beer
downtown lowell apparently has a love/hate relationship with beer. those who love good beer hate that downtown lowell establishments can never seem to figure out that we'll pay whatever it costs for it, and downtown lowell establishments apparently hate taking a chance on them/us. (more of that intractable chicken/egg stuff i think). meanwhile, everyone who tasted the new michelob ultra 19th hole "beverage" this past weekend nearly spit it up it was so foul, and it astounds me that we're still in this no-win situation.
let's stipulate two things for the record, shall we:
people WANT to spend more money on good beer.
establishments WANT people to spend more money.
so, what's missing, you ask?
how about GOOD BEER!!!!
take this michelob ultra ultimate swill. it was all you could order at one of the downtown venues this past saturday night if you were absolutely lifetime sick of bud/bud light, the ultimate kleenex of bland, tasteless and ubiquitous garbage beer. (and i won't inflame the conversation by naming names--other spots i visited opted for things like heineken and coors light, which are, if i might be so humble as to suggest, even worse). where was the guinness? (a pint of guinness has fewer calories than a pint of that michelob ultra 19th hole, by the way) where was the harpoon ipa? (doesn't anyone care about drinking local?) where was anything, ANYTHING, with even the slightest hint of drinkability among the dreck and dross and absolute sewer effluent being poured everywhere a person might look?
nowhere, that's where.
if you were out downtown this past folk festival you were wincing through plastic cups and "aluminum bottles" of the worst of the worst, and you were among the legion who said things like "this stuff is so bad--i think i'm going over to the worthen". and the downtown beer merchants (they actually ran out of budweiser where i ended up) count the rumpled dollar bills in their till and continue to figure, "well, that's all there is".
*sigh*
people will spend good money on good beer. ward 8 is full of people every night proving it. the back page is full of people every night proving it. even the old court, who was guilty of heinekening and coors lighting their outdoor crowd on saturday night, is proving it every other night indoors at least.
why is this so hard to get???
the paper blog of record suggesting that lowell was "shining" this past weekend for folk festival. i will tell you, if there was any shining going on, it was the curious mixture of glistening just-fallen rain combined with reeking sticky puddles of michelob ultra 19th hole poured from the "i'd rather pour it out than drink it" cans of everyone unlucky enough to have been duped into buying one.
complete fail.
let's stipulate two things for the record, shall we:
people WANT to spend more money on good beer.
establishments WANT people to spend more money.
so, what's missing, you ask?
how about GOOD BEER!!!!
take this michelob ultra ultimate swill. it was all you could order at one of the downtown venues this past saturday night if you were absolutely lifetime sick of bud/bud light, the ultimate kleenex of bland, tasteless and ubiquitous garbage beer. (and i won't inflame the conversation by naming names--other spots i visited opted for things like heineken and coors light, which are, if i might be so humble as to suggest, even worse). where was the guinness? (a pint of guinness has fewer calories than a pint of that michelob ultra 19th hole, by the way) where was the harpoon ipa? (doesn't anyone care about drinking local?) where was anything, ANYTHING, with even the slightest hint of drinkability among the dreck and dross and absolute sewer effluent being poured everywhere a person might look?
nowhere, that's where.
if you were out downtown this past folk festival you were wincing through plastic cups and "aluminum bottles" of the worst of the worst, and you were among the legion who said things like "this stuff is so bad--i think i'm going over to the worthen". and the downtown beer merchants (they actually ran out of budweiser where i ended up) count the rumpled dollar bills in their till and continue to figure, "well, that's all there is".
*sigh*
people will spend good money on good beer. ward 8 is full of people every night proving it. the back page is full of people every night proving it. even the old court, who was guilty of heinekening and coors lighting their outdoor crowd on saturday night, is proving it every other night indoors at least.
why is this so hard to get???
the paper blog of record suggesting that lowell was "shining" this past weekend for folk festival. i will tell you, if there was any shining going on, it was the curious mixture of glistening just-fallen rain combined with reeking sticky puddles of michelob ultra 19th hole poured from the "i'd rather pour it out than drink it" cans of everyone unlucky enough to have been duped into buying one.
complete fail.
posted by kad barma at 9:04 AM
5 Comments:
No Harp?
No Bitte ein Bit?
The inhumanity of it all!
Regards — Cliff
Yes, no Harp, and I'm bitter about it. ;-)
There aren't enough of "you" out there Kad. When Back Page and Ward 8 have been around 5 years and are still making use of those "expensive" beers, I'll gladly give you kudos. Till then, let's not be so quick to assume their "success" proves there's enough of a market for an $8-$10 beer in a largely blue collar town. I fear you'll find you are as wrong about your theory as the mills to martinis crowd was about Paradiso and Fortunatos.
"Expensive"???
Harpoon IPA (my beer of choice, which more than a few bartenders in town can tell you) is $4.50 at the Back Page, and 5 bucks at the Smokehouse. I drink it for $3.50 out of a 12 ounce bottle at the Worthen. I go for the Sierra Nevada at the Old Court for around the same price when I'm there. (That is, when I'm not enjoying a Guinness instead). The Beer Works always has a whole bunch of great stuff for around the same price. We are not talking a lot of money here on a beer-by-beer basis. Though, as the anecdote and my point suggests, we are after you add up the total impact of so many people preferring not to even patronize a place because their beer sucks.
I know for a fact for having been there to see it that an entire tent full of people being asked to pay $5 for that "19th Hole" swill this past Saturday night were all lamenting that they couldn't pay $6 (or $7 for that matter) for something they could actually stand to drink, and left with their money still in their pocket. I did too.
If a bar thinks they can't sell $5 beers, as you think they can't sell $5 beers, then they and you should take a look at the numbers elsewhere they're pouring 'em, and do the math. NOBODY, not me, and not anyone else, is out throwing money around on $8 beers. Paradiso was a clip joint, and I never went there. And I think my record on trashing Forunato's stands for itself. I'm glad both are out of business--Fuse pours a decent $5 glass on that corner in their place.
To sum it up, I, for one, and many people I've seen choosing to leave and go elsewhere from the tent party and the bars on every night of the week, will go that extra mile and that extra buck and buy MORE beer because of it. Or less, if they can't get it. And that's the point. People can't seem to get this. Fresh quality beer tastes good. People like to drink it. People will pay a fair price to do so. Bars that, instead, offer crap for less are turning themselves into little liquid Dollar Stores. Sure, there's a business in it, but only a certain-sized one.
Maybe if they offered both the $2.50 16oz PBR can alongside the $5 Harpoon glass, they could judge the complete result. I think they should.
Which is to say, I LIKE PBR in the 16 oz can from time to time, and places like the Worthen get my money when I do. Not for nothing, but Furey's is just as dead and gone as Paradiso. What's the math on that???
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