After services at St.Cecilia, Roderick and Molly cross the road to attend the Old Ivy Inn's Craft Beer Festival, held each year in the Ballroom. Everyone is admitted, regardless of age, since no beer is actually served in the Ballroom. Those who wish to be served must exit the Ballroom and enter the adjacent Oak Room; there, a sign declares that the Washington County Sheriff enforces state law on underage drinking. No doubt, this sign is sufficient to deter the law-abiding youth of Old Ivy College from imbibing unlawfully.
Glo Beer, the leading "cheap, but filling" beer brand, sponsors craft beer festivals in college towns around the country as part of its "Great American Beer" grassroots marketing campaign. There's an interesting story behind the rise of Glo Beer. Founded by Heinrich Hohenzollern in 1896 in Lake City and marketed under the Kaiser Beer brand, the company rebranded in 1918 as Goeringbrau in recognition of the famous World War I ace. Growing rapidly in the 1930s, the company expanded its Lake City brewery to offer Adolf Hitler Ale and Brownshirt Lager, which was adopted as the official beer of the German-American Bund.
In 1945, the company rebranded its Deutschland Uber Alles beer as Global Beer and discontinued all other brands. Sales grew rapidly in the postwar era thanks to a strong following among Lake City locals, closet Nazi sympathizers and the company's strong support for stock car racing.
In the 1990s, the company officially shorted the brand name from Global Beer to Glo Beer. This was shortly after Vevey Brands of Switzerland, the global food and drink conglomerate, acquired the company and introduced the long-running Gimme a Glo advertising campaign. Sales rose rapidly on the strength of this campaign, so that Glo is now the number #1 beer brand in the world, a point that is less remarkable when you consider that Vevey owns the #2 and #3 beer brands. Vevey also owns the #4 brand, Veldtbrau, which is sold only in Southern Africa, where it is widely used as currency.
Just inside the Ballroom, there is a cardboard cutout of Ricky Reckum Jr., who drives the famous "Blue Deuce" #2 car in NASCAR, sponsored by Glo Beer. Ricky is the most popular driver in NASCAR, though not because he is a particularly good driver; indeed, his only win came last year in the rain-shortened Lake City 400 when the red flag came out just after the top twenty cars pitted for fuel; at the time, Ricky was in twenty-first place. Ricky owes his popularity primarily to his appeal to the average NASCAR viewer, who identify with amiable and unintelligent people of little accomplishment; and also to his father, the legendary Ricky Reckum. The senior Reckum raced his Hudson Hornet with one hand and held a Global Beer in the other, periodically discarding empty cans out the driver's side window. One of these projectiles triggered the famous "Big One" at Talladega in 1968, which took every other driver out of the competition, leaving Ricky to coast home to victory. NASCAR later banned littering while racing, but by then Ricky had retired because his beer belly was too big to fit through the window of his Hudson.
The first table features the Redmeat brand attended by a bikini-clad booth babe. Roderick selects a colorful bottle. "What's this?" he asks.
"That's our Redmeat Seasonal Pumpkin Fudge Porter, says Booth Babe.
"Oh," says Roderick, returning the bottle. "Where do they make it?"
"The Glo Mega-Brewery in Lake City."
Roderick and Molly move on to the next table, also attended by bikini-clad booth babes and featuring Dirty Sweatsocks Objectional Ale.
"Aren't you chilly?" asks Molly of one of the booth babes.
Booth babe shrugs. Seeing Roderick select a bottle from the table, she points animatedly. "Flavored with rotten eggs!"
Roderick and Molly move on. The next table features Blammo! craft beer, which is sold in large bottles shaped like an erect penis. In a subtle touch, the booth babes wear bikinis that prominently feature the Blammo! logo on the front of their bikini bottoms.
Molly whispers to Roderick: "I think Megan likes this brand." Roderick chuckles.
Meanwhile, in Smileyville, Mr. Smiley pours himself a glass of squashberry juice.
Smileys, as a rule, prefer fruit juice to beer. It's not the flavor; they just like the pretty colors.
