Newcastle Brown Ale: My New Best Friend

It’s been a while since I’ve bemoaned the many lame PR pitches I receive here at Uncool Enterprises Unincorporated. Oh, I still get them by truckload; I just tend to hit ‘delete’ faster these days.

Once in a while, something catches my eye that begs me to open it. It happened twice last week.

The first email asked me to take a mouthwash “challenge” with a truly hot young actress.

Well, that’s what the subject line said, and that sounded like a good deal to me.

Upon further reading, I found that outside of mentioning said actress in an early sentence, she and her role in this promotion never appeared again. Instead, it was all “write about your experience with our product” and “get your readers to like our Facebook page” but darned if we’ll compensate you for your time and effort. We won’t even offer to send you the product, suckerrrrrrrrrrr!

OK, they also said that with each Facebook like they’d donate money to a charity. Yeah, throw some more guilt on me, why don’t you?

After I got over this and the company implying you and I have stink breath, I decided to send back a quick note:

“If (said hot young actress) 
is personally testing my mouth's progress, yes.
Otherwise, pass. Thanks.”

A flak wrote back:

“Ha. Very funny. Thanks.”

I’d say that door is still open.

Then, after nearly five years, my sponsorship prayers were finally answered. In came an email with the heading:

Throw a Winning Super Bowl Party with Newcastle Brown Ale

I’ll cut to the chase – this sentence at the end:

Would you be interested in receiving samples
of Newcastle Brown Ale or Newcastle Winter IPA
for any Super Bowl stories you may be working on?

Free beer? Who? Me?

Ha.

Ha ha.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Yesterday, came this:

HALLE-FRICKIN’-LUJAH!!!

Since I’ll be in transit during the Super Bowl, I popped open two brews immediately – you know, in the name of science and good blogging.

Newcastle Brown Ale is a great go-to session beer. Pours with a nice creamy head, warm caramel color and light nutty taste, not to heavy on the alcohol. We’ve purchased The Dog (OK, I don’t know anyone who calls it that) in the cool mini-keg for parties at Uncool Estates in the past and it’s been a big hit.

The Winter IPA is … odd. Higher in alcohol content, copperish in color but, for an IPA, quite light on the hops in terms of smell and taste. Bit malty but no winter warmer spices like nutmeg or cinnamon – just, well, beer. I wouldn’t turn it down (it’s not light beer, for goodness sake) but I wouldn’t seek it out either. OK just not special as an IPA or a winter brew.

Oh, so why will I be in transit during the Super Bowl? Tune in soon to find out …