Foxy Nation - Keeping America Mad

I've never been a huge fan of television. The amount of predictable, cliche, voilent, and supremely uninteresting material on the "air" is overwhelming. But in a t.v. world filled with meaningless sorority and guido drama there is still real drama, man drama, mad drama. I'm not ashamed to admit that I have a soft spot for AMC's Mad Men. From the moment I heard Don Draper utter the words "love doesn't exist" during an advertising meeting and before returning home to his wife and children, I was hooked. Mad Men is successful because it's characters are interesting, complicated, and conflicted. The show is also a major hit because the cast is full of foxy, dapper, and stylish characters who educate viewers about politics in the early 60s and the benefits of the greyhound cocktail at the same time.

So what does all this praise have to do with the planet's greatest beverage? Isn't mad men about classic cocktails, the American dream, and clever add tag-lines like, "Lucky Strike...It's Toasted?" What Mad Men has done for television is similar to what American microbreweries are currently doing for beer. People are tired of tasting the same generic flavors and want a beer with a little more depth and complexity. If a Budweiser is the beer equivalent to the awful show known as "Say Yes to the Dress," (a harsh comparison but personally my least favorite show ever) Mad Men would be more like an Old Rasputin Imperial Stout, it's rich, dark, complex, and seems to have developed a substantial cult following. Like Mad Men and it's star John Hamm aka Don Draper, North Coast Brewery's Rasputin Imperial Stout is a little bitter, but it will warm you up in the strangest of ways.