Back in the day when my house had two VCR’s, one beta and one vhs, we had that amazing shelf full of video tapes stacked like library books with handwritten titles scrawled sideways on each tape. Â One tape that got viewed more than others contained a recording of “Cannery Row,” the movie version of the John Steinbeck classic.
The film inspired me to read my first true masterpiece by an American literary master.  The book is fantastic, but it was chapter 17 that changed me.  It was here that Steinbeck writes of Doc and how he is haunted by the thought of a beer milkshake. He canât escape it:
In Monterey before he even started, he felt hungry and stopped at Hermanâs for a hamburger and beer. While he ate his sandwich and sipped his beer, a bit of conversation came back to him. Blaisedell, the poet, had said to him, âYou love beer so much. Iâll bet some day youâll go in and order a beer milk shake.â It was a simple piece of foolery but it had bothered Doc ever since. He wondered what a beer milk shake would taste like. The idea gagged him a bit but he couldnât let it alone. It cropped up every time he had a glass of beer. Would it curdle like milk? Would you add sugar? It was like a shrimp ice cream. Once the thing got into your head you couldnât forget it. He finished his sandwich and paid Herman. He purposely didnât look at the milk shake machines lined up so shiny against the back wall. If a man ordered a beer milk shake, he thought, heâd better do it in a town where he wasnât known. But then, a man with a beard, ordering a beer milk shake in a town where he wasnât known â they might call the police.
Doc walked angrily to the counter of the stand.
The waitress, a blond beauty with just the hint of a goiter, smiled at him. âWhatâll it be?â
âBeer milk shake,â said Doc.
âWhat?â
Well here it was and what the hell. Might just as well get it over with now as some time later.
The blond asked, âAre you kidding?â
Doc knew wearily that he couldnât explain, couldnât tell the truth. âIâve got a bladder complaint,â he said. âBipalychaetorsonechtomy the doctors call it. Iâm supposed to drink a beer milk shake. Doctorâs orders.â
The blonde smiled reassuringly. âOh! I thought you were kidding,â she said archly. âYou tell me how to make it. I didnât know you was sick.â
âVery sick,â said Doc, âand due to be sicker. Put in some milk, and add half a bottle of beer. Give me the other half in a glass â no sugar in the milk shake.â When she served it, he tasted it wryly. And it wasnât so bad â it just tasted like stale beer and milk.
âIt sounds awful,â said the blonde.
âItâs not so bad when you get used to it,â said Doc. âIâve been drinking it for seventeen years.â
The first legal drink I consumed was a Michelob Dry (figure out when that came out folks) and vanilla ice cream shake prepared by myself at work behind the bar in Tucson. Â Heaven.
Since then, my beer milkshakes consumption has been few and far between. Â But the explosion of small local brewing is bringing back the love of the beer-shake and beer-floats.
Just announced, St. Louis’ Alpha Brewing Company will celebrate their anniversary with a beer-float party.
“This year we are partnering with Clementines Creamery to bring two beer floats with our two anniversary ales,” said Alphaâs Head Brewer Derrick Langeneckert.
- The Sagwa Imperial IPA, 10% 120 IBUs with Double Chocolate Ice Cream Float
- Rouge Baer Raspberry Sour Ale Aged in Red Wine Barrels with Raspberry Sorbet Float
