PART ONE: GROWING UP TALL BOY
I don’t remember who first discovered “ice” beer, but it would forever change our lives. One day we were oblivious and happy and naive, drinking tall cans in of Busch Lite in a friend’s kitchen. Then, seemingly overnight, they Busch tall boys changed into tall boys of Keystone Ice. The “Stone,” we called it. The “Stone” was “Key.” We were young and confused.
We pretty much drank any ice beer we could get our hands on, and had nicknames for most of them: The Beast (Milwaukee’s Best Ice), The Stone (Keystone Ice), Natty Ice (Natural Ice). We frowned upon drinking Bud Ice because it was lower in alcohol; At 5.5% to the others’ 5.9%, it was a waste of time.
Tall boys of “5.9″ soon became our obsession. They were all we talked about, all we drank. And they were disgusting. We didn’t know it at the time, but we were drinking some of the most vile liquid man had ever created. And we loved it. We couldn’t get enough. Like I said, we were young and confused. And optimistic.
The “tall boys of ice” phase lasted for several years but slowly started to die off as we made our ways to separate colleges. What had once been the resin solidifying the epoxy bond of our friendships became corrupted by new college experiences with new people in new places. Luckily, we came home from our first years at college and The Ice was still there, waiting. It was just like old times. But by the second summer things began to change. People didn’t come back from college; they stayed the summers to work in places like “Southern California” and “Oregon.” By the third summer tall boys of Ice were but a distant memory, mementos of a happier time.
For several years after the Ice beer phase the tall boys stayed tall but were replaced by brands like Pabst and Rainier. Sometimes Olympia. I craved the tall can but not the liquid regret that came with The Ice. But deep down, part of me did crave The Ice. I could drink a six pack of tall boys of Rainier and still feel happy. I wanted to hate myself.
I have since moved on from tall boys more or less all together, though some vestiges of this particular epoch will always remain. Even now when I go to the supermarket I find myself drifting past the “nice” beer — the Fat Tire and the Bridgeport and the Corona — towards the “shitty” beer at the end of the aisle, where I eventually find myself face to face with a six-pack of tall boys. I watch my hand lift up and slide its fingers into the plastic rings, and I feel the familiar weight of 96oz. ounces of liquid refreshment. And I smile.
But sadly, this is happening less and less, and I fear one day it will cease to happen all together. This will probably come in conjunction with my wedding day, when all remnants of my youth are erased for good. When this does happen, the part of my soul given over to tall boys will be forced to lie dormant. Dormant until one day when I’m 82 and I find myself in Safeway. I’ll have rheumatoid arthritis and I’ll walk with a cane. I’ll be at the end of the beer aisle and I’ll have no idea how I got there. But I’ll be smiling, dumbly. And my shaking hands will reach up.
-Wetzler
Song of the Day: “Veridis Quo” — Daft Punk
This entry was written by , posted on April 13, 2009 at 3:59 pm, filed under alcohol and tagged alcohol, binge drinking, busch ice, college, dorms, house parties, ice beer, tall boys. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.