I went on a goose chase recently, trying to find a thank-you gift for a hard-to-buy-for co-worker. His beloved said he likes something called Molson Golden. I don’t really like the taste of beer, and I’m allergic to wheat. However, it seems to me that there’s always a bunch of sixers in my friendly neighborhood grocery store fridge, so off I went, on the hunt for the Gold(-en). 
Two beer stores later, I found a veritable United Nations of brew — Kirin Ichiban from Japan, Stella Artois from Belgium, several Mexican cervezas — but no Molson Golden. Sigh. I settled for a selection of two other exotics and the locally brewed Rahr Amber Lager and hoped for the best. Even if my thankee didn’t like all the beer, I reasoned that the fish at the Weekly would certainly help him drink what he didn’t want. (And they did.)
My non-beer-drinking leaves me out of almost all the good local happy-hour specials and beer-only establishments. Everyone who knows me knows this. So I was surprised when a friend from college called me to join her at the Flying Saucer Draught Emporium to celebrate a momentous accomplishment by her husband. “Gary’s getting his third plate,” she said.
Plate? I thought. Like, “in your head”?!
No. As most of you probably know, the Saucer’s interior is covered in decorative dinner plates and/or “saucers.” (You getting where I’m going?) They’re awards of sorts given to customers who consume 200 different Saucer beers. To get a plate, though, you have to be a BeerKnurd, a member of the Saucer’s U.F.O. Club. To join, go to any one of the Saucer’s dozen-plus locations throughout the country and pay an $18 registration fee, and in return you’ll get a Flying Saucer t-shirt and a magnetic card that keeps track of your beer purchases. Once you reach 200, the good Saucer folks will immortalize you in what their propagandists call the Ring of Honor by hanging up a plate emblazoned with your name. Gary has not one, not two, but three plates.
Predictably, there’s fine print. The beer on your plate-quest can be consumed only at a rate of three per day, no doubt to stave off a bludgeoning, um, I mean, a TABC raid.
The each-beer-must-be-different part is easy. The Saucer offers hundreds of brews, including Moosehead and Trois Pistoles Dark, both from the Great White North. No Molsen Golden, though. (I’m beginning to think this beer doesn’t even exist.)
Most of the Saucer’s beer falls in the $4 to $6 range. Notable exceptions: the 22-ounce bottle of Bear Republic Red Rocket (California) at $18, the $30 Rogue Old Crustacean from Oregon (also 22 ounces), and — holy overdraft, Batman! — the Belgian Duvel Golden Ale. Six liters. $400. Safe to say that none of the aforementioned is available on Pint Night (every Monday, $2.75 per pint).
A really dedicated beer drinker, theoretically, could earn a plate in about 10 weeks: That’s three beers a day, every day. But not even Gary’s that dedicated — he earned his in about a year. His strategy: one happy hour per week, either with co-workers or, if pressed, his wife. A Miller Lite drinker, she is openly mocked by her husband and friends for her — how you say? — pedestrian taste.
Anyway, when I got there, I scanned the menu for something a little more adventurous, a little less beer-y. And whadda you know: The Saucer’s summer menu features two gluten-free beers. But would I like the taste? Turns out, I would. The Green’s Quest Tripel Blonde was a happy little beer with a fruity kick. But despite the label’s cute proclamation that the beer also is “free of crustaceans, eggs, fish, [and] peanuts,” I stopped at one. For the $10 price tag, I could have had two martinis almost anywhere else in town. Or a sip of one at Eddie V’s.
Another great thing about the Saucer is that it’s not a smoky, seedy mess. Rather, it has a mild pub-like shabbiness that is completely charming. And kids are welcome up until 8 p.m. For them, the Saucer offers — what else? — root beer.
For folks in a beer rut, you can customize a flight of five 5-ounce draught beers for $10 or choose one of the Saucer’s themed flights such as the $10.50 grouping of Belgian beer that includes the extravagant Chimay ($17 by itself).
And did I mention that you get to customize your plate with your own motto? Gary’s words to live by? “See that buttonhole? Rats used to come out of that.“
Yeah, I had to ask, too. But I guess that after 200 beers, even a line from The Three Stooges might start to sound funny. – Laurie Barker James
Contact Last Call at lastcall@fwweekly.com.
