Russians drink beer and piss all over it

Russians faced a conundrum that only President Dmitry Medvedev could resolve. Russian law stated that anything with less than 10% alcohol was merely foodstuff, but even then only barely if you didn’t wrestle it yourself.

But then they started importing beer. They served it all hours of the day. They sold it to minors. They marketed as a healthy alternative to vodka and other spirits, just like we’ve been telling you for years. (Except liquor is good for, like, body builders and s@%t.)

So, Medvedev signed a law that officially classifies beer as alcohol with all the rules and taxes that implies.

Oh my god. It was the perfect world. All this time, it was … You finally really did it.

Take me to your brewer

The Space Shuttle program is coming to a close. While a lot of you out there might not care, you should, and here’s why: Not going into space means you can’t enjoy space beer.

We told you about how Sapporo Breweries grew barley from grains taken into space, but now, 4 Pines Brewing, of Australia, has come up with a beer designed for enjoyment by space tourists. They are saying with a straight face that even though zero gravity makes your tongue swell up a bit, affecting your sense of taste, the flavor of the beer will make its way through.

They say the altitude makes you get drunk faster on a plane, so maybe a single beer in space is enough to get smashed.

Editor’s note: Ever feel like all of our “That Whacky Australia” stuff is de facto “Booze News?”

Drink a piece of history

Some time in the early 19th century a ship was sailing across the Baltic Sea, bringing its cargo of champagne to the thirsty citizens on the distant shore. Only something went wrong, and the ship sank, taking the beloved booze with it.

Today, you can own a bottle of the oldest champagne around. The shipwreck was found last fall and bottles of champagne (and beer) were found, and as we called it all those months ago, the hootch is now up for auction! We don’t know about the beer and the other bottles, but two bottles of champagne will be up for auction in June, so get your wallets ready, drunkards.

The end of The End of History

It only took a week, and the reign of The End of History is over.

As we reported last week, the world’s strongest beer had been brewed, mounted in dead animals and sold out in mere hours last week. It broke the 100-proof barrier for beer, clocking in at an astounding 55 percent alcohol.

In a direct response, a Dutch brewer–‘t Koelschip (The Refrigerated Ship)–has pushed the envelope to 60 percent with Start the Future.

Someone somewhere (probably monks in Belgium) is bidding their time, waiting to unleash an 80 percent sipping beer called Future’s History.

And we don’t want to even think about what they’re cooking up in CERN.

Take that, Jäger stag!

Whenever our War on Animals and Booze News coverage intersect, the results are usually tragic, though still hilarious.

Fortunately, this story has a happy ending.

And “happy ending” is a fitting description of The End of History, a limited edition beer from Scottish company BrewDog. The beer itself is 55-percent alcohol and each bottle is inside of a stuffed animal.

Not Winnie-the-Pooh-stuffed animals. Taxidermist-stuffed animals.

Unfortunately, if you hoped to snag one to toast the end of the War on Animals, you’ll have to pry it out of the cold dead hands of some beer snob collector. The £500 bottles sold out within hours.

What else are they supposed to do?

In Canada, a controversy brewed when video of a 10-year-old age group hockey team showed several members of the team drinking beer. What’s shocking is that 10 is not the legal age to drink in Canada.

Apparently, the country does not believe that beer after a hockey game is what should be going on for these kids. If it isn’t, then what was the women’s Olympic team doing after they won the gold medal?

Don’t thank heaven quite so quickly

This week, convenience-store chain 7-Eleven announced it would begin carrying its own budget brand of beers, dubbed Game Day. They’ve gotten into the wine business before, but this is new. Is 7-Eleven angling to be your low-cost craft-beer salvation?

Nooooooot exactly. As expected, the decision was driven less by a desire to sell great brews than the bottom line. Beer purchases in convenience stores dipped 4 percent last year, according to research group SymphonyIRI — nearly double domestic beer sales’ 2.2 percent decline.

But the silver lining is that purchases of horrid disgusting loser “sub-premium” beers (Keystone Light, Natural Light) actually ticked up. Customers haven’t stopped drinking. They just want to pay less for a buzz.

Sometimes this gambit pays off, such as the medal-winning Mission Street pale ales and IPAs that California’s Firestone Walker brews for Trader Joe’s. But brand-wise, Trader Joe’s sits on a slightly more elevated plane than a convenience store selling unnaturally glistening, endlessly rotating hot dogs.

Fruits of the poisonous tree

Men in Columbia are like men anywhere else, aside from the fact that they hang people in helicopters from time to time.

If you saw cases of beer left unattended at a city dump, what would you do? Would you go over and comfort the lonely bottles, letting them know it would all be OK? Would you rescue them, take them home and adopt them?

That’s exactly what two sanitation workers in Columbia did. Rescuing 50 of 700 cases of expired beer from the depths of abandonment at the dump. Now they might be charged with theft of city property.

FREE THE COLUMBIA TWO!

Isn’t it time you got a closer view of your carpet?

Do you like beer, but hate the way you have to drink several of them in order to get a proper buzz? Switch to liquor! Or stop drinking for a few days to lower your tolerance!

Or, you could pick up a case of BrewDog’s new Tactical Nuclear Penguin, it’s beer, it’s made in Scotland, and it’s being introduced here. Oh, and it’s also the new champ for highest alcohol by volume, with 32%. For those of you keeping score, that’s 64 proof, just shy of your favorite liquors. The previous record holder, Samuel Adams’ Utopias only has 24% ABV, or 48 proof.

Just in time for the weekend.