As you know the other weekend we took a trip to get some alcohol in Umm Al Quwain (see Weekend in Review).
Sadly the beer selection at the Barracuda is pretty limited. They have Fosters from Australia, Heineken and Amstel Light from the Netherlands, San Miguel from the Philippines, Kronenbourg from France, and a couple of crummy American beers - Miller Lite and Budweiser and the like.
The beer is sold in cases of 24 cans, but of course here the cans aren't 12 ounces, they're anywhere from 300 to 350 milliliters. That's still roughly the same, though.
As I was browsing at the store, I was doing the rough currency calculations in my head:
- San Miguel
65 AED ($17.68)
Kronenbourg 1664
75 AED ($20.40)
Fosters
90 AED ($24.48)
Heineken
95 AED ($25.84)
Okay, these are the official calculations. But still, you get the point - almost a ten dollar spread in price. And since I have no real favorite out of these beers (oh, what I wouldn't give for a Shipyard Pumpkinhead Ale!) I went with the two cheapest beers - San Miguel and Kronenbourg.
And as an added bonus Kronenbourg 1664 comes in 500 mL (16 oz) tallboys - so you're getting about 50% more beer per can.Now this is the part that might seem a little goofy to you. I've had Kronenbourg 1664 a few times in my life, they have it on tap at the Hard Rock, and it's a fine beer. But this month I've really enjoyed it.
The aromatic Strisselspalt hops (the ‘caviar of hops’ as they say), and the distinctive citrus flavour - there's no wonder Kronenbourg 1664 is France’s number one selling beer and the UK’s second-biggest selling premium lager.
Okay, I got that stuff from some website - I don't know much at all about Strisselspalt hops. But shoot, I was going to websites about this beer - that's how into it I was.
But am I that into it, really, or is it just because it's a great deal?
It reminds me of this store we have at home in Maine - Mardens. It's a 'surplus and salvage' chain that runs from Sanford (where you can just about spit on New Hampshire) to Madawaska (where you could spit on Canada, not that you'd want to).
Mardens likes to say that their inventory is overstock, discontinued items and factory seconds, you know, the 'surplus'. But really it's more the 'salvage'. Stuff that's been in a fire, snowstorm, or other natural disaster. Heck, somehow I bet next week they'll have a run of items from Chile.
Still, the store does enormously well. Mainers love a bargain.
That's one of the things I love about Maine. True Mainers don't brag often, it's part of our reserved Yankee charm. But the one time a Mainer will tell you to the cent how much he or she paid for an item, when or where they got it, the whole story behind it, is when they feel they got a deal. There's a certain Maine Pride when it comes to bargain-hunting.
And I am a Mainer, through-and-through, because I saved the best part of the story for the end. The people at the Barracuda threw in a 12-pack of Tsingtao beer from China ... for free!
