Yep. Unfortunate as it is, over the weekend Dr. Nate and I became yuppie scum. We went to check out a town close to us as it is a potential place where we would buy a house. The downtown area has lots of "shoppes" - places I'd wander into but never buy anything from. However, there is a fairly good selection of bars there. We went into one for a beer and found soccer (football for non-American and Australians types out there) on the t.v. and a nice assortment of beers on draft. This does not necessarily make us yuppie scum. Leastwise not yet.
I noticed they have one of my new favorite beers on tap: Founder's Breakfast Stout. The bartender said, apologetically, that it was $9.00 for 12 oz. I considered this for a minute and ordered one anyhow. Yet, still, I did not feel like yuppie scum. (Incidentally, you can get a pint of the same beer for around $5.00 in Illinois. Damn you, Pennsylvania and your prohibitively-taxed beer.)
The place sells packaged liquor and they had the Founder's for sale there. Having been looking for it at the good liquor store in Delaware, I figured I'd pick up a 6-pack. Come to find out that it's a buy-by-the-bottle store, so you can get yourself a mixed-6-pack. Which we did....
....to the tune of $29.34. Yes, Dr. Nate and I paid $29.34 for a 6-pack of beer. If this doesn't officially make us yuppie scum, I don't know what does.
And they weren't big bottles or Lambics. Oh no - all were 12 oz. 3 Founder's Breakfast Stouts, one Breckenridge Vanilla Porter, and two Gulden Draak (some Belgium triple that Dr. Nate wanted. 10.5% alcohol they were; nearly stripped the lining out of my esophagus when I tried one).
It's bad enough that we paid that much for a 6-pack. Even worse that we both though the guy behind the counter said the total cost was $39.34 and we were willing to pay it anyhow. Luckily we'd misheard him and the total was $10 less than we'd first thought.
Yep, so one fell swoop of the credit card and we doomed ourselves. I wonder if there's a way to undo the damage. Avoid Starbucks for six months? Purchase all our clothes exclusively from Sears?
I suppose the only thing to do now is wait for the Pottery Barn catalogues to start arriving.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Great post!
Oh man, Gulden Draak is pretty good. It's almost a barleywine. I like the white bottles too.
Those prices are pretty insulting though. That's absurd.
I'm not familiar with this breakfast stout. That's something I'll have to remedy. For cheaper beer, maybe you can get into the homebrew scene. It's fun.
That Gulden Draak is a horror against humanity when you don't realize what it is that you're about to take a sip of. I was standing at the counter between our kitchen and living room, took a sip (hadn't seen the alcohol content before I drank), and immediately squinted my eyes shut and propelled myself 1/2 way across the living room. Whew! Potent.
Yeah, Pennsylvania liquor laws are horrible. Especially the beer. Even going to a distributor (where you can buy only by the case) is a rip-off. $110 for a case of Chimay. Luckily we live close enough to both Jersey and Delaware that we can make the trek and stock up. Can't find that breakfast stout at the store we go to in Delaware, though.
Definitely try the breakfast stout. I think it's one of the best beers I've had!
We know quite a few people who homebrew (as I see from your blog that you do, too). I guess it isn't something that I considered. I've been thinking that once we get a house I might go into a more basic part of the beer-brewing experience and grow fair-trade organic hops. What with the shortage and all I figure I can make a killing...
Heck yeah. For dried hops, you could get $35-40 per pound. The organic kind might even get up to 50 or so.
Ugh. $110 for a case of beer! Gotta love morality taxes.
Very funny. I don't think you're there yet...if you start buying tools from Restoration Hardware, then you know there is no going back.
I could probably even make it easy on myself and have "U-Pick" hops farm, like they do with strawberries.
Mike,
Funny you mention that because I was debating whether or not to write the post including a Pottery Barn catalogue or a Restoration Hardware one!
Post a Comment