Tecate Beer

Today Kareem and France's mom, and Frances went to Tecate, Mexico. It was awsome. I drove the mom-mobile there, and we went on the 3 o'clock Tecate Brewery tour. Amazing...

So, um, the 3 o'clock tour began around 3:10. First we were given tickets for "free beers" which we mostly consumed on the lunai while speculating about the "SouBeerNear' sign attached to the building housing the restrooms. Then at around 15:15 we went into a theater where we watched a movie about the good deeds the brewery does, and how "green" they are. As best as I understood the movie, which was in Spanish, they use the run-off water from watering their lawn to brew the beer, thus making the product "green," as it were. Then we watched a safety film which informed us that we should not wear rings on the tour (?). Then we lined up for headphones. Kareem was in front, and the young man behind the counter did not give him headphones, but instead gave him a hard hat and told him, "You'll need to wear this. Exit that way." We walked to the right, and lined up.

The tour began, and we walked up a million stairs. At the multi-lingual sign explaining how beer is made I heard a tour guide speaking American, and I hung back with mom and Kareem. The tour guide didn't mind us listening in, but he wanted to know why mom and I didn't have hard hats. Apparently only the round-eyes had to have them. None of the Spanish speakers with head phones had to wear them! How fucking cool is that? Only the Americans had to wear special helmets! Wow! New Tour Guide (NTG) called for someone to bring two hard hats for me and ma, and we proceeded.

NTG informed us that Tecate brewery used to sponsor a bike race, but they stopped because people were showing up to drink, and then would not race. We saw the first kettle (made of copper) built in 1947. We learned that all the grain (all two pounds!!!) is imported by train from Wisconsin. We learned that all the brewing equipment is from Germany. And we learned that they brew every day of the year because they brew so effing much that they can't shut down, or people might riot. Oh yeah, in the into video we also learned that 4 out of every 10 Cokes are consumed in Mexico, if I understood (which is unlikely). Sweet Jebus!

We were hustled through. I was reminded that Americans walk very slowly. It was much safer than the Laugnitas Tour in which they gave K about 18 pints of beer, and then sent us out onto the floor while the bottling line was up and running. Wow. At Tecate, everything was behind glass, and we were told to walk inside the lines! They only gave 2 beers, but then it was free and so much fun.

While watching the incomprehensible video my mom pointed out to me that David Foster Wallace would have loved the entire experience.

It was a fun day.