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This Just In...
Kevin Fischer is an award-winning veteran broadcaster who has been seen and heard on Milwaukee TV and radio stations for nearly three decades.
Kevin, who is a legislative aide to state Sen. Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin), can be seen offering his views on the news on the public affairs program, “InterCHANGE,” on Milwaukee Public Television Channel 10, and heard filling in on Newstalk 1130 WISN. He lives with his wife, Jennifer, and their baby daughter, Kyla Audrey, in Franklin.
Culinary no-no # 40
By Kevin Fischer
Saturday, Feb 2 2008, 10:15 PM
There's only one guarantee about Sunday's Super Bowl:
You're going to see some Budweiser ads.
The odds are, you're going to like them.
Let's be honest.
You don’t even remember who played in last year’s big game.
So you probably don't recall those cool ads you thought were so great.
About the ads in the 2007 Super Bowl, USA TODAY reported:
Anheuser-Busch continued its Super Bowl ad supremacy with a commercial that pure and simple made folks smile.
For a record ninth-consecutive year, the beer giant won USA TODAY'S exclusive Ad Meter real-time consumer focus group ranking of Super Bowl commercials.
The winning ad featured a group of computer-generated crabs on the beach bowing down at the altar of an ice chest filled with Budweiser. The red chest with two Buds for antennae looks like a giant crab — which a crab army worships as the sun sets behind it. That's the kind of gentle, visual humor folks apparently wanted most this year.
Last year, beer drinkers recall Miller Brewing introduced Miller Chill, at the time the only light beer brewed with a hint of lime and a pinch of salt. Miller says, “Through all of our marketing efforts, beer drinkers will see that Miller Chill is a celebration and fusion of the best of two cultures, great light beer from America and the chelada style from Mexico.”
To be honest, sounds like something that you’d:
1) Drink thankfully immediately after cutting the lawn on a hot, humid day.
2) Soak your brats in before you toss them on the grill.
In the world of beer wars, the suits at Budweiser couldn’t sit back and watch Miller get away with an unchallenged citrus lime concoction.
Bud’s answer in the last few months of 2007 to the Miller Chill:
 The Budweiser Chelada.
Beer, tomato juice, salt, and don't forget the clam juice.
Apparently this is nothing new in the Latin culture where this combination is well-received.
But now you have the world's # 1 brewer trying to market this slop to the masses.
If you haven't heard of Chelada, that's because Bud has been selectively marketing the new brew down south, especially in border states.
Here are some of the comments made about Bud's Chelada on beeradvocate.com:
Pours out a pinkish tomato with a fizzy head like soda.
Smell. Tomato- salty, some spices, a little seafood.
Taste. tastes like very light tomato juice that is carbonated. Not as strong as the smell, but spices are still present.
Mouth feel. Body is light and has a crispness.
Overall, i wouldnt knock anyone for liking this, but i sure as hell don't. Seems like a more cultural drink. I'd rather just a bud, or better yet, a bloody mary.
I obtained this unholy concoction after seeing it sitting rather innocuously in fridge at my local Beerporium. I know now that I had fallen into an elaborate trap to rape my tastebuds and possibly get rid of some ancient Campbell's tomato soup that was taking up space somewhere around the Budweiser factory. If you are thinking of picking up this beer, there is an important question to ask yourself. Say, "Self, have I ever had the craving to put some pretty mediocre beer into old tomato soup and then add clam byproducts and a half a pound of salt?". If you answered yes to that, seek help. If you answered no but are still curious, I have braved this demon solution and possibly lived to tell the tale. The beer poured a pinkish red with a large pink head. It visually reminds me of a cranberry ginger ale I had once. Any similarities between this brew and a beverage end there. The smell is of tomatoes and clams, with a hint of what may be beer in the background. Since I don't normally mix seafood and fruits with my beer, this smell was not entirely appealing. The taste is tomato and humdrum beer followed by a clammy taste that is mercifully killed fairly quickly by the judicious amount of salt that was likely included in the beer to kill off any potentially lethal pathogens. The mouth feel is like watered down carbonated tomato soup. and it's about as drinkable as you would expect watered down carbonated tomato soup to be. Since there are sober kids in Africa, I will down the rest of this beer. Let this review be my last will and testament if I don't survive the ordeal.
Looks almost exactly like a glass of cranberry ginger ale. In retrospect, I much rather would have had a glass of that. Smells strongly of tomato juice, and slightly of clams, which is what I remember Clamato smelling like. Has a strange soda-like fizz to it as well.
Tastes a lot like someone was going to make a Bloody Mary, but couldn't find any vodka, so they used Budweiser instead. Then used way too much salt. Then decided to juice assorted sea creatures into the mix. The lime the can claims is in there seems strangely nonexistent. If it did exist, I'm not sure it would help.
I've never had the misfortune of drinking a glass of fish blood, but I expect this is what it tastes like.
This is not a beer. This is the worst Bloody Mary ever created. Avoid it like the plague.
One blogger called it, sorry Mom, "puke in a can."
Here's what the gunk looks like:
A picture says a thousand words, right? Beer, Bud at that (C'mon Wisconsin....buy Miller for cryin' out loud) with tomato juice and clams? NO! NO! PREVIOUS CULINARY NO-NO’S
1) Ketchup on a brat
2) Green peppers on pizza
3) The dirty martini
4) Fruity brats
5) A Bloody Mary after dinner
6) Women “manning” the grill
7) Eating pizza at Festa Italiana, brats at German Fest, or tacos at Fiesta Mexicana. (Be adventurous. You can have those items anytime).
8) Eating a cream puff as though it was a hamburger.
9) Taking your own bottle of sauce when invited to a barbecue.
10) Touching the grill if you’re a guest at an outdoor barbecue.
11) Coaching the host on how to grill.
12) Some regional flavored ice cream…..like black licorice.
13) Taking the husks off before you grill corn on the cob
14) Being afraid to chill red wine
15) Pizza on the grill
16) When serving exotic or strange dishes to guests, do not tell them exactly what it is. Instead, use a more inviting term (caviar) rather than being blunt (fish eggs).
17) In late summer and early fall, this time of year, don’t buy zucchini. Somehow, someway, you will find zucchini or zucchini will find you.
18) Showing disrespect to your restaurant server.
19) Eating out on a Monday night.
20) Pumpkin beer.
21) Mail-order turkey.
22) Grilled cheese is just for kids.
23) Dining in the dark.
24) Ketchup on spaghetti
25) Sneaking healthy foods into treats to get your kids to eat it.
26) Do not throw away culinary gifts received in the mail because you don’t like them.
27) Do not feel guilty about eating Oreos. (Oreos are not to blame for out of control obesity).
28) Doing something so totally ridiculous that you are desperately forced to call the Butterball Turkey Hot-Line for assistance.
29) Don’t forget the sweet potato January-October.
30) Using resource guides from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s on gracious living to plan holiday parties
31) Eating cranberries, the best of the super-foods, only during the holidays.
32) Egg nog that isn’t spiked.
33) Putting hot spices and other weird stuff in chocolate bars and hot cocoa.
34) Don’t disregard fruitcake.
35) Sparkling wine on New Year’s Eve ain’t champagne.
36) Ordering a Coors Light or any facsimile when at an outdoor open-air bar on a tropical beach.
37) Smoking bans in restaurants and bars in Wisconsin.
38) Goat burgers and healthy items at tailgate parties. 39) The restaurant of the future, with all kinds of cameras trained on you for....research.
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