In this episode, we break the story about a local bartender becoming a finalist in a national competition, the problem with poetry (again) and whether spies are listening to our show.

Todd and I tried out a couple of different places in Berlin to record the show. This was a million years ago and nobody knew what podcasts were. As a result, people were just confused by the fact that we were sitting there with microphones.

We told them it was an internet radio show, and that seemed to slake their eminently quenchable curiosity. Sometimes it would have been more satisfying if people just walked up to us and said, “I just want to let you know I see that you have microphones there.”

Anyway, during those halcyon days I started distinguishing between craft beers with non-traditional taste words. These included “pointy,” “green,” and “beer-flavored.” It was 60 percent me trying to de-mystify beer tasting words and 40 percent me being a jerk.

“Beer flavored beer” kind of stuck, though, because it is obvious and pretty dumb. It’s the kind of easy turn of phrase that thousands of people make all the time, but I had never had heard it anyplace else until Tito’s started its “Vodka Flavored Vodka” promotion.

Their motivations were similar to mine. At some point, you want to be able to just drink your damn drink without trying to remember whether you’re allergic to hyacinths or whatever adulterations brewers add to make their beer or spirits (all distillers are brewers).

It stung a little bit to hear it as a national ad, even though I knew the amount of creativity to make that connection was practically zero. I’m not a professional wit, and if I were I wouldn’t think beer flavored beer was any cleverer than vodka flavored vodka.

It’s a stupid, easy joke that anyone could come up with.

Then Woodbridge wines stole another part of our show for an ad campaign and I started getting suspicious.

Our tagline has been (for a couple of years) “At the beach, Happy Hour’s whenever you say it is.”

Woodbridge Wines debuted its new tagline:

The weekend starts whenever you say it does.

So while it is possible that they pay ad companies thousands of dollars to come up with the same kind of blather Todd and I say because we think it’s goofy, it’s time to start wondering whether the top ad companies monitor our show for brilliance.

So if you’re out there evil ad people, Drink What You Like and Be Happy!

In this week’s episode, Todd DeHart t

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