Uh-huh. Now, take a look at the one at the bottom.

I saw one of those ads on television last night. They are part of a project -- LiveInBentonBryant.com -- put together by the Benton and Bryant chambers of commerce.

"So what? Cities do stuff like this all the time," you might say.

Ah, here's what's significant about these ads -- Benton and Bryant have always been bitter rivals and most anyone who has lived here in Saline County or is familiar with our little corner of the world can tell you that the citizens of those towns have generally hated each other. I, a Benton boy, grew up not liking Bryant one damned bit.

So it's kind of a shock to see a commercial when the school mascots (a panther for Benton and a hornet for Bryant) are cavorting together in scene after scene. The Benton Panther comforts the Bryant Hornet at Saline Memorial Hospital? The Hornet pushes the Panther on a swing? The two play golf together? What the hell is going on here?

Regionalism, folks. That's what. The reality of the situation is that these two cities are located in a county (conveniently highlighted in red on the handy map here) with 100,000 people in it and have a lot more in common that we'd maybe like to admit. Both cities are interested in economic development in the county as we're sick of being viewed as mere bedroom communities of Little Rock. How do we attract those jobs to this county so that we can keep our folks here instead of shipping them off to Little Rock every morning?

The answer is simple -- we keep building the population of this county in hopes that the economic opportunities will follow the rooftops. Some wise souls decided that we are better able to concentrate on that task as a region instead of individual cities and there is a lot of merit to that idea.

This area, frankly, is in need of a unified, concerted effort to bring some jobs to Saline County. There was a time when the aluminum industry was huge here and the Alcoa and Reynolds plants provided all the jobs we needed. Those were high-paying jobs, too -- about $20 an hour back in 1981 until the plants shut down due to an increase in the cost of mining bauxite, squabbles between the union and management and a host of other things.

So I hope the cities are successful in their goals. Perhaps we can replace a lot of those jobs we lost over two decades ago.

Then we can all get down to the serious business of simply hating Little Rock instead of folks in our own county.

Could that Belgian influence actually help Anheuser-Busch?

As anyone who hasn't been living under a rock knows, Anheuser-Busch was bought out by Belgium's InBev.

It's always disturbing to hear about a radically profitable American company being bought out by some oddly-named bunch from Belgium, but that's what happened and I suppose all we can do is make the best of it.

Of course, I vowed to refuse to buy anything from the company again once news of the merger was announced. My wife, however, took no such vow and she brought home a Michelob Spring/Summer Sampler Pack the other day.

Now, I do hate the new, bastardized Anheuser-Busch, but Marci did bring home my favorite kind of beer -- cold and within reach. So I decided to give these things a whirl and see if the Belgians have ruined a company that was once both American and great.

The sampler pack has four types of wheat beer in it and here's what I thought of each of them:

* Hop Hound Amber Wheat -- this one wasn't bad at all. It's a pleasing amber color and is amazingly devoid of both complexity and after taste. This is a very straight-forward, light beer that is just made for guzzling. I liked it.

However, I didn't taste much in the way of hops. There's plenty of malt in this, but it's hard to tell if the "hops" flavor is provided by actual hops or just a lot of carbonation. Further, the beer loses a point or two for being rather bland overall. A "craft beer" is supposed to be distinct, but this stuff tastes like one of several wheat beers I've had over the years.

This one isn't bad, but it isn't great, either. Regardless, it's a pleasant beer that suggests that some of that Belgian influence might not be such a bad thing. It's a couple of notches above the domestic beers I generally drink, so I may purchase some more of this in the future.

* Michelob Honey Wheat -- This one was a disappointment. Think of any thin, generic American beer you've ever had, stir in some honey and you've got this stuff. One criticism I've always had about American beers is that they just taste too thin and lack character. This is the same as most of those cheap domestic beers I've had, with the exception of a bit of honey thrown in for good measure.

Where's the sharp tang that is associated with wheat beers? It's simply not here. There's too much honey thrown in here, too. It's not bad, but I'll never bother with buying more of this stuff.

* Shock Top Belgian White -- This one was so bad I actually got angry. That cloudy, gold color looks great, but this beer tastes like someone let a cheap sucker dissolve in it. InBev? What the hell is that? Short for "Belgians Like to Throw Weird Crap InBeverages?" The weird crap in this beer is orange, lemon and lime peel and coriander. That's right. It's full of citrus and cilantro. Who the hell wants that?

Do you find the folks at Guiness dumping fruit in their beer? What would Jack Daniels taste like if the folks around there thought, "Hey, let's dissolve a bunch of pears in our whiskey. That would be fun!" You just don't go around throwing components of a fruit salad and/or salsa in beer, for God's sake. It's just plain wrong and unnatural and that's doubly true when the weird crap overpowers the flavor of the beer.

This beer tastes like an experiment gone wrong. Blasted Belgians and their fruity damned beer. Could this sampler pack get any worse?

* Michelob Dunkel Weisse -- Yes, this sample pack can get worse. A lot worse, in fact. Give me back that Shock Top trash so I can wash the taste of this swill out of my mouth. Yes, it's that bad.

Now, it looked promising when I poured it in my glass in that it's nice and dark. Dark beers tend to be great, right? This stuff is far from great. The "weird crap" of choice this time around is cloves and banana. But mostly cloves. Go over to your spice rack and stuff your mouth full of cloves. Enjoy that taste? Do you, bucky? If you do, you'll love this stuff.

Honestly, cloves are about all you can taste in this beer. It is the definition of horrible. Shock Top may have tasted like a failed experiment, but this trash tastes like a dirty trick. About 20 years ago, I had a few bucks in my pocket and wanted some beer. The only thing I could afford was Hamm's. For years, I've said that was the worst beer I've tasted. You've been replaced, Hamm's. Michelob Dunkel Weisse now holds the crown. Sorry, Hamm's.

This beer made me hate what's become of Anheuser-Busch and question how the hell InBev got to be such a huge company. I can just imagine someone sitting around and trying to figure out how to "improve" the classic Budweiser formula by infusing it with such great tastes as strawberries and garlic; mango, kiwi and cat urine; fried squash and wet dog; or pearl onion, mushroom, apple and Wintergreen Skoal spit. God help us.

Conclusion

I've got a bad feeling about this...

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