Jalopnik: beer

What Car Parts Have You Used As Field Expedient Bottle Openers?

Murilee Martin — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 14:00:00 EDT

I know what you cancer-stick-addicted types are saying: "But you can use a lighter to open a bottle!" Yes, yes, a key works too, but there's something extra satisfying about opening bottles with your car.

We had a tailgate party last weekend, prior to watching the hapless Oakland A's get shellacked by some team from behind the Orange Curtain. In attendance were the usual suspects: Belvedere Adrian's wagon, my '97 P71 Crown Vic, and the most reliable vehicle I've ever known.

Naturally, while we brought a dozen different types of gourmet sausages to put on the grille, we sorta spaced on an opener for the elitist non-twist-off beer we prefer for such occasions. No problem, though- the late-80s Toyota pickup's door latch makes an excellent bottle opener. I know that our readers will have many useful vehicular-bottle-opening tips for us, so let's have 'em!

But first, what's that vehicle driven by our tailgate neighbors?

Why, it's a veteran mid-60s Transporter pickup! Good tailgating vehicle choice, we say.

Since this is Oakland, I didn't have to go far to find a donk. How about a mid-70s Malibu with the crypto-donk treatment?

Don't Try To Bribe The 24 Hours Of LeMons Supreme Court With Natty Light!

Murilee Martin — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 07:00:00 EDT

A word of advice to LeMons racers who want to oil the gears of justice: don't try to give us cat-piss-grade beer. We have a new policy for such bribe attempts!

Yes, we'll dump all the Natural Light, Colt .45, Milwaukee's Best, Coors, etc. on your engine... and you're lucky we're not dumping it in the crankcase! Just ask the team that got two 40-dogs of King Cobra dumped on their Ford Modular!

I'll do my best to keep up the posts during the day, but things in the penalty box might get too hectic for much in the way of live coverage. However, a live streaming video of the action should be available later today, so check out this site for some LeMons madness!

Redd Foxx Hoons A Dodge For Some Colt .45

Murilee Martin — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 11:30:00 EDT

What did hep early-70s skiers crave most on the slopes? You got it- tall cans of Colt .45! Aaah, nothing feels quite as good as staggering helplessly into a snowbank, your ski pants sodden with unnoticed urine and the meat of your knuckles shredded from some other skier's busted bicuspids- yes, that's what skiing is all about! But what if you've run out of 16-ouncers and you've assigned Redd Foxx to beer-run duty, and he's driving "Redd's Sled," which appears to be a rally-prepped, fender-flared proto-Colt/crypto-Galant of some sort? Hilarity ensues! Bonus points for anyone who can identify the car; I've been watching this thing like it's the Zapruder Film, and the best I can do is interpret those round pillar emblems as probable Colt items and say "Colt with weird taillights" or maybe "Cricket after a Bondo attack."

The Solution To Expensive Gasoline? Just Say Phuket!

Murilee Martin — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 18:00:00 EDT

I went out to get some of the excellent Pumpkin Curry at the King Of Thai Noodle restaurant in Alameda, and noticed a Phuket Beer ad on the wall suggesting one way of beating high gas prices: instead of driving, swill large quantities of beer!

Raaaaaaaiii... Nieeeeeeeeeer... Beeeeeeeeeeer! (Repeat Until Insane)

Murilee Martin — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 12:00:00 EDT

If you were within, say, 1,000 miles of the Pacific Northwest during the 1970s, you remember this ad. In fact, if you were a kid during this time, you and your friends imitated it ceaselessly… and if your family had a car with a manual transmission, you and your siblings imitated it every time gears were changed during road trips, until your parents developed a powerful thirst for something way stronger than watery Seattle brew in order to blot out the maddening sound from the back seat. We know, it's not really a car commercial, but there's an engine involved! And check it out- here's an account by the guy who wrote and produced the ad- isn't the Internet great?

Because Trucks Don't Float!

Murilee Martin — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 15:00:00 EST

It's impossible not to love an ad for a vehicle that includes the statement: "You're stuck on one hole and you're using a vehicle that sinks to get there. There is a better way." Yes indeed, folks, there is a better way to go ice fishing! See, all the time that you spend moving your ice-fishing shack around the frozen lake, rescuing your sunken pickup truck, etc... that's time you could be spending pounding peach schnapps! For you, the folks at Wilcraft have produced the Ultimate Ice Fishing Rig. It floats, it has tracks, and it has a built-in canvas enclosure to keep your schnapps from freezing. Thanks to Thunder for the tip! [Wilcraft]

World's Best Mom: Buckles Up Case Of Beer Instead Of Toddler

Murilee Martin — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 08:00:00 EST

Floridian Tina Williams had had "a few" drinks, lacked a driver's license, and was seen running a red light and swerving across traffic lanes; she played the "I was running out of gas" attempt-to-get-out-of-DUI card with the arresting officer, with predictable lack of success. So far we're not even talking local news story here, but there's more. What catapulted Ms. Williams into the spotlight for her 15 minutes of unwanted fame was the fact that her 1-year-old was roaming around loose in the back seat, yet a case of Busch was safely buckled up in the shotgun position. You know, priorities! [Smoking Gun]

Forget Schlitz In A Camaro- Gala In A 2CV!

Murilee Martin — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 11:15:00 EST

After we all had the chance to mull over the proper beer to purchase on the way home from the Chevy dealership with your new '77 Camaro yesterday, it seems only right that we should watch this Chadian ad for Gala Beer. Gala, the beer delivered to you in a 2CV while you lounge in a lawn chair on a hot African afternoon. And the Gala theme song is way catchier than the "Tonight's The Night" Löwenbräu tune!

Commenter of the Day: Back to School Edition

Matt Hardigree — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 18:00:00 EST

There must be something in the air that's given the otherwise sparkling clean minds of our commenters a slightly more prurient bent. What could possibly explain the suggestion of ménage à trois in multiple posts today? Either way, there was a lot of action in the Beer Poll worthy of nomination (which reminds us to remind you about Open Container Laws), but only one reached the mixture of high school nostalgia, sexual deviance and alcoholism worthy of Dazed and Confused and our day's affection.

We hope that LT1 has gotten out of his parent's garage by now, so he can share this gem with unrelated loved ones:

Lowenbrau all the way. When your blipping the throttle out front of the High School just to piss off Principal Edwards (who threw you out of the same school five years ago after he found a lid of grass in your locker while you were at PE) as you wait for Cherry and Abigail to come out, you need a beer that lets the ladies know that you're sophisticated, but also just bad enough to give not one, but both those girls the love piledriver to the sweet sounds of Robin Trower's "Bridge of Sighs".

Take that Principal Edwards!

Break Out The Pabst, Boys, It's Imperial Wrenching Time!

Murilee Martin — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 15:30:27 EDT

Sometimes the old 413 in the '65 Imperial just won't run right. That's when it's time to buy a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon and invite some of your grimy gearhead henchmen to dive into the Chrysler's innards with you! I shot this circa-1987 image on a keychain camera using 110 film, hence the excessive, Pabst-hangover-style graininess. That's the late Dirty Duck in the middle (of Legend of Hoot's Panhead fame), and yes, Ed (on the left) has an authentic mullet.

Crack Open A Cold Powerglide Road Soda, Buddy!

Murilee Martin — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 11:30:32 EDT

Back when I was young and broke and living with a houseful of other young, broke slackers, we figured out that it was possible to make our own beer; once the beermaking hardware had been purchased and enough non-twist-off bottles had been obtained, the opaque, yeasty homebrew we bootlegged up in the garage cost about $5 per case to produce and usually tasted tolerably good. Well, tolerable, anyway. Thing was, guests at our parties were afraid to drink beer out of ominous-looking unlabeled bottles, so I quickly set to work with the old ransom-note cut-and-paste layout technique...

Some Xeroxing, cutting, and glue-stick work followed, and we had our own somewhat non-poisonous-looking brands. I made some Infected Weasel Bladder Porter, which lacked marketing appeal but featured a really cool weasel logo, followed by Shame Beer and Spiro Agnew Stout. My favorite, however, was good ol' Powerglide Road Soda Genuine Draft (the "Road Soda" part came from the cop who taught at a traffic school I'd attended in penance for a speeding ticket; he referred to drunk drivers as having "had a few too many road sodas" and the phrase hardwired itself into my brain). The inspiration for the beer's name came from the Powerglide that sat on the floor of our "brewery" in a slowly spreading puddle of Dexron; I had swapped a TH350 into my Impala and was trying to find someone who would give me money for a perfectly good Slip-N-Slide (eventually I got a Quadrajet and an OD-1 distortion pedal for it). I'd thought all the PRS bottles were long gone, but look what showed up in a long-forgotten box!

Student Builds '65 Mustang from 4,000 Beer Cans

Mike Spinelli — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 09:27:20 EDT

One of the benefits to alcoholism is the sheer quantity raw materials you can accumulate. And considering aluminum is the weight-saving metal of choice among carmakers, perhaps it would behoove the auto industry to be run by a bunch of drunks. That's not to say the guy who built this '65 Mustang facsimile out of Bud cans is an alky, but the 23-year-old UK design student did put down a Budweiser four-pack each day for three years, collecting 4,000 cans for his Mustang project. It sure beats the hell out of our own "beer can scale model of the East Rutherford, New Jersey interchange" we once built for a friend as a travel aid. It didn't help; he's still out there somewhere. [Carscoop]

Billetproof 2007: Party Wagon Zen

bwojdyla — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 12:30:00 EDT

When we saw this minitanker mit bier thema — duallies, high Schlitz shifter, bull's head hood ornament and exposed u-joint — it was as if we'd found our hot rod soulmate. It's low, it's rough, it's a little bit ugly, but it is creative and it brings (or pretends to bring) hoppy refreshment to the unwashed masses. There isn't much not to love. If there were beirmaidens involved we would have never left.– Ben Wojdyla

Drink Beer in Moldova! Drive a Fabia!

Davey G. Johnson — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 21:30:00 EDT

We're just not quite what to say. For some reason, this is funny because it's Eastern European. If the same spot ran here in English we sould be annoyed. But learning Moldo-Romanian words for things is fun! Gianta Frigider! You can win one of those, too! Put in the back of your Fabia! – Davey G. Johnson

You Meet The Nicest Drunks in a Honda

Mike Spinelli — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 15:18:30 EDT

Exactly. "Tap that ass" has many definitions.

[something Belgian. Thanks to David for the tip.]

Related:
Gizmodo Brings Us The Cooler Cruiser [internal]

Austin Stays Golden, Drives From Ann Arbor to Colorado On E85

Davey G. Johnson — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 15:30:00 EDT

One of our resident reviewers proved you can go home again by getting some action from Jean Jennings. No, not like that. Austin went back to his old Automobile boss and picked up a gig driving an Impala solely on E85 from Michigan to the Coors brewery in Golden, where they not only brew beer, but manufacture ethanol. And then, y'know, he drank some beer. Because if there are two things Austins know how to do well, it's grow top-quality Blue Spruce, Norway Spruce and Canaan Fir trees and consume alcohol.

2006 Chevrolet Impala E85: Hopped up on Ethanol [Automobile]

Gizmodo Brings Us The Cooler Cruiser

David Thomas — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 13:26:48 EDT

In a sheer stroke of synergistic bliss, the kids over at Gizmodo have uncovered this brilliant combination of ingenuity, laziness, slovenliness and just gosh darn good times. Sure, it's basically a golf cart with a 54-quart Coleman stainless steel ice chest attached, but it also solves that already well-addressed problem of never being without on the 7th hole. As for the commenters saying "Why would you want to get up off the seat to get the drink," they obviously haven't met the right drink girl at their local course.

Related:
Cooler Cruiser: Strap-On Beer Express [Gizmodo]

Philadelphian for 'Keg Party': Foster's Truck Sends Facilitator of Brotherly Love All Over Schuylkill Expwy

Davey G. Johnson — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 23:30:47 EST

A Foster's Lager truck apparently lost its sense of balance and tipsied on up, expelling its cargo of kegs all over South Philly's Schuylkill Expressway. And it apparently wasn't being filmed for a clever ad. But we're still sitting here repeating "Remoawt Controawl" over and over in our best Paul Hogan accent and reminiscing about this really cute Australian girl who went and got knocked up before we were clear for a shot at her. She so hated it when we used to get right in her face and say, "Beeeah!" And then she'd slap us playfully and made us sorta wish we weren't kinda dating the person who introduced us.

What's Australian for "Schuylkill," mate? [Attytood]