Bowing to pressure from cash-strapped Lawrentians, the VR has started selling its own signature beer, Viking Special Blend.
“We’ve always wanted to make our own beer,” explained student bartender Nick Heuer, “but the Viking Room wasn’t equipped as a brewery and New Science wouldn’t lend us any equipment. We thought we were stymied ******– until Colleen came through for us, that is.”
Colleen Detjens, also a bartender at the VR, had an epiphany one Monday night while cleaning up the tables.
“I was bringing back a half-finished pitcher of beer and I noticed all these students staring at me,” she said. “It was real sketchy. Finally some of them asked if they could have the pitcher, since I was just going to dump it out.”
According to Detjens and other VR employees, this request is not uncommon.
“Students see the wounded soldiers and they think it’s a waste,” said student manager Jen Nummerdor. “Then they watch us pour the dregs into a pitcher and pour it all down the drain.”
“Sometimes they cry,” added Heuer.
That night, for whatever reason, Detjens gave the students the pitcher, a mixture of PBR, flat Guinness, and some skittlebraued Honeyweiss. And Viking Special Blend was born.
“It was delicious,” recalled senior and barfly Zack Eustis. “The moment that sweet sweet beer hit my tongue, I was born again!”
Campus health regulations prevent the VR from officially reusing half-finished drinks. Instead, runoff beer from the taps is funneled into a special keg, cooled, and sold to students for $2 a pitcher or 50 cents a glass.
Members of COMUS, Lawrence’s only non-YUAI organization dedicated to the promotion of experimentation and intemperance, applauded the move.
“Students are sick of shelling out $4.50 for a pitcher of beer,” said COMUS president Suzanne Heinrich. “Plus with VSB, every drink is an adventure. I swear, I had one last week that was half Tequila Sunrise.”
Already, posters promoting the new drink can be found in every campus building. The most popular, designed by Lawrence art professor Joe D’Uva, shows a variety of beers pouring into one glass, under the slogan “Celebrate Diversity!” The original print will be featured in an upcoming MoMA exhibit entitled “The New Tastemakers.”
The beer itself has also attracted notice, edging out even Milwaukee’s Best at that city’s annual Bargain Beer Awards. “Doc” Maravolo, professor of Biology and campus oenophile, has expressed interest in teaching a super-secret “Beer Tutorial” course centered around the cinnamon and beechnut tones of VSB’s unique “9:30 on Thursday” bouquet.
It seems like there’s no stopping Viking Special Blend, which has already successfully dodged Nurse Carol’s allegation that it was tied to the recent campus-wide mononucleosis epidemic. Campus administrator and VR regular Paul Shrode has high hopes for VSB:
“To some people, a cheap beer is just a cheap beer. But as we like to say in the VR: This is our beer!
LU has new brew -dlh
