I'd rather have Bud Light than what the other two guys are having (Red Stripe, Blue Moon).

Well, at least he's not a PBR-drinking hipster :P

Is this one of those threads where we start comparing our metaphorical dicks? Which is a euphemism for our knowledge and ranking of different beers?

Was it Amanda Marcotte of pandagon.com who noted that "hashing it out over a few beers" is a uniquely masculine enterprise, and that if one of the 3 players had been a woman, this probably wouldn't happen? It ties in to the idea that men have this universal social club that women have been historically excluded from.

...since this is a teaching moment and all :)

Hey muddgirl, I'll have a beer with you anytime.

I can't say whether it would be different if one of the participants were female. I had not thought of it, but if anyone else wants to think about it, go ahead. It feels like some unnecessary umbrage, to me.

Music was provided by George Lynch and the Lynch Mob.

Is this one of those threads where we start comparing our metaphorical dicks? Which is a euphemism for our knowledge and ranking of different beers?

I'm not really sure if I think sexism against men is all the prevalent, or that insidious. But this is the one example that drives me crazy. Why does penis size have to be thrown in our face as a symbol of our competitive urges or inferiority complexes? Why do people insist that there's an inverse relationship between penis size and confidence? Any well meaning person realizes that "pussy" used to indicate weakness is sexist, so why not apply the same thing to penis size references?

Bud Light rules!

Hey I thought Gates had a Sam Light. That's better than Bud light.

I have to say I thought the same thing, qvantamon. The Bud Lite moment may well become Obama's cashmere sweater, or Bush's flight suit. It's such a dull, inoffensive choice, it seems to typify much of the presidential approach. Tepid by comparison with the campaign -- or any other beer.

Bud Light is bland and wishy-washy, and supported to some degree by economies of scale, monopolistic distribution agreements and a multi-million-dollar advertising budget. Also it's owned by Belgians, which means that Bud Light is one of the very few Belgian beers that I don't like.

Blue Moon is made by Coors (which has supported far-right causes for years), though it doesn't say so on the label. They've done a lot of promotion in bars and restaurants and whatnot lately. People drink it with an orange slice. I've had a couple. I think that, for most people in the US at least, there's a better, more local wheat beer. Lambics are my favorite fruit beers.

Red Stripe isn't my favorite (I'm no lager-lover), but it's okay, especially ice-cold on a hot day. It's made in Jamaica.

I don't necessarily want to renew any old arguments about whether these things are good or bad. Aside from the part where I talk about how I think they taste, I tried to stick to facts. But, yeah, Red Stripe, Bud Light and Blue Moon? That's America, right there.

Can you get Diamond Bear beer in TX, muddgirl? It's made in a little brewery in a converted garage in Little Rock. Sometimes they post on Facebook asking for volunteers to help with a morning of bottling. I'm drinking their Presidential IPA. Something about summer just makes me want that hoppiness.

I think that if either Gates or Crowley had been a woman, this thing probably wouldn't've happened. Do you think that beer-drinking or beer-fandom are generally masculine enterprises? I'd say it's an area where men are wildly overrepresented, but not one that's particularly exclusionary.

I hate the way Obama sits. As a genuinely loungey sitter, I find his loungey sitting style affected and patronizing. I've never read How to Make Friends... but it looks like something one would learn from reading it. Look at my open and relaxed body language! I'm showing you that I am receptive to what you are saying! And simultaneously very calm and relaxed! Don't you feel so comfortable around me!

I know, I'm a nitpicker.

I love beer and am confident that the size of my pussy is appropriate.

If I ever get invited to the White House (fat chance) I want either a glass of Duplin Scuppernong white wine or a diet Coke.

My opinion of beer? Well, there's a punch line to an old joke that goes "Sir, your horse has diabetes." We'll leave it at that.

(But if I couldn't leave it at that, it'd be a Miller.)

May go for a bottle of Chimay tonight. It's made by monks!

Mike's Hard Lemonade for me.

I've never learned to tolerate the taste of beer.

Didn't mean to derail so much! I love beer-drinking and beer fandom and I despise the concept of rigid masculinity or femininity.

My favorite beer recently has been German, since I just got back from there. I had a great Hefeweisen at the Flying Saucer last weekend that was very refreshing considering it was 98F outside.

Also, I apologize to mullacc for my sexist comment. I was trying to make a joke and it went poorly.

Mike's Hard Lemonade for me. I've never learned to tolerate the taste of beer.

Ditto! Mmmmm, Mike's.

Aww, you guys have a Saucer there? When I worked downtown, I'd regularly pop in for Wednesday glass nights--I probably have twenty logoed pint glasses.

Ooh, Chimay--lucky you, mct. Try the combo pack with the free Belgian beer glass--it's three Chimays in one. Ooh, and the Chimay cheese. Those monks know how to brew.

I make my own beer.

Then buy lots of German and Belgian beer because my homebrew tastes horrible and I can't bring myself to drink it.

I did a blind test between Beck's and St. Pauli Girl and the latter won, by a lot.

Just sayin'.

I like Schlitz or Tecate in a can -- tastes like you're really out there doing some good in the world.

I recall an Anchor Christmas Ale, was it '91? Finest thing I ever tasted. Oh and the old Oxford Class Ale from Linthicum was great; I don't know if the Oxford Class Organic Ale they brew at Clipper City is as good.

I hope one day to toast Victory, Glory, and Plunder with President Obama, we'll be on horseback and our horns will be filled with mead, we'll throw back our visors and sweet honey will splash down onto our saddles; we will grow sticky and smell of honey, leather, wet horse, and president as we toast again and again into the night.

Another non-beer drinker here, but I do like Mike's. Get me to drink enough and I'll be willing to compare my dick with anyone!

There is lots and lots of tasty local beer here in Poland - minibrowar (microbreweries) are popping up all over the place and lots of local brewing traditions are coming back after decades of neglect.

No idea if it's out there in the wider world, but Kożlak is a lovely amber ale.

Amanda Marcotte is really amazing, or at least her blog is. It's such a mess of half-baked potshots.

To wit, he someone did invite a woman professor to hash something out over beers, it'd be like "what a knucklehead". We get so much negative feedback about "this place needs a woman's touch" or "this party needs different sorts of food so even women can have fun" and then you're like "look at that! a uniquely masculine social event with stereotypically masculine amenities!"

Also, it rather overstates the ability of talking over beer to hash things out.

By no means is my experience everyone's, but I first started drinking beer because many of my friends were guys and... they were judgmental. I didn't start out with any taste for it. But I learned to appreciate it. So my current knowledge of beers and interest in them was definitely a reaction against gender roles. And it still causes confusion for whatever reason... people raise their eyebrows when I order beers that are obscure or high in alcohol.

On the plus side, interest in beer is now something that I have in common with a lot of people in my life. It gives us something to do and talk about, like sports and news might. Although the initial situation wasn't that great, there is now an upside.

P.S. my wang is made of IPA!!!1!

I was "taught" to enjoy beers by guys and as such am pretty much a beer snob to the point of where I'll only drink Bud or PBR if I'm broke and/or it's the only thing left. I will proudly wave my (limp) beer dick proudly and do battle with any of youse!

This kinda reminds me of the episode of "The West Wing" where President Bartlet said he didn't like green beans and then the whole green bean growers' association got on his ass.

But Firas... I guess I'm still confused...

I mean, President Obama is reportedly not a big drinker of anything, beer or otherwise. Vice President Biden drank a non-alcoholic beer at the meeting. Afterwards, the officer in question made the point that further meetings would be held in private and, "maybe Kool-aid would be served".

So I guess I'm still confused as to why this had to be "a meeting over a couple beers" and not, you know, a plain old social gathering at the White House (ie, awkwardly formal or awkwardly casual). So if someone can explain that part to me that would be nice.

To wit, he someone did invite a woman professor to hash something out over beers, it'd be like "what a knucklehead". We get so much negative feedback about "this place needs a woman's touch" or "this party needs different sorts of food so even women can have fun"

I don't really know what you're talking about. It seems to me like you're feminizing the idea that not everyone drinks or not everyone likes "guy food", when I'm saying the exact opposite - we've framed this idea that Beer is a Guy's Drink and Fatty Food is Guy's Food, and that's detrimental both to women who like beer and fatty food and men who don't like beer or fatty food.

I have a small dick, and I agree with mullacc, the "comparing dick sizes" meme is sexist, offensive and oppressive and, worst of all, makes hypocrisy of a commenter's otherwise reasonable claims.

muddgirl, he's big on alcohol as a social lubricant--during the stimulus tangles he invited major portions of the leadership to come have food and drinks at the white house. (And guess what some of the men complained about? small portions.. which I heard some lady on "wait wait don't tell me" blame on michelle obama.)

I'm just floored in a way that having a beer with someone is suddenly a way to cut women out of conversation.. what?! You've extended "women drink beer to" to "how dare men drink beer".

Again, there may be stereotypical ways for "men to bond, mixed couples to bond, women to bond", etc. There may be individuals who're outliers in those stereotypes (this mixed couple wants to get smashed at a bar 11.30pm instead of eating cheese at 8pm.) I'm not sure why this means we need to be completely insensitive to trying to guess what people are comfortable with. What you're suggesting is such a clinical approach to social mixing I don't think it's a fruitful approach.

And I really don't have any respect for Ms. Marcotte as a thinker, again and again she comes up with the most uncharitable and illiterate take on everything. Check out this thread where she thinks Megan Fox as a character who traps and kills men by her sexuality is a "feminist approach" which is why there's some media conspiracy to stop promoting Megan Fox. She didn't even recall that "women killing via sexuality" is actually an old anti-feminist trope (Cleopatra destroying Marc Antony, La Belle Dame Sans Merci, Jezebel, etc.)

I'd say it's more a class thing than a gender thing: two high-status, white collar eggheads sitting down to "shoot the shit" with Joe Six-pack. Like Bush clearing brush, or John Kerry munching a cheesesteak made with Roquefort, or whatever.

As for me, a cold pitcher of Lone Star at Deep Eddy Cabaret, and I'm good.

I'm not saying your point is relevant to the pandagon issue, so that's a bit of a tangent. I just have such a hard time normalizing these arguments between social spheres, like yours here where we all live in a gender-normalized-by-the-numbers world and the real world where people are more accepting of women freaking out at things or fainting than men doing so, where *you* look at men having an argument and call it dick-waving, where 25% of all snark is gender-based, where people actually expect to be treated differently if they're your date than if they're your bowling buddy.

I already apologized, Hugh. Just a heads up that I'm dropping out of this conversation due to a complete inability to get my point across in this venue. If anyone wants to take it "off line", as they say, my email is in my profile.

sorry, muddgirl.. I didn't mean to bring out the cannons like it's metafilter or whatever. I just get frustrated sometimes at the complete dichotomy between these online discussions and how people actually behave and react. For what it's worth, I completely agree with "we've framed this idea that Beer is a Guy's Drink and Fatty Food is Guy's Food, and that's detrimental both to women who like beer and fatty food and men who don't like beer or fatty food."

I would assume bud is a calculating political selection. it is purely american, unquestionably known by even the most media-unsavvy backwoods folks as a beer from the USA. When many think of americans they think of our watery budwiser beers.

I would imagine it is a small part of his larger efforts to paint himself as an everyday joe. A microbrew would only add to that "upper class harvard grad" image he downplays, and regional brews are usually not known outside their region.

(and he avoided sam adams since it was what one of the folks he was mediating selected)

Oh, I missed your apology, muddgirl.

I wouldn't presume to speak for muddgirl, but here is my take on the issue:

The point is that this let's-meet-up-for-beers thing probably wouldn't have happened if one of the people involved was a woman, not that it shouldn't have happened if one of the people involved was a woman. It probably wouldn't have happened because shooting the shit over a few beers is gendered as masculine in our society - probably wouldn't have even occurred to anyone had one of the people involved been a woman.

Of course women like beer just as much as men (that is to say, some love it, some like it, some are indifferent, and some hate it). That's not really the point. It's whether this would have happened if all three people weren't men.

Descriptive, not prescriptive.

I happen to think the whole thing is really stupid anyway.

Also, Firas, re: Megan Fox. Amanda Marcotte replies to a similar criticism in this comment. I'm not interested in discussing it, but I just thought I'd point it out, in case you hadn't seen it yet.

(Also, I'm not trying to re-involve you in this discussion muddgirl. Totally respect your decision to step out.)

I was led to believe Gates would be having a Red Stripe. Is he a flip-flopper?

Okay, for no good reason: Sam Adams is more flavorful than most light beers, but that's damning it with faint praise. Sam Adams makes plenty of good beers. Sam Adams Light isn't one of them. Oh, and it's a rather successful American-owned-and-operated company.

unsurprising, that comment of hers is even stupider (the reason horror movies cast sexy young women is that young men like seeing sexy women suffering because they're bitter at being rejected?) Our own Miko has a better take on the issue (there's a protective instinct that kicks in too.)

To say nothing of how detrimental beer and fatty food are to men who like them.

probably wouldn't have even occurred to anyone had one of the people involved been a woman

Well, one of the people involved was a woman, Lucia Whalen, who placed the 911 call. She wasn't invited to drink beer and discuss anything.

Which is exactly why gendered gatherings like this can be problematic. When the Old Boys' Club goes golfing or out to strip joints or wherever else is coded as "masculine," women tend to get left out.

Yeah, occhiblu, you're right. I'd forgotten about her. I'm not following this whole saga very closely.