Do you recall ‘why beer’?

Mid 60’s fall harvesting pre-sunset the 12 pack, on ice, pulled into the stubble field, mostly small grains, wheat & barley. Sometimes Mom, sometimes a city friend, retired farmer, etc. This was pre-luxury harvester days so tailing winds lead to taking in a lot of dust. As a 5-6 year old boy I can still ‘feel’ the sense of relief that 1st swill provided. Always felt the next 13 years couldn’t come soon enough to enjoy that great relief. Mid July putting up hay provided the same scenario. Absolutely no better time for an ice cold beer than after a great day of work, fishing, hunting…

Anyone else have a great family/neighbors/friends recall of why we enjoy (or I suppose hate) beer?

Early 70’s, 6-7 years old, fishing off the dock on Big Sandy, dad gave me a drink of his ice cold Schlitz. It tasted so good and I loved the feel of the big belch that followed. He continued to let me take a pull off his Schlitz or Blatz through my youthful years when we fished and hunted, and he looked the other way come my high school years when I came home buzzed on suds. He’s 77 now and we still swill ‘em down together at deer camp.

Dad was always generous with his high life. First full bottle of my own was age 13, up on birch lake in Ontario with dad, BOTH grandpas, and a bunch of uncles. Won’t ever forget that week.

In high school we’d go to Madison to watch the state basketball tournament and dad and I would go to the Prime Quarter where we’d grill our own ribeye and wash it down with a cold one or too. Not sure if that’s still legal in WI but at the time it was kosher. He treated me like a man and I did my best to act like one.

Probably around the same age. Dad handed me his Grain belt bottle. Hanging out in the front yard on a warm sunny day. It was the worse thing I ever drank! Never touched it again until high school.

tangler wrote:

In high school we’d go to Madison to watch the state basketball tournament and dad and I would go to the Prime Quarter where we’d grill our own ribeye and wash it down with a cold one or too.

Not sure what high school you went to although I’ll assume somewhere in WI, otherwise why would you go to the state basketball tournament in Madison? My daughter was attending Madison Lafollette when they won their second state championship. Quite a feat for that school when facing the Milwaukee schools that typically always dominated.

And yes, Prime Quarter on East Washington…very novel dining experience picking out your cut of steak and then grilling your own while quaffing down beer.

And while on the topic of ‘Why beer’…why this beer?

Treaty Beer, which I remember being promoted in the Wisconsin northwoods back in the late 80’s early 90’s.

I never bought any, wouldn’t be party to that kind of nonsense plus I figured it’d be sh*tty tasting beer anyway.

It was called ” bigot beer” and ” hate in a can.” Its creator, Dean Crist, a Minocqua, Wis., pizza-parlor operator, said sales were aimed at a legal fight against ” treaty abuse.”

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My Dad and his first cousin would help each other bale hay,dad had a twelve pack of olympia on one end of the field and Gus had a twelve pack of falstaff on the other,both twelve packs sat out in the sun hotternell.
my first beer was an olympia and it smelled like over ripe bananas and tasted like sh!t,even a cold one was terrible.
but,too many John Wayne movies and wanting to be one of the tough guys I managed to choke it down and five minutes later puked it all over the hay rack.

with grandpappy being an old moonshiner I guess its in my blood to like the hard stuff,I think its been close to ten years now since I have had a beer of any kind and still dont care for it.

Back in the 60’s when I was in high school a guy could always get beer. Booze was a hard acquisition. Wine was easy to get for the girls. I just always drank beer until I got in my 20’s then started toying with the hard stuff. I still like a shot of gin straight up with an ice cube. Bourbon I like as is in a short glass. Not much for vodka or tequila. I dabble with wine, my own home-made. Beer is my favorite but honestly if I have a drink of anything with alcohol in it more than once a month its unusual. I just don’t drink that much any more.

What else if you’re a kid from Wisconsin…… Beer, please.

I remember being at Grandmas house with my Dad in the late 60’s, I was maybe 7 or 8. My Dad was drinking a Hamm’s (yup a Hamms) he handed it over to me to take a drink. It was ice cold and tasted like something I never had before and I liked it.
When I take a drink off an ice cold Hamm’s today it tastes the exact same and takes me back to that day. Funny how that works.

In the ‘50 and ‘60 dad and one of his buddies would fill a cooler full on ice and Hamm’s in July and head out into the field where the land owners were bailing hay.

No better way to get permission for next fall’s duck and pheasant areas lined up.

I was at the Meyer Mn street dance for my first beer(s). Didn’t go so well for me.

Walleyestudent Andy Cox wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>tangler wrote:</div>
In high school we’d go to Madison to watch the state basketball tournament and dad and I would go to the Prime Quarter where we’d grill our own ribeye and wash it down with a cold one or too.

Not sure what high school you went to although I’ll assume somewhere in WI, otherwise why would you go to the state basketball tournament in Madison? My daughter was attending Madison Lafollette when they won their second state championship. Quite a feat for that school when facing the Milwaukee schools that typically always dominated.

And yes, Prime Quarter on East Washington…very novel dining experience picking out your cut of steak and then grilling your own while quaffing down beer.

And while on the topic of ‘Why beer’…why this beer?

Treaty Beer, which I remember being promoted in the Wisconsin northwoods back in the late 80’s early 90’s.

I never bought any, wouldn’t be party to that kind of nonsense plus I figured it’d be sh*tty tasting beer anyway.

It was called ” bigot beer” and ” hate in a can.” Its creator, Dean Crist, a Minocqua, Wis., pizza-parlor operator, said sales were aimed at a legal fight against ” treaty abuse.”

I’m from Hudson so barely wisco. Boys team only made state once when I was in high school and got blown out by a racine school in the first round, who in turn got blown out by Milwaukee Vincent in the next round. but our girls squad was pretty darn good. They won it all once, lost by 1 in OT another year, and lost in the quarterfinal another year. We always went down to cheer them on and it was always a blast.