One of the beers not to have

Yesterday, I bought a twelve-bottle sampler of Blue Ridge beers and a six-pack of Schaefer in cans. The former to share at a Super Bowl dinner, the latter as a tribute to that now-unthinkable jingle of my youth: "Shaefer is the one beer to have when you're having more than one."

Even by the undemanding standards of American malted rice water, the can of Shaefer I drank yesterday was... let's say the can held more beer than I really wanted it to.

Still, I'm struck by the contrast between the old Shaefer commercial -- which, as I said, would be unthinkable today, with its invitation to drink more than one beer -- and the Bud Light commercials shown during the Super Bowl. Nothing says "low calorie refreshment" quite like flatulence, bestiality, and unprovoked physical assault. [How's that sentence for Google bait?]

I don't drink light beers on purpose anyway, so Bud Light hasn't lost much from me by its ad campaign. But it's interesting (to me, at least) that I happen to prefer beers from smaller breweries, which lack TV ad campaigns, at a time when large breweries (Budwiser and Coors -- and, for that matter, mid-sized breweries like Samuel Adams and Rolling Rock) are doing all they can with their advertising to get me to promise never to buy their products again. I might well buy another six-pack of Shaefer before I buy another six-pack of Bud Light.

By the way, most of the Bud Light commercials were very well received among those I watched them with.

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