Mmmm....Beer

Ezra Klein wonders when arugula became the signpost of fancy-pants elitism. I wonder, too. On the one hand, I'm pretty much a fancy-pants elitist but I'm really not sure which of the various leafy greens you see in salads is the arugula. Apparently it's also used as a garnish at Olive Garden.

But the real question is when did beer become so downscale? Go to a retail corridor in a yuppified neighborhood in any town in America and you'll find a bar full of people drinking . . . beer. Go to a Whole Foods in a town where supermarkets are allowed to sell beer and you'll find . . . beer. Surely these are well-known facts. Meanwhile, in literal sense the American "beer track" seems to involve Obama-friendly plains states plus outliers like Nevada (casinos) and New Hampshire (people driving in from neighboring states to avoid taxes).

Comments

When you were in high school and wanted to get smashed, what did you do? You didn't have somebody buy you wine. You and your buds got somebody to buy you some cheap crappy beer like Old Milwaukee or Milwaukee's Best and drank until you adolescent brain was swimming in the stuff.

Posted by blah | April 28, 2008 3:32 PM

I love arugula and beer. Maybe that's why I'm undecided.

Posted by Trent | April 28, 2008 3:32 PM

We might also note that for the last several years, wine has been gradually filtering down into mass culture while beer has been moving upwards in terms of specialization and "gourmet"-iness. But then, irony always seems to be lost on our MSM.

Posted by BeerTrack | April 28, 2008 3:33 PM

When you were in high school and wanted to get smashed, what did you do? You didn't have somebody buy you wine. You and your buds got somebody to buy you some cheap crappy beer like Old Milwaukee or Milwaukee's Best and drank until you adolescent brain was swimming in the stuff.

Which just goes to show the stupidity of most young people. Cheap wine is a much more quick and cost effective way to get drunk. Smuggling wine somewhere is also easier than smuggling the many cases of beer it would take to achieve a similar effect. That being said, nothing beats cheap vodka, for all the reasons stated above.

Posted by drjimcooper | April 28, 2008 3:35 PM

I'm just thankful the image on the left was not a 40 of malt liquor.

Posted by DTM | April 28, 2008 3:38 PM

To me rocket is just glorified rabbit feed and I avoid it like the plague. But it's been around for a decade or so now and everybody liberally tosses this stuff on their pizzas, burgers or whathaveyou - so it's definitely neither hip nor elitist, well, maybe if you think olive oil is hip and elitist.

Posted by novakant | April 28, 2008 3:39 PM

This is true, Beer Track. I mentioned at Ezra's that I had a lunch this weekend that involved both beer (Clinton!) and arugula (Obama!). Then I shared a bottle of wine (Obama!) with my girlfriend, who'd rather have chardonnay than beer. In between I was at a bar and a few 7 and 7's (whiskey: Clinton?).

What does this say about me as a voter??????

Posted by mark f | April 28, 2008 3:39 PM

Newsweek is stupid. They've been stupid for a very long time. I stopped reading it in 1978, I think it was. Pure poison.

Posted by Garuda | April 28, 2008 3:40 PM

From http://www.bumwine.com/md2020.html :

On MD 20/20
-"You'll find this beverage as often in a bum's nest as in the rock quarry where the high school kids sneak off to drink"

Therefore, I reject the notion that high school kids were beer drinkers. I came from a blue collar town and the value of Boonesfarm was as well known as the value of a 40 of OE.

Posted by freddiemac | April 28, 2008 3:41 PM

Call it rocket. (It's the peppery one in yer salad. Unless you have watercress.)

And BeerTrack is right: the American boutique wine-maker has nothing these days on American craft brewers with their ever-hoppier IPAs and Baltic stouts, nor on the hipster who buys PBR in a can.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | April 28, 2008 3:42 PM

Apparently blah did not grow up somewhere Thunderbird, Mad Dog 20/20, Night Train, Boone's Farm, or so on were popular.

Posted by DTM | April 28, 2008 3:43 PM

Young voters and college students don't drink beer at all, so I can see how beer/wine as a demographic distinction holds up very well.

I think 'beer track' is a polite and/or quasi-insightful enough euphemism for poor white people.

Posted by Brent | April 28, 2008 3:43 PM

I'd bet money Chimay outsells Bud Light (aluminum bottle) most weeks at Whole Foods. Sure, Chimay is beer, but it doesn't appear often in the stands at NASCAR races. The metaphor is imperfect, but it still works.

Posted by seanh | April 28, 2008 3:44 PM

To me rocket is just glorified rabbit feed and I avoid it like the plague. - novakant

I happen to love rocket, but why the fancy-pants'd calling it of Arugula. Wouldn't it be much more appreciated if it were called rocket? OTOH, I doubt that many males would proudly proclaim "I'm a rocket man".

Posted by DAS | April 28, 2008 3:45 PM

In High School we drank Mad Dog. A tart wine with aromas of strawberry and banana. Accents of bile truncated with hints of aftershave.

Posted by md20/20 | April 28, 2008 3:46 PM

Totally off-topic, but did anyone read Michael Scherer's article about the White House Correspondents Dinnter? It goes along pretty normally for a while, and then out of nowhere with no further explanation comes this:

"As is tradition, the President stood to do a short stand-up act, which included the retelling of an old joke about Vice President Dick Cheney watching Bush through a peephole in the Oval Office door while masturbating. Such is the state of Washington humor."

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1735470,00.html

What the fuck?

Posted by nathan | April 28, 2008 3:46 PM

Only someone who knows what arugula is AND who associates beer-drinking with (mostly) blue-collar workers is himself an elitist. Only 'elitists' would know what arugula is. A stereotypical blue-collar working stiff wouldn't have any idea what it is - or what a latte is, for that matter. So the people raising this issue -- "Is Obama too much of an elitist?" -- are themselves 'elitists', revealing their own anxiety about their distance from so-called 'real Americans'.

What I'd like to hear and see on television -- one of those channels that incessantly raises this issue -- is an interview with a dyed-in-the-wool working man expressing concern about Obama's supposed elitism. Has there even been such an interview? Is there in fact any evidence at all that this is a major concern 'out there in the heartland'?

Posted by DNS | April 28, 2008 3:47 PM

Brent,

Are you being sarcastic about college students not drinking beer?

Posted by freddiemac | April 28, 2008 3:47 PM

I doubt that many males would proudly proclaim "I'm a rocket man".

Similarly, I doubt that many males talk very much about their favorite greens.

Posted by mark f | April 28, 2008 3:48 PM

We drank MD 20/20 as well. I remember the Kiwi/Strawberry being a good flavor. But beer was the staple.

Posted by blah | April 28, 2008 3:48 PM

Totally off-topic, but did anyone read Michael Scherer's article about the White House Correspondents Dinnter? It goes along pretty normally for a while, and then out of nowhere with no further explanation comes this:

"As is tradition, the President stood to do a short stand-up act, which included the retelling of an old joke about Vice President Dick Cheney watching Bush through a peephole in the Oval Office door while masturbating. Such is the state of Washington humor."

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1735470,00.html

What the fuck?

Posted by nathan | April 28, 2008 3:49 PM

I don't think most men would label themselves "rocket men". Remember that was an Elton John song...

Besides, the grocery store doesn't label arugala "rocket". I've never even heard that term before, maybe it is a colloquialism?

Posted by freddiemac | April 28, 2008 3:54 PM

"Similarly, I doubt that many males talk very much about their favorite greens."
I believe in the south there are such discussions -- but they are about mustard, collards and kale.

Posted by Pierre de Fermat | April 28, 2008 3:54 PM

The equation is supposed to make Hillary the beer drinker?

So, that passes for thought? insight? what? It sounds to me like somebody took a pair of scissors to a political science project and randomly came up with a combination of words.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | April 28, 2008 3:55 PM

This is probably the right place to ask this. A few years ago at a city/non-profit function I had some sort of squash or something but I haven't been able to find out what it was. It was semi-translucent waxy yellow, slightly lighter inside than outside. It wasn't sweet, and it was crunchy all the way through and not mushy on the inside.

Maybe MattY could twitter his friends and find out or something.

Posted by TLB | April 28, 2008 3:56 PM

Beer was downscale in the 80s when just about everything that wasn't bland, fizzy water was an import. The craft brew movement has moved beer significantly up the scale because they brought quality back to beer. Several fine restaurants that I love now have beer lists as well as wine lists, and they contain a variety of brews that pair well with food.

"Light beer isn't for people who enjoy beer. It's for people who like to pee a lot."

Posted by LFC | April 28, 2008 3:58 PM

Besides, the grocery store doesn't label arugala "rocket". I've never even heard that term before, maybe it is a colloquialism?

It's just an alternative name. For instance, they call it "rocket" in England. Sort of like eggplant/aubergine.

Posted by blah | April 28, 2008 4:01 PM

To me rocket is just glorified rabbit feed and I avoid it like the plague.

I don't mind rocket, but it's no watercress: watercress is one of those things that's unfortunately hard to find, even though any snob value one might want to attach to it is completely out of place.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | April 28, 2008 4:03 PM

Well perhaps its an ill-advised reference to David Kamp's wonderful book from a couple of years ago, "The United States of Arugula: How We Became A Gourmet Nation".
http://www.davidkamp.com/about.php

Of course, though Kamp uses Arugula as an example of a gourmet food, its an ill-advised reference because the whole book is about how exotic foods of years past are now available everywhere in the US and not just in New York (Kamp quotes a 1939 food column about the New York World Fair, the writer had to explain to her readers what pizza is).

Of course, maybe I have cause and effect wrong and Kamp was just using a preexisting signpost of fancy-pants elitism.

Posted by beowulf | April 28, 2008 4:04 PM

BTW, much of the best beer being produced today is in OR, WA, and CO ... all Obama states. MI seems to be up and coming, and may be an Obama leaner. CA voted for Clinton, but they'll come around for Obama in the general.

In contrast, while PA (my state) has some excellent breweries (Victory, Tröegs, and Yards come to mind), it can't hold a candle to the West Coast states and Colorado for their sheer bounty of excellent brews.

So I think the best beer states may be for Obama.

Posted by LFC | April 28, 2008 4:09 PM

Similarly, I doubt that many males talk very much about their favorite greens.

Sure they do, but it the ones they smoke.

Posted by Mo | April 28, 2008 4:11 PM

LFC,

Just to follow up on that line of thought, Obama gave Clinton a pasting in Wisconsin, which is the home of Miller, the birthplace of Pabst, and also birthplace of legendary brewers Schlitz and Blatz. Besides the typical swill from sud city (Colt 45), there are also a slew of respectable beers from Wisconsin including Sprechers, Berghoff, and New Glarus. So maybe Obama really is the beer candidate?

Posted by freddiemac | April 28, 2008 4:13 PM

I hope this post and the comments are parodies. Blue collar workers drink beer and don't think Obama is qualified to be President. Its not that hard to figure out.

Posted by phg | April 28, 2008 4:13 PM

phg,

You mean white blue collar workers don't think he is qualified.

Posted by micheline | April 28, 2008 4:20 PM

I hope this post and the comments are parodies. Blue collar workers drink beer and don't think Obama is qualified to be President. Its not that hard to figure out.

I just had to highlight phg's comment above. Seriously. Read it again. Snark or serious? Real or fake? Legitimate or meta? It is a sublime work of blog commentary. I salute you.

Posted by drjimcooper | April 28, 2008 4:26 PM

Natural Light and Popov Vodka. High school was great.

Posted by Todd | April 28, 2008 4:31 PM

I take double shots of Rumpleminze until I can barely drive. What kind of voter does that make me?

Posted by Stacy | April 28, 2008 4:34 PM

Although this has no political significance, I would put up PA's microbrew lineup against any other state's.

Posted by DTM | April 28, 2008 4:35 PM

freddie mac said... Obama gave Clinton a pasting in Wisconsin, which is the home of Miller, the birthplace of Pabst, and also birthplace of legendary brewers Schlitz and Blatz.

Interestingly, many of the big breweries have some of the best brewmasters and top technology. If only they'd use their power for good, rather than evil...

I would put up PA's microbrew lineup against any other state's.

I think the 3 I mentioned, particularly Victory, can easily compete at the top national level. It's just that we only get a few of them. (We lost Independence Brewing which had real promise, but just couldn't make it. I think they later created a brewpub of the same name.)

I once read about some people going to one of the big brewing festivals when it was held in Denver. They wanted to visit all the local breweries and brewpubs in the greater Denver area while there, but didn't quite make it because there were over 80 of them! Now THAT's what I call choice, and PA has nothing like that.

Posted by LFC | April 28, 2008 4:45 PM

The most interesting thing I took away from that beer vs wine map is that apparently anybody from New Hampshire can drink me under the table.

Posted by Tel | April 28, 2008 4:46 PM

Go to a retail corridor in a yuppified neighborhood in any town in America and you'll find a bar full of people drinking . . . beer.

Not only that--go to plenty of blue-collar Italian-American neighborhoods and you'll find lots of people drinking . . . vino.

Posted by Hogan | April 28, 2008 4:46 PM

The most interesting thing I took away from that beer vs wine map is that apparently anybody from New Hampshire can drink me under the table.

NH is also known for apple jack. Perhaps they drink a lot of beer to dilute that stuff and keep it from burning a hole through their stomachs.

Posted by LFC | April 28, 2008 4:51 PM

Personally when I was younger we always just got a bottle of the cheapest vodka we could get. Maybe some Minute Maid to chase it with.

Posted by mad6798j | April 28, 2008 4:52 PM

But where do the candidates stand on grain alcohol and port wine cheese? (1974 on a south central PA liberal arts campus ...)

What a lousy freaking cover of Newsweek ... The cretinization of America is complete. With apologies for using the word cretin.

Posted by charlotte | April 28, 2008 4:56 PM

In High School we drank Mad Dog. A tart wine with aromas of strawberry and banana. Accents of bile truncated with hints of aftershave.

I took care of my great-grandmother until she died and when I'd go shopping she would ask me to pick up wine. Whatever I brought back wasn't what she was looking for. She said she wanted a sweeter wine and I kept trying to get it right. Then she said "I think it's name is Mogen David" and I looked around for that for a week before I figured it out and brought home some MD 20/20 strawberry and that's what she was looking for.

Posted by Ed Marshall | April 28, 2008 5:01 PM

LFC,

Off the top of my head, there are also:

Appalachian
East End
Erie
Legacy
Lion
Pennsylvania Brewing
Sprague
Weyerbacher

And I am sure more.

Posted by DTM | April 28, 2008 5:02 PM

Go to a retail corridor in a yuppified neighborhood in any town in America and you'll find a bar full of people drinking . . . beer. Go to a Whole Foods in a town where supermarkets are allowed to sell beer and you'll find . . . beer.

Sure, but what kind of beer. When people talk about "beer track" they mean Bud drinkers, Miller Lite drinkers, etc. Not Amstel Light, Heineken, Guinness or any other import those damn dirty hippies drink.

Posted by right | April 28, 2008 5:04 PM

A question for your favorite wingnut and/or media pundit: which is more elitist, a genuine home-grown American Napa Valley pinot noir or an imported Belgian wheat beer?

Posted by Stefan | April 28, 2008 5:06 PM

Heineken?!? Fuck Heineken.

Posted by Frank Booth | April 28, 2008 5:07 PM

DTM, I've tried them all and don't put any of those in the same class as Victory or Tröegs. Many of these places put out some decent products, but just aren't national class, or at least not with more than one or two of their products.

Appalachian's probably my favorite of that list, and probably competes pretty well with Yards. Weyerbacher has improved (their first efforts had too little flavor) but they still aren't in that upper tier. You missed Stoudt's which is also quite solid, but I wouldn't call their beers national class. Erie does some decent stuff too.

The Lion, in particular, is at a seriously lower level. It does a lot of low-priced contract brews that are "eh". Yuengling, the country's oldest brewery, makes cross-over products that can help pull people away from the (Bud) light side, but not something to go out of your way for. Same for Pennsylvania Brewing and Straub's. PA also has Iron City and Rolling Rock, the former being a serious "UGH!" beer from Pittsburgh.

Again, it's a sheer number of choices thing. Imagine having 80 brewery/brewpub choices within, say, two hours of your house. Ooooooooh, baby.

BTW, I like Dogfish Head in Delaware too. They do some excellent stuff.

Posted by LFC | April 28, 2008 5:26 PM

Lol, I'm poor and I still buy Heineken. It's well worth the extra money.

Frank WTF do you have against Heineken? You hate flavor or something?

Posted by soullite | April 28, 2008 5:29 PM

soullite - that's a reference to Blue Velvet - from an obviously elitist, hipster film buff.

Posted by Tiparillo | April 28, 2008 5:41 PM

soullite,

It is a movie reference. I forget which one. The follow up line is "Pabst Blue Ribbon".

Posted by freddiemac | April 28, 2008 5:41 PM

Frank WTF do you have against Heineken? You hate flavor or something?

I'm with Frank. It tastes skunked. Must be the style because Grolsch does too.

Step into the world of U.S. craft brews. A great entry point is Sierra Nevada, available all over the place and producing consistently tasty products. Another good cross-over beer that's widely available is Anchor Steam.

Posted by LFC | April 28, 2008 5:42 PM

right,

Typical right wing propaganda. If you'd bother to read the propaganda, you'll find no love for imports here. Why do you hate American beer?

Posted by freddiemac | April 28, 2008 5:44 PM

It is a movie reference. I forget which one. The follow up line is "Pabst Blue Ribbon".

Blue Velvet.

Posted by blah | April 28, 2008 5:48 PM

I'm with Frank. It tastes skunked. Must be the style because Grolsch does too. - LFC

Style or no (Grolsch is somewhat better, as is Heineken in the brown bottle), the whole idea of placing a sulfurous substance (e.g. beer preserved/flavored with hops) in a green (i.e. not so much UV absorbing) bottle in which said sulfurous substance gets enough EM exposure to undergo reactions just ain't right.

As I say "they call it Heineken 'cause it tastes like heinie".

OTOH, Heineken is excellent for cooking. Way too expensive to actually purchase for that purpose (unless you have Cindy McCain's budget), but sometimes ya have a party at your place, somebody brings a bunch of the stuff and you end up with the leftovers ... and what leftovers they are! :)

Posted by DAS | April 28, 2008 6:14 PM

Yeah gotta agree Heineken is the worst of the step-up-from-Bud beers. Sierra Nevada is good. Where's Magic Hat from? I've recently begun to love that stuff...

Posted by Kalkin | April 28, 2008 6:31 PM

Magic Hat is from Vermont. I'm from Albany NY, which isn't far from the Vermont border. I'm a fan too, and most of the decent bars around here carry it.

Posted by Just Another Greg | April 28, 2008 6:44 PM

It tastes skunked. Must be the style because Grolsch does too.

It's the green bottle. Heineken in the Netherlands -- or even from kegs/cans in the US -- isn't skunked. I've always assumed that the skunking is there to encourage sellers to keep fresh stock, though you only know you've bought old beer after you've bought that 24-pack of Bavaria bottles.

Yuengling, the country's oldest brewery, makes cross-over products that can help pull people away from the (Bud) light side, but not something to go out of your way for.

In the classic two-fridge setup -- y'know, the one with the domestic macros and 40ozs in one fridge, and the microbrews and imports in the other -- Yuengling is usually the best beer in the cheap fridge.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | April 28, 2008 7:10 PM

How about we forget all these bizarre consumerist delineations are call the divide what it is: educated vs. non-educated?

Posted by lh | April 28, 2008 7:31 PM

Pleaaaase,

All this Beer vs Starbucks, or arugila

Wasn’t it windsurfing or brie, or quiche in the past?

This is ridiculous. I for one have a major elitist stick up my ass, and I like beer. Not any beer mind you, but quality micro brewed beers.

See, Mark Penn really was a genius by slicing the nuance.

Schlitz beer drinkers (fascist racist thugs and likely Hillary/Rove/McCain supporters)

vs.

Cisco brewery fine ale (intellectual, effete nabobs of little minds who should be running this stinking country thorough our Plutonic benevolence) likely Obama or Bloomberg supporters.

Posted by Guava necture Martinis | April 28, 2008 8:29 PM

How bout the media just quit this stupid stuff.

It was old when it was new with Clintons boxers or briefs.

That cover graphic is 1992, too.

Posted by Stiv Bator | April 28, 2008 10:24 PM

Are you being sarcastic about college students not drinking beer?

Yup.

Posted by Brent | April 28, 2008 10:37 PM

You're a downscale beer drinker if you think industrial domestic beer is beer. (A sentimental exception may be made for PBR.)

Posted by allbetsareoff | April 28, 2008 11:12 PM

Anchor Steam's owner is a wingnut who will give your beer dollars to GOP causes. Be aware.

Posted by Jim Dandy | April 28, 2008 11:18 PM

You're a downscale beer drinker if you think industrial domestic beer is beer. (A sentimental exception may be made for PBR.)

How about Old Style?

Posted by Ed Marshall | April 28, 2008 11:37 PM

(A sentimental exception may be made for PBR.)

Few, if any, PBR drinkers among my urban-hipster friends have any kind of background that would justify having a "sentimental" attachment to PBR.

Incidentally, the last time I found myself in Williamsburg, back in 2004, Rheingold beer was all the rage among the show-going hipster set, and I thought it was going to replace PBR as the hipster beer of choice. What happened?

In any case, I insist that life is too short for cheap beer.

Posted by Tyro | April 29, 2008 12:44 AM

It's just like when the National Review searched and searched for some link beteween the radical secular left and the radical fundamentalist Islamists. They finally found some people blogging in their basements or something. Now the MSM has been desperately looking for some link between the affluent white elitist snobs and the African-Americans in the Obama coalition. And they've found it: green leafy vegtables. Whether it's arugula in the vegetarian garden salad with the currant vinagrette or a side of collard greens with your macaroni and cheese, it's all completely foreign to Bubba, who survives on beer, beef jerky and tato skins. Except for breakfast, where he eats what Maureen Dowd once saw in a diner.

The intertesting thing to note whenever these dumb cultural debates pop up is how well media types understand and know the elitist lifestyle that is being maligned, and how poorly and stereotypically they depict the salt-of-the-earth white middle class that's supposed to be the heart of America. So they know very well what arugula is for, but can't find a non-insulting symbol of the working class other than beer in a mug.

Posted by Colatina | April 29, 2008 12:44 AM

If you are working outside in the hot sun, few things are better (perhaps good lemonade or
sun tea) than a Pabst/Stroh's/Genny in a can pulled from an ice chest sitting in the back of the truck

Posted by 13lb maul | April 29, 2008 3:52 AM

I hope this post and the comments are parodies. Blue collar workers drink beer and don't think Obama is qualified to be President. Its not that hard to figure out.
Posted by phg

Precisely.

Add in many well-educated whites, latins, and Asians that were initially swept up in all the "nothing but positive news!!" narrative on the Great Obama. But now that he is finally being vetted - have begun to accumulate significant doubts on Obama's judgment, elitism, extreme liberal politics with no past evidence of bipartisanship, and his associates.

phg,
You mean (white) blue collar workers don't think he is qualified.
Posted by micheline

And Latin, Asian ones.
The socioeconomic strata of blacks doesn't matter as much, because they vote 95% Democratic anyways, especially if they can vote tribally by skin color.

The other thing missed in the "narrative" of Obama not connecting with "lower class whites", besides omitting a larger ethnic group than blacks and an influential growing group -Asians - is that there are a substantial number of well-educated people, plus high skilled trades that are completely outside the Left's concept of "intelligent, educated voters". That would be folks like engineers, accountants, nuclear power plant workers, Latins now the foremen of a construction crew doing millions in business, SGTs with Masters Degrees, the folks who missed all the liberal history stuff & Frantz Fanon shit because they were in business school, or setting up their family's 3rd Chinese restaurant. People that are fairly well paid, with excellent skills, who share the same general cultural values as the "white garage mechanic, white waitress, white factory worker."
Folks that are in the moderate middle like white ethnics, who have a mix of liberal and conservative views and vote either way. But who do not think of themselves as intellectuals or elitists and who generally carry not a shred of pressing guilt about their actions, their ancestors, their religion, their country's present or past.

Posted by chris ford | April 29, 2008 4:45 AM

What happens if you have a set of 10 morally approvable, non-elite blue collar individuals (with whatever proper lineage you prefer) discussing political views and 1 of them dissents from the others?

How can we possibly know who is correct, given that rational arguments fail in the face of biographical absolutism?

Posted by El Cid | April 29, 2008 5:34 AM

Chris Ford --
"Tribally"? Really? You want to go there? Yikes.

Posted by Rock On | April 29, 2008 10:46 AM

This has probably been said somewhere in the comments (I didn't take the time to read them all), but no one in America drinks more than the people of Wisconsin (this is actually a fact). Is Wisconsin known for making tons of beer or tons of wine? Wisconsin was an easy win for Obama.

The actual divides are more geographical / ethnic. Hillary does better in the "whiter" areas of the south, the heavily Hispanic Southwest, the Scotch-Irish Appelachains and WASPy / Irish Catholic New England. Obama does better in "blacker" areas of the south, the Germanic Upper Midwest and areas west of the Mississippi with relatively small Hispanic populations.

Just because blue collar whites in Ohio and Pennsylvania broke so heavily for Hillary over Obama doesn't mean they do so everywhere (Wisconsin, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, and Iowa are all heavily white blue collar states that Obama took sometimes in a walk).

Posted by TomB | April 29, 2008 11:47 AM

So here's the situation. In 2000 the American people finally got what they wanted, a President that they could have a beer with. (Ignore for the moment that said Prez is a dry-drunk.)

And it turns out that the President who the American people would like to have a beer with is now THE MOST UNPOPULAR PRESIDENT THIS NATION HAS EVER HAD SINCE POLLING WAS INVENTED.

Now, what do you think the lesson should be, when it comes to using 'desire to have a beer with' as a criterion for electing a president? And, given that, what do you think that says about Newsweek?

Posted by Bob Loblaw | April 29, 2008 12:03 PM

You couldn't find arugula in your salad with both hands and that Newsweek cover as a map?

Posted by phil | April 29, 2008 1:56 PM

Why no love on this thread for Dogfish Head?

Posted by Reality Man | April 29, 2008 2:33 PM

LFC,

First, to agree about a couple things: Victory is my favorite American brewery, so I won't argue there. Also, I agree most of the breweries I listed have some smaller subset of really good beers within their larger total lineup.

But now to disagree about a few matters: first, I think that last point is true of most breweries (not all of their beers will be equally good). Second, I don't think the sheer quantity of breweries in some states matters that much. I, for example, have tried lots of beers brewed in California, Oregon, and Colorado, thanks to having immediate family in all three of those states. In my experience, most of the breweries in those states are turning out a decent but fairly generic lineup. In particular, I think there is a tendency among brewers in those states to overrely on aroma-type hops like Cascade and Williamette, which is fine for a few beers, but tends to homogenize the overall beer scene.

Posted by DTM | April 29, 2008 4:16 PM

Beer used to be the lunchpail drink, but craft beers are taking such a big bite out of the macrobreweries markets they're trying (pathetically) to come up with their own. Michelob Amber Bock is wretched stuff. I'm not curious enough to try the new Miller Lite wheat beer. I suspect that they will try snapping up craft breweries. I also figure that the exploding costs of hops and malt will thin out the ranks of craft brewers, which is sad. There are so many really good brews to try. The Twin Cities has three top notch brewers, not even counting brewpubs.

Posted by Gus | April 29, 2008 4:24 PM

Um, back to your original question: Arugula (whatever that is) became synonymous with "elitist" following Maureen Dowd's column about a month ago when she made some fatuous comment about Obama, arugula, and elitism.

Posted by Paul in NC | April 29, 2008 7:13 PM