1984, a friend's basement. Waiting for my bud to get ready to head to a High School party, hanging with his pops. His dad opened the fridge in his home-style "basement bar" and said, "Are you ready for a man's beer?" The fridge was full of cans of Genny Cream Ale. In the bottom drawer I saw a bunch of Molson's Golden bottles. Now as a 10th grade HS student, north of Buffalo in my little "Country Ghetto," Golden represented beer above my class. My friends and I used to work our a$$es off on local farms and pool a percentage of our weekly pay for road trips to Canada to get a case or two and savor them as best as children who really knew no better could. Much of the rest of our pay was spent on Genny, Old Mil and the likes.
Mr. Demmin grabbed two cans of Screamers and popped them simultaneously, one in each hand - I was duly impressed - and slid one my way. First beer that a grown-up offered me. I was still staring at the Molson's behind him in the opened fridge, but the gravity of the moment (from my perspective) was large enough to overcome the beer envy.
Then to my horror, as his dog walked behind the bar, Mr. D grabbed a bottle of the golden, popped the top on an opener that was screwed to the wall next to the fridge, and fed the beer to his dog! Literally, he tipped the bottle, put it to the dog's mouth, and poured the entire beer into the dog's mouth. Right about then my buddy came in, I chugged my can and thanked Mr. D and skinned out.
Amazing how much my taste in beer has changed over the past 25+ years. I don't pursue Molson's anymore at all. On the other hand, there is a place 4 hours north of where I now live in Florida that sells 30-packs of Genny in cans, 14.95$, and my neighbor and I have made annual road trips (he is a North-of-Buffalo transplant too).
I won't ever try to brew Genny Cream Ale, but the photo of your bottle a few days ago has sealed it - I'm going to brew at least 2 cream ales this summer. Thanks for the memory jolt, and I've enjoyed your posts from day 1. Keep it up.