St. Patrick's: A Day - Not a Season

BBDO has been doing the Guinness "Jib-Jab" styled TV spots, with the two cutout brewmeisters bopping around in crude South Parkian fashion, falling into Monty-Pythonesque slapstick mishaps as they congratulate each other with "Briliant!"

They're fine, funny spots most of the time, except this time of year, when Guinness and BBDO try to sell us on the notion that "St. Patrick's Season" is forthcoming.

Shut up. We have reason enough to hate Hallmark and Wal-Mart for the ways in which they make up seasons and reasons to buy crap. We don't need to hate an Irish brewery, too. St. Patrick's is a day. March 17th. Always was. Always will be. Don't pretend to extend this celebration just for the sake of selling what only a select few can stomach.

I won't go on about the awful taste of this warm sludge, the color of untreated wastewater. In America, we've come to expect that beer was meant to be served one degree above freezing, with a lime, on a beach, with your woman, maybe with some nachos. Warm beer and buttered brown bread may suit you and your mates in the smokey pubs of the Old Country, but this is the New World, and our St. Patrick's celebrations involve wearing a bit of green for one day. That's all.

Disclaimer: The author of Where's My Jetpack? is an equal opportunity blogger and fears for his life when insults of products might be misconstrued as insults of entire countries or cultures. Some of my best friends are Irish and I've even been known to enjoy a couple of U2 songs. I believe in an individual's right to choose his or her own beer without regard to color or creed, but rather on the content of the beer's character. You are free to buy and drink your liquid bread, or your porkchop in a glass, and I will defend that right as I toast you from the beach, hoisting a chilled, crisp Corona Light. With a lime.