Tuesday, June 2, 2015

No Hippie Punching In The Comments, Please!

Dogfish Head Brewing is issuing a special 50th Anniversary commemorative label for their "American Beauty" beer. The Grateful Dead are celebrating 50 years together this summer. The beer is brewed using almond honey granola and hops. The beer haz 9% ABV which is enough to whack a polyp. The new label is supposed to look like this:
Link to original
I've always liked the iconography associated with the band, along with some of their music. I've only seen them twice though--not enough to qualify as a Deadhead. The Dead (the ones who aren't dead-dead) have been together 50 years, since the halcyon days of the San Francisco hippie scene.

According to the late Hunter S. Thompson, 1965 was the best year to be a hippie:
The best year to be a hippie was 1965, but then there was not much to write about, because not much was happening in public and most of what was happening in private was illegal. The real year of the hippie was 1966, despite the lack of publicity, which in 1967 gave way to a nationwide avalanche in Look, Life, Time, Newsweek, the Atlantic, the New York Times, the Saturday Evening Post, and even the Aspen Illustrated News, which did a special issue on hippies in August of 1967 and made a record sale of all but 6 copies of a 3,500-copy press run. But 1967 was not really a good year to be a hippie. It was a good year for salesmen and exhibitionists who called themselves hippies and gave colorful interviews for the benefit of the mass media, but serious hippies, with nothing to sell, found that they had little to gain and a lot to lose by becoming public figures. Many were harassed and arrested for no other reason than their sudden identification with a so-called cult of sex and drugs. The publicity rumble, which seemed like a joke at first, turned into a menacing landslide. So quite a few people who might have been called the original hippies in 1965 had dropped out of sight by the time hippies became a national fad in 1967.  Link

27 comments:

AllenS said...

Believe it or not, I've had some Dogfish beer. Wasn't too bad, but Leinenkugel had some small production runs that were a lot better. More ass-kicker.

Titus said...

I just saw Buzz Kissinger on Anderson Cooper-he wrote the Jenner story.

Buzz likes to dress in women's clothes too...jeez. The Friday Night Lights writer is a tranny-dear lord.

I never wanted to be a woman-except when I was like 4 and I wore my mom's scarves over my head and pretended to be Cher.

chickelit said...

I love Leinies, Allen. The first time was aware of them was well before I was old enough to drink. My dad used to take us scuba diving to a place called Red Granite Quarry which was an old abandoned quarry. It was interesting to divers because it had gin clear water (I've heard it's gotten much worse) and was filled with lots of abandoned quarry machinery. The place was also a party spot for the local kids and that's where I saw it: a shiny silver Leinenkugel can. It looked like this: link. They've changed their look. I wish they'd go back, retro-style.

I probably won't like the American Beauty beer. I'm a big lager fan. I don't care much for hoppy beers. I only want the label.

Trooper York said...

I thought only pot smokers were Greatful Dead fans?

Titus said...


I admit it-I am transatlantic phobic-lets bond-groop hug.

My mom, who is liberal, called me today so confused about Caitlin. She asked me if Caitlin cut off her dick and if she has real tits and if I knew any Caitlin's and why she should care about Caitlin. My mom and dad watched me performed in the Olympic Stadium in Montreal in 1985-she always said, "that is where Bruce won his medals".

I told her mom...I don't know any Caitlin's=she is a freak-and she said ok-because she knows I know everything.

I inform my mummy on all social and public policy.

tits.

ricpic said...

Mummy probably learned years ago to keep her own counsel when lost and damned sonny mouths off.

ricpic said...

Same for Schmendrik's mummy, the poor dear.

ricpic said...

No probably about it, mummy knows she was cursed with a fegelah for a son but she's his mummy so when he has his inevitable breakdown and curls up at her front door she'll take him in cause that's what a mummy does.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Holy cow the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

doomed. we . are.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

There's a bakery here in flyover idoitland called "Grateful bread". Good bread, but wow those flyover bakery's are so stupiz. I hate them so I vote lib.

Shouting Thomas said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Shouting Thomas said...

SF has an odd history in that people always claim that the real high times occurred during their heyday and that everything thereafter was a pale imitation and commercial exploitation.

The Beats say the greatest of all times was 1956. For the hippies, it was 1967. The gays all came out of the closet in 1973.

Also, everybody who moves from anywhere else to SF concludes soon after arrival that any new arrivals after his landing are interlopers over-populating the city and turning everything to shit, and that the only solution is to close and lock the door.

Aridog said...

Of the all the rank buggers of the late 60's, the hippies were the least concern. We had far uglier things to deal with, at home and away, and some a steep price. Hippies? Bah.

Rabel said...

I watched most of the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame show on HBO the other day. Seeing the rebellious rockers in their tuxes (artfully designed to not look like tuxes) was silly. The speeches (except for Bill Withers) were better in fast forward. Not normally my kind of thing.

However, the musical sets were, for the most part, awesome. Little Stevie Wonder, to my surprise, has still got it. Joe Walsh is still a little freaky looking. Paul Schaffer was musical director and the group sets were really well done. I recommend it, especially if you have the TV hooked up to a sound system. Two thumbs up as someone said earlier. Turn it up.

This concludes today's musical interlude.

virgil xenophon said...

The "sixties" was really a tripartite affair. 1960-1964 was really a continuation of the 50s and the rock & roll era. The period 1964-1966 could best be described as the Beetles era and the summer of '67 the beginning of what everyone now thinks of as "the sixties" which lasted until, say, 1975?

IMHO the early sixties after the election of JFK was great. EVERYONE was optimistic and general good-will was in the air. Conservatives thought everything was going to stay the same, only better, while lefties/"progressives" thought everything was going to change and go their way. Boy were both sides fooled..

AllenS said...

What virgil said.

Michael Haz said...

That beer? I'd try it if someone gave be a bottle, but I doubt I'd seek it out. Craft brewing is a big thing around here all of a sudden. Every moke who brewed a couple of beers in his kitchen last year is now remodeling an old industrial building and opening craft brew pubs. Most of then brew beer that ranges from awful to mostly okay. I bought a directory that lists all the craft brewers in Wisconsin and have been getting to them as time and travel allows.

There are three that are exceptionally good. The rest are meh. Of the three, one brews a beer with the very hard to find saisson hops. It may be the best beer on the planet, and they brew it only one time each year when they can get the hops.

Hippie era? I went hippie my first year of college, mostly in hopes of getting laid. Second year of college I dropped out because of bad cancer. Tried to enlist but they wouldn't take me because of the cancer. When I went back to college "hippies" had become violent fascist pricks, so I grew my hair out for camouflage, and hung around with my fellow B school students and assorted engineering majors - normal people just trying to get an education. When a group of four idiots blew up a building on campus, I cut my hair, moved out of town and commuted to class.

The hippie era wasn't all it's cracked up to be. It was fun for maybe a year, but then it became horribly political and violent. Much of the current SJW crap going on at colleges now reminds me of what happened back then. Shouldn't be a surprise, since the people who are professors now were mostly hippies back then.

Mitch H. said...

I had a bunch of Dogfish samplers when they breezed through State College a couple years ago, and some of it wasn't bad, for beer. I got a case for myself and guests not long afterwards, and I found, as I usually do, that bottled beer tastes much worse than the stuff tapped out of a keg at a bar. To be honest, I'm just not much of a beer drinker, I prefer American whiskeys. Especially Templeton Rye, that's the stuff...

Aridog said...

Yes, what virgil xenophon said.

Yet, my experience with "Hippies" was not negative, humorous actually. It did not get ugly until the advent of Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, aka the "Weathermen", Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda, et al ad nauseum. All of those ilk had agendas far removed from "peace & love." When I walked across a major university campus, to visit a friend in doctoral studies there, in the 60's, the "Hippies" had their comments, but not vicious, almost endearing. In dress greens (required for economic travel back then) with all the color and pageant of chevrons and medals (of which I was not ashamed) drew no more than questions rather than spite. When I came home in the mid-70's, the world had changed. Anger had replaced the benevolence of years prior....and my home town was a wreck with nothing but a charnel house in its place. Sad then, sad now...but it is improving.

Yes, I had been fooled, but not by the "Hippies" but by the others with axes to grind that had nothing to do with me or my service. Or any war. I mostly ignored them. I still do.

Titus said...

I would be dead if I was around in the 60's.

I was born in 70-tits

Calypso Facto said...

Closer to your former home, Chick, Capital Brewery put out its Grateful Red earlier this year.

Haz, make sure you hit Karben4 in Madison. Tiny brewery, but best in the state imho, so long as you stick with their maltier choices.

chickelit said...

Calypso Facto: I have a collection of "beer-aphenalia" from those guys: glasses, mugs, tin signs, etc. I visit every time I'm back. Too bad their product isn't out here--Death's Door Spirits is.

Michael Haz said...

Calypso - I like Karben4 a great deal. They brew some excellent beer. My three current favorites are:

Biloba in Brookfield. The owner is also president of a malting company, and this brewery is his way of teaching his adult kids how to brew, plus setting up a retirement project for himself. The guy really knows grains.

Brenner Brewing Company in Milwaukee. A family discovered that their twenty-something son had a talent for brewing, so they sent him to Germany to learn the craft. Really good beer!

Tribute Brewing Company in Eagle River. Another find - a guy with awesome brewing skills got together with another guy with a few bucks and a passion for craft beer. Magic.

Michael Haz said...

If you are ever in SE WI, also stop at Great Lakes Distillery in MKE. Their rye whiskey is stunning, as is their absinthe.

chickelit said...

Are the craft brews in Wisconsin IPAs or lagers?

I keep waiting for the "lager revolution" out here.

Michael Haz said...

It's a good mix of ales, lagers, and porters. Most of the craft brewers have a list of ten or more beers, and the mix is good, except when they add blueberries or chocolate, or something that really doesn't belong in good beer.

Aridog said...

Titus said...

I would be dead if I was around in the 60's.

I doubt it. Weird as your posts are, once in a while you'll score a good one. I'm guessing you'd have stepped up in the 60's and made your points, as a civilian or in uniform. See, being "gay" or whatever wasn't an "identity" thing back then among those of us who worked for living and went to school at night. No one wanted to kill anyone, but some of us had to to do so. Some of us had to be killed as well. We came home very lucky and grateful for those made it possible for us to do so. I doubt you disagree with that.

You may now proceed to piss me off as usual. And I'll ignore you as usual. :-)