Schlitz...go for the gusto?

Beer Review
While grocery shopping at the Piggly Wiggy yesterday I was pleasantly surprised to find near the back, center of the store a display of Schlitz beer. I have known about the reintroduction of Schlitz and their "Classic 1960s Formula" for several months now and have been waiting for it to find its way into our area (why in the world "The Beer That Made Milwaukee Famous" wasn't immediately made available throughout Wisconsin is a mystery).

"It's ok...I saved the Schlitz!"
What a great advert from the 50s. How many couples go canoeing wearing their Sunday best? And the guy looks like he may have had a few before capsizing the canoe.

I love the Schlitz marketing imagery, absolutely love it. Love what they've done with the Schlitz website to make accessible those vintage print and television commercials. Love the new commercials that embrace that vintage feel and buck the modern style of associating beer with big-boobed bimbos and partying on rooftops. Love the retro vibe that is associated with beers like Schlitz. Even love the Schlitz color scheme and the ornate, vintage font that says Schlitz on the bottles. Love everything about this product.

...well, almost everything.

I knew Schlitz was not an upper echelon beer like the craft and microbrewed beers I prefer. I knew it was a beer along the lines of your average watered down, flavorless, mass market, big brewery beers. I didn't however, expect it to be as bad as it is. I took the picture of the beer in this post immediately after pouring. That fizzy little head of foam lasted approximately 90 seconds. Any other fizziness (carbonation) that might have come from the beer underneath that fleeting head lasted even less than that. Within two minutes I had a glass of flat, yellowish tea that looked like it had been sitting undisturbed all afternoon. Worse than that was the flavor. Flat, uninteresting, a tad mediciney, and not unlike the tepid water that canned corn soaks in before you eat it. This was truly a boring, uninspired and almost flavorless beer (and what flavor it did have was not pleasing). I thought, "this is the beer that made Milwaukee famous?" Good grief. The 60-second head tops an equally uninspiring beer-like liquid. Cool bottlecap though!

Well, it's lousy beer. But, man, I do love the way they're marketing it. I'll probably drink one of these every now and then simply because I am such a huge sucker for great marketing and imagery (or maybe I'll pour the Schlitz out and refill the bottle with something drinkable, like a Leinies). The folks in the Schlitz PR department ought to all get raises and a free case of beer each week as a bonus...but not Schlitz beer. The idea is to reward them, after all.

Saturday night music and pizza

The Stumpjack acoustic queen with the angelic voice:

Becky Markvart

Saturday night at 7pm

Becky is always fun. There's a reason we have her come back so often to the Stump, and it ain't because of her sweet personality (well, that might be part of the reason). She's becoming one of the real reliable crowd-pleasers everywhere and every time she performs.

Come on out, listen to some tunes and try one of our new super-delish specialty pizzas...have a beer or glass of wine too.

PS: no live music scheduled for Friday night.

The Cool City News

Two Rivers Main Street has a new blog, the "Cool City News." You can check it out from time to time by going to http://coolcitynews.blogspot.com/. It will offer information about upcoming events and festivals, as well as recaps of those things, tidbits and other odds & ends about life in the Cool City. At this writing the current post provides links to a bunch of YouTube videos about Two Rivers, including a very cool one from a surf board point of view made during last year's Kite Fest.

Tell your friends about the new TR blog and don't be afraid to comment on the posts and offer your own opinions and suggestions about anything Two Rivers-related.

Lemonheads and Doc

FRIDAY, Feb 20

Excellent independent artist from Sheboygan:

Lillie Lemon

7pm

Lillie Lemon has lately been causing a bit of a buzz on the lakeshore music scene. After listening to her I'm of the opinion that she's a "natural." Her voice is lovely and evocative, her songs catchy and melodic. She's already built a loyal fan base of peeps who call themselves "Lemonheads."

SATURDAY, Feb 21

Local acoustic musician with a deep, rich sound:

Mike Retzinger

7pm

Mike's been playing around here for a good while now, both as a solo performer and with the likes of Joe LaForce, Mark Kimmes and others. He's got a great, earthy voice, is a very skilled guitar player and has a song list that is just plain cool...familiar stuff and a lot that you won't hear unless you dig deep into certain albums.

We been snorbified

Last night Steve Bucklin, Tyler Gause and Nick Smith (aka snorb!) performed a couple of sets at the Stump that had me wondering how soon it will be before these guys are doing the music thing full-time. They are just outstanding. They're absolutely excellent musicians, as tight and polished on each song as studio musicians. Their compositions are ethereal and very provocative, and they come across as joyful, fun-loving guys who totally dig what they're doing and are very appreciative that other people dig it too.
They've apparently won a lot of awards in their home state, West Lafayette, Indiana. Steve was voted Guitarist of the Year and Nick was Bass Player of the Year (2008). Tyler joked that he was voted dead-weight of the year, but he too is an outstanding guitarist, and when not doing some lead guitar work is a human rhythm guitar machine. I've rarely seen three guys more musically in synch with each other.
We did not have a lot of people here last night, I think 15 total, perhaps because it was Valentine's Day evening. I was thinking, 'man, more people should be here to hear these guys.' We asked them to do a return gig sometime in the near future and they promised they would, so if and when we do schedule snorb! again you owe it to yourself to ink that date on your calendar.

Becky and the snorb! guys (l-r: Steve, Becky, Tyler, Nick)

I'll be putting some video onto our youtube site and updating the Flickr sets too. Check back here in the next couple days, I'll just add the links to this particular post.