Years ago, I was younger.

More details to follow.

In the meantime, here is something from our 1997 website.  It has a beer slant because St Pats was the largest homebrew supplier in North America from ~1994  until 2003, when I dropped all homebrew products practically overnight in order to handle the growth in commercial winery equipment sales. 

Bottom of the Barrel

Tasteless, silly, and downright stupid things from the wonderful world of beer! I sincerely hope noone, particularly those with power and influence, takes this too seriously.

This will have a bit of a Texas bias with a smattering about those foreigners in Canada, the United States, and California. 

  1. Jim Koch's (of Sam Adams) voice (how to sing very badly by talking too slowly an octave above masculine). Now if they would just hire someone else to make the beer and the ads.

  2. Faces of Eve Award: just say 'Hill Country Brewing and Bottling Balcones Fault Red Granite Pale Ale Extra Special Beer'. Should have put 'dog' in there somewhere.

  3. Beer Ambassador award to Jim Koch for description of Guinness Stout as "Oh, that $#@&!" . Spoken off the air on radio call in show in Austin.

  4. Supplier of the year award from Miller Brewing Company to ADM Corn Products as reported in Brewers Digest. "See what corn can do for beer."

  5. White trash slogan of the year award to Rogue Brewing Company for "Rogue is Coming" packaging on condoms. The boys at the trailer park are still laughing at this one. (Rogue shut down entirely and filed Chapter 7 in November 2025.)

  6. Culinary Institute award to food manager at brewpub in Prescott, Arizona for "Food is a very, very big part of our kitchen and restaurant." (quoted in Southwest Brewing News) [side note: the founders of Prescott Brewing were students in one of my first homebrewing classes in 1991.]

  7. Homebrewing Science Dictionary.
    1. Pilot Brewery: kitchen.
    2. Test Batch: 5 gallons of brew in a Pilot Brewery.
    3. Peer-Reviewed: beer-reviewed.
    4. Diacetyl: 8 letter word that does not mean sweet or bitter.
    5. DMS: a. synonym of diacety, or b. acronym for something besides diacetyl that does not mean sweet or bitter.
    6. Brewing Scientist: homebrewer with advanced degree and too much free time.

  8. Best timing: Spring Street, which has a contract brewed Wit beer, released a prospectus stating that Celis Brewery had not spent much on marketing about 2 months before Celis and Miller partnership. Oops.

  9. Belgian rodeo clown champion. Peter Camps of Celis Brewery in his all-American red, white, and blue yippee-I-O-ki-A clothes and cowboy hat. Who says you can't sell ice to Eskimos?

  10. Anheuser Busch Brown Nose Award to Great American Beer Festival for expanding one category, American Lager, into five (American Lager, American Light Lager, Premium American Lager, American Specialty Lager, American Malt Liquor).

  11. St. Pat's style guidelines for American beer
    • American Lager: beer without barley and hops
    • Premium American Lager: American Lager with a markup
    • Dry Beer: beer without barley, hops, and water
    • Ice Beer: frozen water, formerly known as "ice"
    • Clear Beer: not only can't you taste it, you can't even see it
    • Light Beer: American Lager without that "heavy" water

  12. Christine Celis of Celis Brewery was a speaker at a fund raiser for the Austin Rape Crisis Center which was billed as "2 Beers, 2 Cigars, 20 bucks". Her husband Peter Camps was the featured speaker at a Hooters shortly after. "2 Beers, 2 Cigars, 2 Hooters, 20 Bucks"???

  13. Beer Marketing Mumbo Jumbo
    1. Hand-crafted one batch at a time (So informative! Now we know their secret.)
    2.  Craft-brewed (what does that mean anyway?)
    3.  Artisan-brewed (Rogue got the thesaurus out.)
    4. Brewed with an Attitude (I hope the attitude is better than the brew.)
    5. Born-on-Date and Brewery Fresh (Who were those microbrewery geniuses who found a problem that didn't exist so Bud could beat the microbrewers to a pulp with it?)
    6. Heart of the Hops (Judging by the flavor, hops don't have hearts.)
    7. Coors "Call of the Rockies" ad campaign. (GIVE ME BUSTY 19 YEAR OLD GIRLS AND SINEWY 22 YEAR OLD MEN echo, echo, echo)
    8. The Bull is Takin' Charge, malt liquor ad featuring a black man. (Gee, I'm so glad the marketing boys (very Caucasian boys) are above resorting to stereotypes.)

  14. Here's a little secret for microbrewers to improve their beer to award-winning quality. Buy an ad in All About Beer and send the ~$100 entry fee for the World Beer Championships (aka Medals Unlimited) competition. 

  15. Macho Homebrewer award to the homebrewer who had b-e-e-r tattooed across top of his fingers (one letter per finger). I sat next to him at my first homebrew club meeting in 1987. Looked like a self-inflicted tattoo by the way.  Also, when I walked into the room, someone yelled "Hey, there's a chick in here!"