Um. OK. I'll just post a link to a thorough AP article, but here's the skinny: Miller is going to start releasing "craft" versions of its Lite beer. There will be a blonde, a wheat and an amber version. I'm intrigued but not... like... I mean it's wrong. It's wrong! Here's the thing---as I've said before and say again, I rather like Miller Lite. Very light on flavor indeed, but pleasing and refreshing when out of the bottle or on tap. I have nothing against them brewers. But there's simply no way they're going to release beers that are anywhere near as good as scores of truly craft and micro-brewery beers already out there. But they may dilute the market, pushing some smaller, fine braus off the shelves! Handsome devils! They'll pay... or rather I'll pay... as I'm sure I'll try all of them immediately. Just bein' real. Anyway, this move may serve to turn some goodbeer/assbeer fence sitters onto the good beer route, so maybe it will have that positive effect. And dammit... yeah, I'm intrigued. Here's your 4-1-1.

To begin this post, I would like to quote a stanza from the Byrds' 1965 song Turn Turn Turn:

• To everything, turn, turn, turn
• There is a season, turn turn turn
• And a time for every purpose, under heaven
• A time to be born, a time to die;
• A time to clean up exploded beers, a time to finally find Hoegaarden in Vegas.

And so on. This afternoon I rolled over to Lee's Discount Liquor (the last word is pronounced "Lic'ah") for some of the Ayinger Brau-Weisse I had planned to review today (great hefe BTW, I'll do it next). As I have done the past 69 trips to Lee's, I forlornly scanned the shelves for a hint of that elusive Belgian Wit I came to love last spring in Florida, and have been unable to find in Nevada thus far. And what to my wandering eyes did appear, but four six-packs of the sweet sweet Hoeg, which I instantly snatched up and absconded with like Gary Sinise kidnapping Mel Gibson's son in Ransom. On that note... what the hell, Mel? Seriously, what the hell?

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Sigh. You know that movie you love from childhood? Like, take certain Mel Brooks films... some are still hilarious (Spaceballs, Blazing Saddles) some I watch now (History of the World Part I) and I can't believe I---you know, I'm going to stop there. That could become a pretty volatile choice of filmography to use as an example. But you know what I mean, right? Yeah you do. You so do. And I bet you know what I'm getting at, eh? I drank this brew a fair amount in college. Not a whole lot, but enough to where it was something of a staple. It was locally brewed (which may be part of its situation here on the west coast) and available in the charming little shop a stone's throw from my Boston apartment. Damn I miss Boston. Sigh. Anyway, this is a good beer. But as I cracked my first Wachusett Blueberry in years, I was expecting a great beer...

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Friends, those last few sips in the bespectacled, goatee-d and uh, pastel hatted Captain's glass are Trader Joe's Dunkelweizen. I was initially critical (this is years back, I'm talkin') of Trader Joe's beers. But then I started drinking them. By in large, they score. It still seems odd to me that a grocery store craft brews, but they do, and they do it pretty well. Sergeant Stout came by yesterday and we sampled this 'lil weizen (along with various fine homebrews, of course) and it's fine indeed.

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Bam! Right backatcha, beervolk! Number 2 of my 4 part Widmer review jam session thang. And THIS brau, buddy, is a solid beer. I wish it were a regular fixture and not a one time (well... one year) release. But sadly, try this lovely red beer in 2008... because come '09, you can mumble, put on your Sunday best, lie down on the tracks and cry yourself up a song, but all that will do is really... really freak me out. And not get you more of this beer. To re-cap, freak me out yes, more Crimson Wheat no. T H E B E E R ! . . .

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