Monday, January 31, 2005

No More Passing Out?

"Have some beer. It'll wake you up." Now I am certain no one has ever said this to you. But that may change in the near future. According to Peter Carlson in today's Washington Post, Anheuser-Busch is rolling out its latest beer, one that contains 54 milligrams of caffeine. So is this a good thing or a bad thing? (It technically isn't a new thing since people have imbibed in Red Bull/vodkas for years and smaller brands of caffeinated beer have appeared in a few local markets.) But as Carlson sums up, "Until now, beer guzzling was a self-regulating activity. Sure, drinking too much made you do stupid things. But drinking too much also tended to make you fall asleep before you got into trouble. Passing out is nature's way of saying you drank too much, and it has saved many a beer drinker from acute embarrassment. But with caffeine keeping beer drinkers cranked up, there's no end to the fun. Which could get ugly."

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think Drew Carey should have royalty rights on the caffeinated beer. He and his idiot cohorts created and marketed a brand of just such a concoction as "Buzz Beer" on his show. Surely you pop culture mavens should know that!

jjv

Anonymous said...

>(It technically isn't a new thing since people have imbibed in Red Bull/vodkas for years


Though I cannot imagine drinking such a vile cocktail, as you say above people have for years.

I have a friend who moonlighted as a waitress. She has said she hated serving Red Bull cocktails (especially to groups of young women).

The patrons would get exceedingly drunk, well past the point at which they would have passed out- yet they keep going and going and going- louder and more obnoxious each round.