(via Steve Mandich):

“Hey Clark -Steve here. Longtime reader, first time emailer.

So I’m flipping through the channels late Saturday night and at 1 a.m. this super-low budget, ‘Wayne’s World’-looking call-in show comes on channel 11 with two dudes talking about Rainier Beer. So I watch for a few minutes and then they flash this URL on the screen:

http://www.rememberrainier.com/

So I dial it up and it’s just a corporate website touting Rainier in Gen-X language with Seattle-based overtones – obviously the show is just an infomercial masquerading as a public-access quality show.

Rainier left Seattle for Olympia a few years ago, and then left Olympia for California not too long after that. So, for over a year now, ‘Rainier Beer’ is only brewed in Irwindale, CA (an LA suburb), and is just a subsidiary label of Miller or Stroh’s or some shit. [Ed. Note: It’s Pabst.] ‘Mountain Fresh’ my ass.

Just thought you’d be interested.”

Actually, I am interested. Pabst’s collection of brand names and wholesale contracts is currently up for sale. I’d love to see, or even help, some local consortium buy the Rainier and Oly brands, contract their production out to an underutilized microbrew facility in Wash. state, and thus bring our local heritage brews back home. Any takers?