Have you noticed the 80’s are back? This isn’t really news–neon tube dresses and big bangs are never really news. Some even report the 90’s are back also, in a kind of apocalyptic pile-up of decades. The contemporary teen version of the 80’s is something much shinier than what the teens of the 80’s actually lived with, as if they are willfully embodying nostalgia for a time they never knew. If the 90’s come back, what will the zeitgeist polish up for us?
If I was going to bring back the 90’s beer wise, it would be dishonest not to include Oranjeboom, a beer I drank a lot of–in cans–in Southern California. I don’t know if it was because it was, to us, exotic, Euro-trashy, and had this name we liked to say. Before I knew anything about beer, it was cheap and easy.
Yesterday I met up with a lovely Scouser friend, G, for beer and shoe shopping. He was gracious enough to ask me to suggest a beer to him. We were in a Shepherd’s Neame pub Mabel’s Tavern, and I haven’t had many of their beers because I’ve been put off by the ad campaigns. I ordered a Bishop’s Finger for G and a Kent’s Best for me– this beer was a winner, with a dominant, piny hop character and an enveloping malt, and he preferred his beer to mine. So then, on our second round, why do I decide to throw out all my beer know-how and order us two halves of crap lager?
I’d never seen Oranjeboom outside of Trader Joe’s in SoCal. The little red tree–the happy name–I gave in to nostalgia. So much for being a beer expert! The beer was a forgettable, too-sweet lager. Apparently it is now brewed by Shepherd Neame, and is one of those rare beers that was probably better in the can!
According to my friend, Oranjeboom’s big British moment was in the 80’s– maybe it’s right at home with the gladiator sandals and splatter prints on the high street. G regaled me with stories about the British marketing campaign in the 80’s which included Oranjeboom’s own version of the Bud Girl and he even sang me the jingle. And he drank it without complaint. What are friends for, after all?
What are your ‘retro beers’? What beer, when confronted with a tap of it, would have an irresistably surreal nostalgia for you?
Impy Malting 