I
think it was the Reader that used to rank beers by categories in
order to award prizes in various divisions. We kept a close eye
on the list of beers that had the highest alcohol content and Special
Export was always among the leaders. Special Ex (also known as "green
death") became the Butanes' beer of choice.
The
brewery decided to investigate the wild spikes in demand for their
product at clubs where we performed and stumbled across the fact
that we often cajoled people to drink Special Ex along with us.
We requested it on our contract rider and made people send up rounds
of the stuff at any club that was too cheesy to pop for drinks.
The director of sales could often be found buying rounds for fans
as it was in his job description to get people to try the brand
and we soon came up with a plan to mimic the successful Miller Beer
Network. The label would allow us to design a poster and the J-card
for our cassette, have it printed on the presses they had in La
Crosse, Wisconsin that made the cartons and other promotional items
for the brewery and all we had to do was put the Special Export
logo on the poster.
We
soon found out that the La Crosse presses were unable to print our
project (too busy and/or too inept) so the brewery paid to have
our items printed here in Minneapolis. The deal almost fell apart
when Heileman wanted to put a Special Export Light logo on the poster.
Their reasoning was that both brands, Special Export and Special
Export Light, would be implied by the Light logo. I immediately
said no. We were, and are, against light beer. We would not help
promote, in any way, Special Export Light. The company was totally
confused by my stance but finally gave in.
Around
this time the Special Export director of sales was to be married.
He wanted the band to perform at his wedding and offered to pay
the band in beer. We took a vote, decided to do it, had a ball and
drank plenty of Special Export at the reception. A short time later
a beer delivery truck pulled up in my south Minneapolis alley and
delivered one hundred and twenty cases of Special Export beer (as
I recall it was a pallet and a half) to my garage. The delivery
man unloaded it all into the stacks you see in the photo. John had
his camera along for the historic event and we pulled a stack of
cases away from the rest, set his camera atop the stack, sighted
his camera sat atop the beer thrones and began to test the product
to make sure we could truthfully sign that the beer had arrived
"safely."
Ultimately
one hundred cases of beer was paid to the individual band members
for playing the wedding. The remaining twenty cases was stacked
in my basement where we used to infrequently rehearse. Every rehearsal
we would open a case of beer (at least) so we never rehearsed more
than we did that spring and summer. The posters came out looking
beautiful thanks to Marc Norberg's photographs and Chuck and Tina
Anderson's art direction and keylining but were never popular with
the clubs. They complained the posters were too big or did not have
enough color or... Well, most of those clubs are long gone, Special
Export changed it's recipe and was bought out but we still play
occasionally and still ask that the beer with the highest alcohol
content be placed, on ice, in our dressing room.