An Open Letter To Leinenkugel's Brewery

Dear Leinenkugel's Beer,
My name is Greg Gilbertson and I've been a loyal Leinie's drinker since before I was supposed to be. Growing up in Chippewa Falls, I've enjoyed nearly every beer you've brewed (with exception to your Original. Don't know why, but I still have trouble with that one. Sometimes if it's ice cold and I drink it fast...). You've been there for me time after time - relaxing me after a hard day of work, cooling me off during hot Wisconsin summer days, making me irresistible to our lady-folk - and for that I've spent my adult life in grateful and delicious appreciation.

I've rushed out to buy every new seasonal beer, tolerating the more experimental flavors. I understand Berry Weiss. I don't hold Apple Spice against you - it seemed like a good idea. Your Big Butt was hands-down the best beer I had ever tasted until you rereleased the 1888 Bock last year. That stuff blew my mind!

But here's the deal: I've been drinking a lot of New Glarus beers lately. It started with a Spotted Cow here and there at places that didn't have Honey Weiss on tap. Then it was on to Fat Squirrel. I really enjoyed these beers. I figured it might actually be a good thing. After all, they're a small Wisconsin micro-brewery too. And it's not like I stopped drinking Leinie's all together.

But then I bought a six-pack of New Glarus Black Wheat. It's at least as good as your 1888. I'll have to wait for you to come out with it again before I can say conclusively that it's a better tasting beer....and therein lies the problem. Black Wheat is brewed YEAR ROUND! Now, I'll buy up piles of 1888 when it comes back around, but - and I'm sorry about this - I just won't be drinking much Honey Weiss and Creamy Dark during the off-season (although I'm downing a Honey as I write this - and I'm enjoying it - but it's just because the wife brought home a sixer. Again, I would have gone with the Black Wheat).

What I'm trying to say is that I've become a New Glarus guy. It's now my primary blend. Don't get me wrong, they have some problem beers too. Their Organic Revolution, beyond having the worst name of any beer in the world, is just awful. Tastes like Schlitz. And to be honest, they have lots of brews I've yet to try. But in just three beers - THREE BEERS - evenly dividing the taste-color continuum (those being the lighter Spotted Cow, the mid range Fat Squirrel, and the used tractor oil-esque Black Wheat), I've been turned.

Now, understand that I don't think less of you than I ever have. I just think more highly of New Glarus these days. You're still the reason I'm proud to be from Chippewa. I still brag about you because YOU STILL BREW FANTASTIC BEER (!) - and I'll still throw down with anyone who says otherwise. But they're my go to beer now. You've become my supplementary beer. In other words, "I still want to be friends". Things are just a little different now, that's all.

Your friend,
Greg Gilbertson

Update:
Since writing this I had a bottle of New Glarus Crack'd Wheat. Holy Crap! Fantastic. I also learned that Black Wheat is in fact a seasonal beer. Sigh...

I want to pass along some words from ESPN's Bill Simmons regarding our good friend Mr. Favre in response to an email he received. It goes as follows:

Q: I am 19 years old. I have been a fan of Favre and the Packers since the third grade. I grew up thinking Favre could do no wrong. As a mature 17-year-old, I cried the day he retired from the Packers. I was tolerant of the Jets experiment -- even have the jersey to prove it. But what am I supposed to do now? Tonight I watched my childhood hero stomp all over the team and the fans he represented for 16 years. I found myself cursing him for the very same reasons I used to love him. The phony TD celebrations, the smug smiles, the way he hams it up with his new teammates and his new fans. I don't know how to handle it. I started this e-mail thinking I had something to say about all of this, but I just feel lost. I don't know what to think anymore ... I'm just lost.
--Drew, Bloomington, Ind.

BS: And that's the part of Monday's game that got lost. Every Packers fan felt like how a dutiful wife would feel if she stuck with her husband through thick and thin, watched him become a success, then got dumped for a younger trophy wife who also happened to be her archnemesis. Favre failed in the same way Roger Clemens failed when he signed with the Blue Jays in 1997 -- his problems with management affected his feelings toward his old franchise, and he did a piss-poor job of letting his old fan base know that he still cared about it. I have written about this before, but I turned on Clemens during his Toronto news conference when he simply refused to acknowledge Boston fans beyond a few generic words. It hurt. I took it personally and decided he was an opportunistic, disloyal, dishonest scumbag from that moment on. And as it turned out, he was.

In Favre's case, his lack of empathy for Packers fans has been really alarming. I know he plays with his heart on his sleeve. I know he's a "kid out there" and "having a ball out there" and all the crap. And maybe he's not a brain surgeon, but he's smart enough to understand what he meant to Packers fans and the state of Wisconsin, which means he had to understand how it went over after he (A) signed with an NFC North team two months ago; (B) dialed up the finger-pointing and fist-pumping during Monday's Pack-Vikes game so egregiously that even his biggest fan from Green Bay couldn't defend him; and (C) gave that self-satisfied postgame interview in which he never said anything like, "I just wanted to say hi to everyone back in Wisconsin and tell them that this was as strange for me as it probably was for you, but I want you to know that it was just one game -- a game that I wanted to win because I'm a competitor and I love my teammates, but still, none of this changes the fact that I love you guys and I always will." That's it. That's all he had to say to Michele Tafoya after the game.

He didn't say it.

And believe me, I've been there as a fan. It's unforgivable. Especially when you're under 30 and don't realize that many of your "heroes" are people who don't deserve that level of worship, or any worship, for that matter. They just play sports well. They don't care about you. They care about themselves and that's it. If this realization hits you at the wrong time in your life, it can be hard. (I know it was hard for me. I took the Clemens thing personally, as witnessed by the fact that I once wrote a column wondering if he was the Antichrist.) So if the Packers fans want to play along, so to speak, then they can't cheer Favre on Nov. 1. He set the stakes. He made it clear that he's moved on with his new team and cut all ties to the old one. That means you need to go to Lambeau and boo the living hell out of him. Make him miserable. Rattle him. Flummox him. Do everything you can to get the better of him for three hours. This man does not belong to you anymore, and maybe, he never did.

That sums up my feelings almost exactly. And what it lacks is made up by this emailer:

Q: I figured that after Favre was finally retired, I would be able to forgive him and just put the "Viking Episode" aside. But, after Monday night, I can speak for probably about 80 percent of Packers fans when I say: "(Expletive), I hope it was worth it, because you're dead to me now. You broke my (bleeping) heart."
-- Tim S., Milwaukee

I'm a 32 year old guy who like most 32 year old guys want you to think he's a tough guy. That said, this Favre crap hurts. It doesn't hurt in the cry myself to sleep while clutching and smelling an old #4 jersey way. It hurts in the "I've supported you for over half of my life. I've paid a lot of hard-to-come-by money just to watch you play. I've forgiven you for more interceptions than any other football fan has ever had to. I wanted you to win another Super Bowl to see YOU go out on top. There's a real sense in which I cared about you, as much as a guy can care about someone he's never met. You were my childhood hero. I prayed for you when your dad died, when Deanna got cancer, when you were addicted to pain killers, and I cried when you retired. AND NOW YOU'RE PISSING ON ME" way.

If there's one good thing about all this, it's that it dispels the myth that sports is a business. It's not a business for the millions of fans who pay the bills and salaries, and it's never been a business for Favre. That's why we loved him for so long. This is personal for him, and it is for me too.

I love the Packers. The reason I loved Favre for so long it because he was the quarterback for the Packers. As a Packers fan I hate the Vikings. Brett is now the quarterback for the Vikings. The End.

I was at Lambeau when he broke the interception record...and I forgave him. I was there when he threw the game ending pic against the Giants and kept us out of the Super Bowl...and I forgave him. I'll be there when he shows up in purple next week...and...this time things will be different.

...Where Credit is Due.

On the inside of Limited Vocab is written this:

'There are places where words go to die. Where our rhetoric stares shamefully into the face of suffering. In a world of promises and propositions, words alone do little to relieve suffering or bring peace. Yet there is hope, and hope is good.

These songs come from a vision of hope, sometimes dressed up as a frozen lake in the Northwoods, or as a bride on her wedding day. It's what speaks to the world at our funeral, and keeps us awake as we drive home. This unspoken language, this limited vocabulary, this voice of Revelation, speaks of another world, another kingdom. It is the language of redemption, born of hope. And hope lives where words die.'

Perhaps my closest friend in the world, Greg Richards, helped me wright that and he never got credit for it. I forgot to thank him on the CD. Greg and I have had an ongoing conversation since 2003 that has shaped me as much as anything else in my life and for that I'm grateful.

Greg is also the least musical person I've ever met (though certainly not the least artistic). That said, there is absolutely no way that record could have happened without him.

Thanks, bro.

Peace.