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TOM BEDELL By
The Rules of Golf may be arcane, but there’s certainly nothing in the rule book limiting the beverage cart to carrying only pale,
watery lager beers. It always strikes me as an oddity that golfers
who seek out far-flung and diverse venues to play their favorite
game seem content to drink the same bland bellywash typically
found buried in the beverage cart ice.
In the past, because of sensible local rules prohibiting bottles
on the golf course, your commonplace Bad Light or Curse Silver
Bullet may have been the only choices; craft beers were mainly in
bottles. But the revolution is at hand, my friends, and so the call
goes out herewith to all beverage managers, golfers and beer cart
gals, too, if they have a say in stocking the refreshment wagon.
There is now better beer in cans, and it’s time to demand it.
I’m going to suggest some, but these front nine picks only
scratch the surface of what’s going on. According to Russell
Phillips, who is keeping track of these things over at craftcans.
com, there are now more than 520 craft beers in cans from 172
breweries in 42 states and Washington, D.C.
True, the majority of beer sales continue to be light beers
from Bud, Coors, Miller or imports like Corona, Heineken, and
Stella Artois. But the trend is on the side of more flavorful craft
beers, which have shown double-digit growth in sales the last
two years, while the graph for large mainstream brewers is
pointing downward.
