BEER'S INFLUENCE ON MY LIFE

My fascination with beer started early, at about age six, when I annoyed my parents by reading the neon window signs in Renton, Washington taverns from the back seat of my family's "Nash trash" blimpmobile.

Olympia Beer, was probably the most popular, bearing the name of the state's capital, although my high school classmates shortened the name to "Oly."

One kid got sent home with a t-shirt declaring "Olympia, Breakfast of Champions," a clever take on Wheaties ads.

TV commercials for "Oly" used the slogan "It's the Water!" to emphasize the fact that the beer was brewed with water from the springs of Tumwater, not from Olympia city water.

Rainier Beer had its brewery in Seattle, owned by Emil Sick, who also owned Sick's Seattle Stadium, the home of the Seattle Rainiers, a farm club of the Cincinnati Reds.

In the sixth grade I got into a huge argument with my teacher, Mr. Ewing, over whether Seattle would ever have a major league baseball team.

I could literally see foam forming at the corners of Mr. Ewing's mouth and thought he was going to take a swing at me.

Anyway, I listened to all of the Rainiers' games on the radio, although we could never afford to attend a game.

Grandpa Barton, using a wood saw as a musical instrument, accompanied on the piano by Grandma Barton

As a kid, I thought Lucky Lager was spelled "Lucky Logger," not too far-fetched a conclusion since my paternal grandfather, Lawrence Barton, was a logger all his life and drank Lucky Lager.

Grandpa Barton, who was allowed to cut trees in first-growth, virgin forests, logged with an axe and a horse.

He would cut a huge Douglas Fir down with an axe, then carve his initials into the trunk and use his horse to drag the huge tree down to the waterway so it could float to the sawmill and be credited to him.

Despite all of the background, I'd probably consumed only five or six beers in total before leaving Washington state at age 18, most, if not all of them at the home of my Uncle Joe, just 12 years my senior.

I made up for that deficiency quickly in Brownsville/Matamoros.

Oldtimer and snowbird Martin Jensen took me to the Texas Bar in Matamoros for my first Bohemia in 1966.

The Texas Bar became my hangout in the 60's, the place I took new friends and my relatives, when they visited from Seattle.

Texas Bar

It was not a mere cantina as its name implies, but a full-fledged restaurant where a meal with two entrees, filet mignon, frog legs, pheasant, etc. went for a mere $1.50 and was more than enough for two people.

The U.S. Bar, catty corner across the street at the zocalo, offered a similar three course meal for $1.25, but I never went there.

Perhaps, my sister Sandy, Alma Buentello, Gloria Turner, Tom Robinson and others will remember the wonderful conversations we had drinking beer and eating cacahuates at Las Dos Republicas, the original before it burned.

No one bothered us as we drank only beer and ate peanuts in their skins and talked till closing.

So many great Mexican beers that I know I'll forget some.

Tecate with salt and lime was a favorite of Paul Sanders, my counter partner at the Valley Inn, while I usually drank a couple Corona de Barrils before coming to work at midnight.

On this side of the border, a quart of Busch could be had on sale for 39 cents, a six pack of Falstaff or Lone Star for 99 cents.

Lone Star advertised "onyx protective glass," implying their product was not weakened by sunlight.

Eventually, before leaving Texas, Pearl Beer became my favorite, although Pearl Light was awful stuff, the worst beer I've ever tried.

Once, while in San Antonio, I enjoyed tours of both the Pearl and Lone Star Brewing Companies.

By 1970 we'd moved to Arkansas and I remember drinking Champale, a malt liquor in fancy bottles. 

The selling point was drinking champagne at a beer price or whatever.

Stag and Old Style were also personal favorites as well as Pabst Blue Ribbon.  

During the Carter administration Billy Beer came out, marketed by the president's atypical brother Billy Carter.

I bought one six pack just to try it.

Sometime in the 80's I bought the equipment to make my own beer using a recipe for Porter Stout with Cascade hops from Washington State.

There was a cooking process, then filtering, filtering again and finally bottling and capping.

I ruined one batch by going for a stronger alcoholic content using more dextrose than the recipe indicated.  

Originally, I used Stag 12 oz bottles, then went to 22 oz. reusable Corona bottles.

I shared them with workmates and took a load to Brownsville on a visit.

I only recall sister-in-law Ana Lee Garza saying she liked it along with workmate Keith Wine, but, after I quit making it and got rid of the equipment, I suddenly got a lot of complaints that I wasn't making more product.  

Anyway, I went back to commercially made beer, settling for a time on Schlitz, then Negra Modelo when it became available in the United States.

In 2018 I found that award-winning San Miguel Beer of the Philippines lived up to its name, but I was beyond fascinated with the infamous Red Horse Beer, a product many filipinos, including Ana, believe will "make you crazy."

On an all night ferry from Cagayan de Oro to Cebu, I joined a group of guys for some Red Horse.  We drank all night and, yes, there was craziness, but I'm not sure if it was brought on by the beer or the legends surrounding the beer.