Last night, I was going grocery shopping at Kroger. Though I hadn't originally intended it as such, it ended up being one of those “big shopping trips”. Mainly, it was about 30-40 of those fruit-on-the-bottom yogurts. As Jason and I eat those for lunch everyday, we go through them rather quickly.
I hadn't planned on buying beer at Kroger, primarily because beer is cheaper at Sam's Club. Besides, Sam's Club sells beer by the case, which is also convenient since we each drink a beer with dinner (because of health its health benefits but also, you know, because it's delicious). Back a couple of months ago, we had found some K Cider. Being a cider-fan myself, I really enjoyed, though I wasn't sure what Jason would think of it. As it turns out, he really enjoyed it as well. Aside: I was quite relieved that Jason and I had found true commonality in beer/cider, as he tends towards the see-through beers while I prefer the dark stuff.
So, we figured, "Hey, let's just get K Cider all the time!" (up until then, we were just rotating through various brands). So, next time we went to Sam's Club, we looked around, but it appeared that K Cider had been taken off of Sam's stock-list. So, we went back to the beer-rotation.
Still, I didn't give up. With Texas' sensibly low-regulation of alcohol stores (beer, wine, liquor), it sometimes seems like there's a beer/wine store on every corner. So, a couple weeks ago I realized that, though cider wasn't available at Sam's Club (K or otherwise), that I could still check the local beer/wine stores.
One by one, I checked. Generally, I was disappointed. Either, they were overpriced ($7-8 for a 6-pack?!), or they were ok-priced ($6 per 6-pack), but only available as a six pack (a case or half-case would have been a more convenient form factor since Jason and I go through the beer/cider at a steady rate).
Ok, back to the present day. So, I'm at Kroger and everything has been crossed off my shopping list one-by-one. I figured “Hey, let's just stop by the beer isle — maybe they'll have cider.”
Well, they didn't have cider. But, they did have Rolling Rock (on sale, no less!). In Pennsylvania, where I'm from, Rolling Rock is often affectionately known as “that crappy local beer”. Of course, that's all in jest — it's actually half-way decent.
At any rate, I bought two 12-packs at the not-too-shabby price of $8.99 each. And, as Sam's Club certainly didn't have Rolling Rock, I had quite a hankering for tasting it again (Sam's strategy appears to be really-good-prices with the trade-off of not-as-many-brands, for better or for worse).
And, having tried Rolling Rock again, after not having had any for (thinking back) probably over a year, it still holds up. It's a lighter beer, to be sure, but it functions well as an everyday-beer. After thinking about what it compares to, this evening, I've kinda come to think of it as a domestic version of Foster’s. Is that about right?
Up next: more beer commentary (I'm on a roll!)