Greetings, beer lovers! Happy Friday, and yes, ‘tis chingchongchinaman back (not that anyone missed him) as guest FNBB host for the evening, with esquimaux getting a well-earned evening off from blogging duties. Tonight’s edition takes this NPR feature from Bill Chappell last Friday as its starting point, about the Commerce Street Hotel Brewery in Mineral Point, WI. One of Commerce Street Brewery’s past brews was Blonde Betty, brewed in 2019 in honor of Betty White. As everyone here knows, BW departed the scene on New Year’s Eve 2021. What not everyone knows is that Betty White had quite a presence on the “Buy A Friend A Beer” chalkboard at the Commerce Street Hotel Brewery, where people could, as the phrase obviously implies, pay it forward, as it were, in terms of a beer for someone to enjoy later. Betty White tallied up 40 beers, at the time of the Instagram picture, dated September 8, 2019, shown in the NPR story.
The connection between Betty White and Mineral Point, WI was through her third husband, Allen Ludden, a native of the town. After his death in 1981, Ludden was buried in his hometown, with his widow at the service. The obvious pipe dream hope in recent years was that Betty White would one day return and cash in, so to speak, on all the beers purchased for her. The Commerce Street Brewery Tap Room website states it more clearly:
“You may have heard about our beers brewed in Betty White's Honor. Several of our guests enjoyed the beers so much, they decided to buy beers for Betty, so she'd never have to pay for a drink if she visited our brewpub.”
Commerce Street Brewery has decided to do good with all the funds from those beers, by donating the collection to charity, per this link, as follows:
“After years of guests buying beers for Betty White, we've decided to honor her by donating the beers purchased for her to a local animal charity. We are accepting donations until the end of January, at which time we'll make the donation.”
Since 3CM the loser is a bit of a data nerd, among his multifarious loser qualities, here’s the numbers trend (OK, fine, an “n” of only 3 data points) on “Buy Betty White a Beer” / “Betty White’s Beers”, with each beer costing $5:
September 8, 2019: 40 (the Instagram post) = $200
January 7, 2022: 113 (the NPR story) = $565
January 8, 2022: 336 (Commerce Street Hotel’s FB feed) = $1680
January 14, 2022: 524 (as above) = $2620
There are 17 days to go, so it’ll be interesting to see what the final total is.
Perhaps semi-fitting at least one aspect of the theme, the choice of brew chez 3CM this evening is a Sunny Cat from 2nd Shift Brewery, a hazy IPA, the tangerine flavored version. I’ve actually had all the flavors of Sunny Cat, and this well fits the ‘tradition’ of these, although it has been sitting unopened in the fridge for quite a while prior to tonight.
With that, time to turn it over to you folks. What are you sipping tonight? Anyone brewing their own?