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April 14, 2017

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IMBIBING EXPECTATIONS

College students, bartenders and college students weigh in on whether or not your drink choice affects your behavior, challenging whether or not tequila can really make you crazy. | by Prachi Patel said the effects of a drink depend primarily on the alcohol content and “how much you drink and how fast.” In Campbell’s experience, it’s more about which category of alcohol a person is drinking, whether that’s spirits, wine or beer. Spirits have the highest percentage of alcohol, followed by wine and then beer.

“I don’t necessarily think that one different type of drink affects you much differently than the other,” Campbell said.

Brennan Ehrman, bar manager and bartender at Logan’s Pub in North Oakland, said he does see a correlation between the type of drink a person consumes and how they feel and behave once they’re drunk.

“You can have three people who are the same age, same weight, same everything — one person drinks vodka, one person drinks whiskey, one person drinks tequila –– they’ll act pretty different,” Ehrman said.

For example, “whiskey will either make you a lover or a fighter,” according to Ehrman. “But I’m not a fighter,” he added with a laugh.

Turns out, alcohol isn’t that simple.

Christopher Martin, associate professor of psychology and psychiatry at Jordan Mondell LAYOUT EDITOR Pitt, said congeners — which add flavor — are often found “would never drink tequila” anymore because it made in darker liquors such as whiskey, brandy and especially red wine. Congeners vary her “want to take off her shirt and fight.”

For the Odyssey, Amy Tulipano’s seventh reason for in concentration from one drink to the choosing wine over boys is simple: “it helps you sleep.” In next and are a byproduct of fermentation, Kenny Chesney’s “You and Tequila,” the country crooner which breaks yeast down into alcohol. croaks “You and tequila make me crazy.” And if you’re Other drinks, such as vodka and gin, have really desperate for a mood drink, the Distractify staff little to no congeners present.

Previous research has suggested that compiled a list of reasons to pick certain beverages — if you want to be “text-people-you-shouldn’t-be-texting beverages with higher levels of congeners lead to more intense hangovers, however drunk,” choose vodka, they say.

In short, young people are convinced that the “tequila experts disagree on the effects of congetheory,” among others, are solid truths — but can a shot ners while a person is still intoxicated.

“I don’t think there’s any good evidence of Patrón really make you any crazier than a glass of wine or a can of beer? Despite anecdotes and legends about that they change how drunk you are and how different types of alcohol impact the body, few stu- how you feel,” Martin said.

Instead, Martin, like Campbell, said dents or regular drinkers can cite any concrete evidence that their favorite drink really makes them smoother, reactions to alcohol depend on how much and how fast you drink. bolder or more likely to dance on the bar.

“Alcohol is alcohol is alcohol,” he said, explaining Even among those who see plenty of drunk people per week — employees at college bars — there are mixed how differences don’t exist between types of alcohol, and common beliefs about different kinds — such as wine reviews.

Craig Campbell, cook and bartender at Peter’s Pub, causing sleepiness — aren’t necessarily true.

“Wine makes you a little bit tired. Tequila makes you a little more crazy.”

Senior Brock Baranowski is confident in these assertions — a firm believer in the concept that certain drinks encourage certain feelings or actions.

Gregg Higgins, a second-year graduate student in the School of Public Health, recounted how his friend

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April 14, 2017

Ralph Tarter, director of the Center for Education and Drug Abuse Research and professor of pharmaceutical sciences at Pitt’s School of Pharmacy, said everyone reacts differently to the congeners in various alcoholic beverages.

Depending on how reactive a person is to a congener, they “may experience a different response to one alcohol beverage than to another alcohol beverage.”

Tarter said a wealth of factors contribute to how an individual experiences an alcoholic beverage, especially since most people don’t drink alcohol in “pure form” but instead with a mixture of sugars and flavoring.

What you mix with a drink can affect how that beverage makes you feel — or at least that’s what bartenders Caleb Cornell and Christen Hunt of Kelly’s Bar and Lounge in East Liberty say.

“Anyone that drinks vodka and Redbull, they’re just asking for trouble and a nightmare of hangover,” Cornell said.

Cornell said people are often oblivious to how sugars in alcohol can affect their reaction to a drink.

“One common trait, especially among college students — even when I was in college — is that Jagermeister will just annihilate you. You don’t understand how much sugar is in that,” Cornell said. “The amount of sugar in a drink is often the cause of what will lead you

to be hungover.”

Tarter said a person’s mental state, along with social and cultural factors, can influence their perception of a drink, perhaps more than the type of alcohol consumed.

See Types Of Drunk on page 4

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Types Of Drunk, pg. 3 The social context in which a person drinks can alter their perceptions of how they react to a beverage — a phenomenon Tarter calls the “expectancy effect.”

The expectancy effect is so strong it can even lead people to act like they’re drunk — stumbling around, slurring words and acting on impulses — if they believe they’ve consumed alcohol when they actually haven’t.

“It used to be a fraternity prank,” Tarter said. “You would give kids a drink with no alcohol, thinking it had alcohol, and they would behave as if they were intoxicated. [They were] truly acting out the role because the expectancy effects were very, very profound.”

A person’s biology, such as their genetics and family history, plays into their intoxicated behavior as well. For instance, individuals genetically at risk for developing an alcohol-use disorder may, according to Tarter, have an inherently higher tolerance to alcohol’s effects. This may be true even if they don’t regularly drink or intentionally try to raise their tolerance.

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With such a variety of factors influencing how people react to the contents of their red Solo cup, it seems nearly impossible to predict behavior based on alcohol of choice. According to Tarter, it’s largely a person’s background and upbringing — what they’ve both been taught and personally experienced — that contributes to their beliefs about alcohol.

“We have all have acquired complex belief systems, and depending on the culture in which you’ve been raised, you’re going to harbor those belief systems,” Tarter said.

This includes religious beliefs — such as using alcohol exclusively at somber religious occasions — as well as beliefs and expectancies ingrained through mass media such as advertisements, TV shows and movies.

Despite scientific evidence — or lack thereof — when it comes to alcohol, sometimes it’s easier to stick with what you think you know.

“My older brother taught me how to drink,” Higgins said. “In that is the transfer of knowledge which involves, like, ‘Oh yeah, I got so messed up on a certain type of alcohol, I’ll never drink it again.’”

A note from the editor: This edition is packed with information about Oakland’s bar scene, including a boyfriend, girlfriend battle over the best bar in the neighborhood. And we’re happy to provide all the info you need on getting buzzed, sloshed, shwifty, tipsy, toasty, shmacked — you get the point.

But we do ask that you please, please, above all else: drink responsibly and look out for your friends. Hell, look out for your friends’ friends. Look out for strangers. Just, be careful — it’s wild out there.

A toast to you, Elizabeth Lepro Editor-in-Chief

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tracking trivia: the history of quiz night in oakland

by Lauren Rosenblatt

Stephen Caruso CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Standing beside a booth sticky from nights of shot pitchers and beer specials, Steve McCalley asked a room full of diners and drinkers if they could differentiate between the names of characters from “Game of Thrones” and players in the National Football League.

With Maroon 5 playing in the background, teams of four huddled around plates of fries and glasses of beer as they discussed their selections.

The debate didn’t last long, and as the pop music filtered through top hits, the atmosphere at the bar shifted from intensely competitive to laidback conversation and back again several times over the two-hour trivia night.

The questions were part of McCalley’s weekly trivia series at Hemingway’s Cafe on Forbes Avenue. During pub trivia, on Monday nights at 6 p.m., McCalley starts each session with a round of questions concerning an “either/or” scenario.

Before starting the first round, he rambles off a list of rules for the players: he will read aloud over their shoulder if teams are caught looking at their phones for an answer and the “quizmaster is always right.” At the end of each round, McCalley tells teams they must “nominate the biggest pushover” of their group to deliver the sheet to him and his partner for scoring.

In Oakland, the trivia scene is dominated

by Hemingway’s Cafe, Gene’s Place and Stack’d, with the three bars offering a total of four chances to participate in the quiz game each week.

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Although trivia nights are nothing new to local bars, many bartenders and trivia hosts agree the trend has gained popularity over the past few years, and even more over the past few months.

With a range of questions — either organically made by the quizmasters or provided by a company — times and food specials, all three bars have noticed an increase in customers on these notoriously slow weekdays.

McCalley has been the quizmaster at Hemingway’s since August 2015 when he started its pub trivia nights — with topics ranging from sports and history to science and politics.

McCalley hosts regular pub trivia Monday nights and music-focused trivia each Wednesday from 6 to 8:30 p.m. When he started out two years ago, music nights often only had four teams of four participants. Now, in a regular week in April, there are about 22 teams of four.

While Stack’d manager Nathan Drum said the restaurant gets about seven teams each week, Gene’s usually sees about 20.

When Harrison Kinzler, 27, came to Pitt in 2012, he said the trivia options were sparse.

Pittsburgh Cafe, which stood on Meyran Avenue, and Pub 19, formerly on Atwood Street, offered trivia — but Kinzler was underwhelmed by the choices. Kinzler, a 2015 Pitt alum and frequent customer of Gene’s Place on Atwood Street, approached owner Gene Ney about starting their own trivia night.

Now, about five years and 259 trivia nights

later, Wednesday night trivia is one of the most packed nights for the bar.

Kinzler said the heyday for trivia was about 2014 when they sometimes had to turn people away because they had reached max capacity.

Kinzler said Gene’s newly-earned reputation as an over-crowded bar sometimes turned potential customers away.

“The most teams we had was like 30, and there was easily 90 people in the bar, you could barely stand,” Kinzler said. “People got the impression that it was always crowded, and we were worsened by our own success.”

Bouncer and bartender Rich Anthony, though, said he has watched the customer base steadily “grow organically.” “[In the] last two years, it’s really taken off.

It sounds cliche, but the quality of the trivia is really good, I think it’s evident they put a lot of work into it,” Anthony said, referring to how Kinzler and his partners create each question themselves.

With about 20 teams per night, the customers at Gene’s Place fill any available space in the tiny bar, making it nearly impossible to get a drink or have a conversation that doesn’t center on a possible answer. As the Pirates’ game plays in the background, players cram to see the television screen displaying the trivia questions and the announcer proudly displaying each answer and the team standings.

While Kinzler mans the mic, Ney passes out

April 14, 2017

drinks, smiling at each customer even as they fight their way for a spot at the bar.

“We have a very dedicated trivia crowd, and they keep coming back,” Ney, who has owned the bar for about 12 years, said. “It’s been so long since we’ve had a regular Wednesday night, but my guess is it wouldn’t be nearly as busy.”

Hemingway’s Cafe joined Gene’s on the trivia scene in August 2015. About six months later, Stack’d, which opened that same August, started its own trivia night on Mondays at 9 p.m.

At Stack’d, the restaurant chose to pair trivia night with the restaurant’s half-off chicken finger special. Nathan Drum, general manager at Stack’d, said the game usually has about five to seven consistent teams each week with a few extra diners joining haphazardly.

“It didn’t start out as a huge thing right away, but it’s definitely built up to a pretty big thing,” he said. “Monday nights are a pretty slow night — that’s why we wanted to get something in here to boost business.”

Like many bars in the area, Hemingway’s first started trivia with a similar goal in mind. In the three years it’s offered trivia nights, Hemingway’s owner John Elavsky said attendance has “ramped up every year” with even more of an increase in customers this semester.

“We tried it, and it worked. You get two more tables a week [than usual] and that’s OK, See Trivia on page 8

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Crafting the perfect story

Lexi Kennell

Senior Staff Writer In the eyes of Hop Culture co-founder Kenny Gould, craft beer isn’t just an alcoholic beverage — it’s an essential part of Pittsburgh culture.

Gould got the idea for Hop Culture — an online craft beer magazine — in the spring of 2016 after realizing there weren’t many people writing about beer for the millennial generation, despite that age range’s interest in trendy brews. The magazine, which launched Jan. 17 of this year, engages readers with stories about breweries, techniques and the people behind the beer, rather than focusing solely on reviews.

“I wanted to learn about brewing and brewing culture and the drinking scene in this country, and there weren’t really resources that were directed toward my demographic, which is millennial,” Gould said.

Although the online magazine operates out of Pittsburgh, it navigates the broad scope of the craft beer scene in the United States. The site catalogues stories that explore products for beer drinkers — koozies and beer-flavored jelly beans for instance — as well as the culture surrounding beer.

Gould and Hop Culture co-founder J. Travis Smith met as undergraduates at Duquesne University. After graduating in 2013, Gould and Smith worked for Gear Patrol, an online men’s magazine that was just a start-up at the time, which gave them the opportunity to see how a digital magazine was built from the ground up.

After leaving Gear Patrol and spending some time freelancing in Manhattan, Gould, a Pittsburgh native, moved back to his hometown. When he did, he noticed he was still finding new breweries less than a mile from his house in Shadyside — places like Urban Tap, Wallace’s TapRoom and The Elbow Room.

Local breweries are sprouting up in neighborhoods across the country. The demand for local craft beer is rising, and the market is adjusting — according to Brewers Association, 75 percent of Americans of legal drinking age live within 10 miles of a brewery.

“More people are getting involved, that’s for sure. Because this is a big industry — this is no

“It’s sort of like the farm-to-table movement.

They don’t want their beer made in St. Louis or somewhere far away — they want their beer made here, and so they buy that beer, and they want the person who made it to give it to them so that they know it’s been locally brewed,” Togneri said.

Ataste for local, flavorful beer is what ties older and younger beer drinkers together, Togneri said.

At Hop Culture, intern and fifth-year Pitt English writing major Sarah Filiault finds a happy medium between those generations. The articles she writes range from dry-hopping IPAs, to describing what dryChris Togneri hopping even is even is — adding hops to the cask right before the beer is shipped off — to diagramming the top 10 best beer Instagram accounts.

She spends the rest of her 15 hours a week running the daily newsletter.

“I think a lot of the beer-writing scene is less focused on writing and more focused on beer. Most people do reviews and things like that, and that’s what I liked about Hop Culture — that they were more interested in telling a story,” Filiault said.

Part of Togneri’s goal in writing about beer is to encourage people to go local instead of spending their money on cheap, national beers. In part, this includes millennials and occasional craft-beer-drinkers.

But Togneri doesn’t limit himself to that demographic, he also shoots to convert the palettes of light, flavorless beer drinkers — including Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto.

Togneri once interviewed Peduto for the Tribune-Review, and the two met up at Photo illustration by Stephen Caruso CONTRIBUTING EDITOR a bar. When Peduto sat down, he ordered a Miller Lite, prompting Togneri to write a column dedicated to “fixing” Peduto’s As Togneri shifted his writing to focus on the taste in beer. Togneri later took Peduto to Indetry was growing so quickly that media coverage hadn’t caught up — his magazine is helping to fill local scene, which he noticed expanding about pendent Brewing Co. in Squirrel Hill and had three years ago, the demographic of readers in- him try beers from local brewers, accomplishing that gap.

Togneri is doing the same. He co-writes a col- terested in the topic shifted as well, a trend that in-person what he tries to convey in his column. umn — First Draft — with reporter Chris Fleish- Gould capitalizes on with Hop Culture.

Although Togneri didn’t “fix” the mayor, Peduto According to Gould, millennials are drawn diversified his drinking selection with East End’s er that features profiles on the people behind new breweries such as Eleventh Hour Brewing Co. in to craft beer because of its accessibility over other Homewood Reserve, a stout aged in bourbon, Lawrenceville and War Streets Brewery on the alcohols including wine or hard liquor. In Pitts- and a Co-Star Brewery doppelbock. burgh, there are no neighborhood distilleries, but North Side. “[I] basically just told him, ‘Put the Miller Lite Togneri, who has been a home-brewer for there is a smattering of neighborhood craft brew- down,’” Togneri said. “Pittsburgh makes good about five years, said if he weren’t writing about eries — such as Grist House in Millvale and Hop beer, so you should be drinking Pittsburgh craft beer, he’d be reading about it from writers Farm Brewing Co. in Lawrenceville. beer.”

longer a little niche or specific fad or anything.

This is tens of thousands of people that are employed in the craft beer industry and billions of dollars are spent, and every year, craft beer gets a little bit bigger of a market,” said Chris Togneri, a reporter for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review who has taken up writing about the industry.

According to Gould, the craft beer indus-

such as Mike Pound from the Pittsburgh PostGazette and Lew Bryson, a national beer writer.

“My focus is to bring people a little bit closer to the people making their beer. The national beer writers are gonna be focusing on trends and big picture pieces, but I think I do readers a better service by, you know, telling people about this new brewery or this established brewer,” Togneri said.

“

‘Put the Miller Lite down... Pittsburgh makes good beer, so you should be drinking Pittsburgh beer.’

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Trivia, pg. 6 you got a win there,” Elavsky, who has owned the bar for more than 20 years, said.

Katie Keenan, general manager for Hemingway’s, said the trivia nights took a while to catch on, but word of mouth advertising has led to a steady stream of customers both nights. The time, she said, also caters to a different group of people, often more focused on dinner and relaxed drinking than the usual weekend crowd.

“I think it’s the time. You can come and have dinner and drinks and some fun,” she said.

“And students like to show off.”

Both Hemingway’s and Stack’d use Buzz Worthy Pub Trivia, a local trivia company, to run their game nights. The trivia company sends a quizmaster to the restaurant fully equipped with questions, microphones and scorecards.

“We don’t have to stop anything we’re doing,” Drum said. “They run it all on their own.

We just show them where to set up.”

The company, which is a similar model to other trivia companies around the nation, provides its announcers with a range of questions. Since many quizmasters host trivia as a

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At Gene’s Place, the bar fills up on Wednesday nights for trivia nights. Stephen Caruso CONTRIBUTING EDITOR side project or a hobby, the idea is that trivia companies can put more thought and time into making the questions, according to Geeks who Drink, a national pub trivia company.

Buzz Worthy Pub Trivia started locally but has since expanded slightly beyond Pittsburgh city limits. The company started doing trivia at a family-owned bar, Hough’s, in Greenfield.

When it wanted to expand, the owners asked

regular customers, including McCalley, if they would want to act as hosts for the venture.

“I said ‘No, I don’t want to host,’ but then all my friends did, so I had no one to play with,” McCalley said. “I was more interested in playing, I think, was the thing.”

Yet, McCalley took the gig at Hemingway’s in August 2015 and hasn’t stopped since.

At Gene’s just a bit deeper in Oakland, the

April 14, 2017

crowd jumps to answer questions ranging from the last word of the Bible to Africa’s first and oldest modern republic to which U.S. senator spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes to record the longest filibuster ever.

Kinzler said the questions come from all different places: straight from Wikipedia, various trivia books or whatever thoughts pop into his head throughout the week. One loyal customer, Sid White, who hasn’t missed a game of trivia yet, gifted him the New York Times “Encyclopedia of Everything” for further inspiration.

“I’ve had people say I should franchise it, but I’m not into that,” Kinzler said. “I just like it here at Gene’s.”

Whether asking about baseball, the periodic table or pop culture, the same chorus of responses can be heard Monday and Wednesday throughout Oakland: lots of “oh mans,” shouts of happiness and moans of regret. Whether playing or announcing, McCalley said trivia hasn’t lost its appeal and the atmosphere of the game is something that will always draw him in.

“It’s almost always a good time,” McCalley said. “It’s relaxing to do trivia, in a way. They always say it’s the most fun you’ll ever have ‘working.’”

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Pennsylvania liquor laws in need of updates Nick Eustis Columnist

The beauty of turning 21 meant I could finally purchase alcohol whenever I pleased, a fact I was more than thrilled about. But in traveling to other states, I quickly found that not all alcohol laws are created equal.

One night in January, my boyfriend and I walked into a grocery store in Washington, D.C.’s Virginia suburbs. We were visiting friends in the area, and we decided to pick up some wine for everyone to share.

The store was fully stocked: Wine selection ranged from the red water my boyfriend calls “two-buck chuck” to a classy selection of champagnes. Within 20 minutes, we had two bottles of wine and had spent less than $5 a piece.

Too bad you’ll find nothing of the sort in a Giant Eagle. Pennsylvania does wine quite differently. And we should really fix that.

The liquor laws of the Keystone State — especially compared to more lax states — are outdated, waste time and do little to deter irresponsible behavior such as binge drinking or DUIs. Pennsylvania’s alcohol laws are some of the strictest in the nation, and that’s the result of two key policies. First, Pennsylvania is one of 17 alcoholic-beverage-control states — meaning the state controls the sale of some or all kinds of alcohol. All wine and hard liquors in the state have to be bought from a state-owned store, and Pennsylvania also prohibits the sale of any alcohol from being sold outside an approved distributor.

The tangible results of these laws are

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that buying alcohol in the Keystone State is much less convenient than elsewhere. To put this in perspective, let’s say you’re hosting a Fourth of July party, and you need to get snacks, beer and wine for everyone. In a state like Virginia, I could get all of these in one trip to my local grocery store. In Pittsburgh, on the other hand, I’d have to stop at Rite Aid for snacks, then walk to the Fine Wine and Good Spirits store on Atwood for wine, then lug all that to Mellinger’s on Semple for some six-packs.

All this trouble would be understandable if these laws made us safer, but that isn’t the case. Rather than have a state monopoly selling alcohol, our neighbors in New Jersey and New York let private companies run liquor sales. Proponents argue privatization will allow consumers more choice by allowing more locations to sell alcohol. Rather than see more drunk drivers, N.J. and N.Y. actually have as much as 39 percent fewer drunk driving deaths per capita than Pennsylvania.

And this isn’t that surprising. Americans love to drink, so even if they have to spend an extra 20 minutes going out of their way to get it, they will. So why have these inconvenient laws if they don’t make us safer?

As it turns out, Pennsylvania’s alcohol laws are inconvenient by design. The laws as they stand today date back to 1933, around the time the 21st Amendment ended Prohibition, when alcohol was illegal nationwide.

Then-Pennsylvania Gov. Gifford Pinchot was pro-Prohibition but recognized he was fighting a losing battle.

Four days before alcohol was legalized again, Pinchot and the state General Assembly created the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, which still runs the Keystone State’s wine and spirit stores to this day. Pinchot settled on this system as he believed it would discourage drinking by making alcohol too expensive and inconvenient to acquire.

If the goal of Pennsylvania’s alcohol laws was to discourage drinking, it hasn’t done that either. A study by the National Institute of Health show that Pe n n s y l v a n i a n s , per capita, drink more than 2.3 gallons of alcohol a year, more than the residents of 21 other states. Prices haven’t been a deterrent either, as Pennsylvania’s liquor prices are on par with our neighboring states.

Fortunately, legal steps have been taken to loosen the grip of the state alcohol monopoly. Gov. Tom Wolf signed HB 1690 last year, a bill that would allow grocery stores approved to sell beer to also sell wine.

But legal complications, like an estimated 13,000 new license applications, have slowed implementation of these changes.

Full privatization of Pennsylvania’s liquor industry is not likely. All attempts to privatize have been opposed by various unions, politicians on both sides, liquor

April 14, 2017

Liam McFadden STAFF ILLUSTRATOR store employees and groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving. But the passage of HB 1690 is a step toward a looser, more convenient alcohol policy such as that in Virginia, which allows beer and wine to be sold in grocery stores, while maintaining a state monopoly on spirits.

At least Pennsylvania’s leaders have acknowledged the problems in our archaic liquor laws and are working to change them — law by law.

And that’s something worth toasting to.

Nick primarily writes on politics and American culture for The Pitt News.

Write to Nick at npe3@pitt.edu.

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Tasteless alcohol ads promote sexism Rashi Seth Columnist

Liam McFadden STAFF ILLUSTRATOR

Beer companies do come up with some good commercials. The Budweiser Clydesdales and the the Most Interesting Man are two iconic images associated with beer brands.

But often, beer commercials take the message and end up objectifying women for the purpose of turning a profit.

The Route 2 Brews “Leg Spreader” slogan. The Cabana Cachaca featuring a naked woman with a perfect body wearing nothing but pumps. The infamous 2015 commercial that marketed Bud Light as a way to “remove ‘no’ from your vocabulary.” These are all examples of how beer distributors sells products to men while ignoring — and often objectifying — female consumers.

Men hold 73 percent of chair, chief executive and managing director roles in the advertising industry, so it’s no

wonder these ads are designed for other heterosexual men. In order to see a shift away from such sexist advertising, we need to see a change in who is making the decisions in the advertising industry.

A more equal breakdown between men and women, and inclusion of people with diverse gender and sexual identities, is the only way to cultivate a diverse perspective and do away with tasteless marketing.

The gender breakdowns among creative directors — the title for the creative lead of an advertising or marketing company — is even less diverse than that of the company heads. Last year, only 11 percent of creative directors in the advertising industry were women. While that number is many times higher than the 3.6 percent in 2008, it’s still dismally low and horrifyingly unequal.

Additionally, women account for more than 80 percent of purchasing

power, according to AgencySpy, a subdivision of the American marketing publication AdWeek. This means that when it comes to who is making the decisions of what’s being bought, men are only making those decisions 20 percent of the time. And 91 percent of women said they felt like advertisers did not understand them, and 7 out of 10 said they felt alienated by unrepresentative advertising.

The lack of women making these marketing decisions shows in the commercials we see everyday. Ads for Skyy vodka, for example, have a history of portraying women as sexually desirable objects rather than consumers of the product. Their advertisements often focus on a sexually charged interaction between a faceless man and a barelydressed, appealing woman.

The controversial Bud Light bottle label was a part of the company’s “Up for See Seth on page 16

The Pitt News SuDoku 4/14/17 courtesy of dailysudoku.com

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the best bar in oakland point / counterpoint:

No alcohol-themed edition of The Pitt News would be complete without an argument for the best bar in Oakland. This year, we’re bringing you two takes on the controversial issue. Read and enjoy as two of our editors square off on their opinions for the best place to grab a drink in our beloved Oakland.

stephen caruso for gene’s place

Paul Novelli STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER When I have a night free from writing papers or covering protests, you’ll usually find me building imaginary trains in 1998’s classic video game Railroad Tycoon II. But on the nights when socializing sounds more entertaining, I’ll meander down Louisa — one of Oakland’s slim side streets with a name more appropriate for the old lady who hands out hard caramels on Halloween — to Gene’s Place. The front door is guarded only by a light smokescreen from a few patrons savoring their nicotine, along with a painting of a Tyrannosaurus Rex clutching a keg of beer in its mouth.

Gene’s admittedly lacks buzz — while other Oakland bars get so cramped that eager entrants spew into the streets, Gene’s can keep the fun inside. There are no pizza windows or $5 late-night menus. And to my disappointment,

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there’s no pool table lurking inside.

But Gene’s more than makes up for what’s missing with cheap beer, camaraderie and a lack of skull-shattering top 50 songs. If going out is a way to appreciate the friends you have and make new ones, then the bar that reigns supreme in Oakland’s crowded scene is none other than the little hole in the wall on Louisa.

Most of my memories of Gene’s are simple but pleasant. It’s the only bar where, upon rising from bed at 11:30 p.m. at the incessant texting of my friends, I can throw on a crumpled T-shirt and still meet my friends without an intolerable wait or feeling like so many cattle in a pen.

A few blocks away up Atwood, Garage Door’s line often snakes around the block. Going to Hemingway’s in the shadow of Towers would entail either squirming my way across a floor sticky

with shot pitchers or gaining the ability to part a crowd of Panthers like only a third quarter performance of “Sweet Caroline” at Heinz Field can.

So, I’ll usually text my friends to join me for an IC Light or Duquesne Pils on one of Gene’s high stools at a corner table.

Upon walking in, as is standard, I’ll present my ID to a bouncer, who gives the license the legally required check efficiently and equitably.

The bouncer doesn’t examine it with a suspicious eye, questioning even the slightest physical discrepancy. He’s a seasoned professional and can spot a fake with one eye. He also spends just as much time checking my ID as he does with the person three notches up on the attractiveness scale in front of me. The bouncer just sizes my ID, flashes it under a light and promptly makes his decision.

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Upon receiving the okay, you’ll look up and see a bounty of specials on a glass of beer for one or a pitcher for a whole group. Personal favorites are the $4 Guinness specials on Thursday or the Straub special on Fridays for $2.25. And in both cases, the price gets you 22 ounces of cool, refreshing brew.

Behind the counter, the eponymous barkeep himself is often there. Gene has a twirling, old-timey mustache balanced on his upper lip and always seems ready with a smile. He makes all feel welcomed and at home within seconds.

After getting the usual — a pint of an old school American lager with a shot of house bourbon — I’ll wander to a stool, careful not to spill any of my intoxicating liquid cargo on the way. There, I’ll sit with a few friends and chat away the hours.

See Caruso on page 10

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VS.

amber montgomery for Bootleggers

Hemingway’s Cafe, AD’s Pittsburgh Cafe, rest in peace, and Garage Door Saloon. When it comes to Oakland bars, they each have their own special flavor, atmosphere and set of Saturday night specials.

An argument about the best bar in Oakland is, inevitably, subjective. It all comes down to what you’re looking for, which means each person’s opinions differ and that’s okay. But I ask you: Think back on the best nights you’ve had in college. Maybe not the craziest or the most wild — but the best.

For as many raging Long Island Iced Tea Thursdays at Hemingway’s or time spent on the dance floor at Peter’s Pub that might come to mind, I would bet that some of your most fun nights, like mine, are from a more classic atmosphere — which, in Oakland, can be hard to come by. But there is one bar that gets it right like no other: Bootlegger’s.

More affectionately known as Boots, this little gem sits on the corner of Semple and Bates Streets, right across from a lovely array of Oakland staples: Mellinger’s Beer Distributor, Larry & Carol’s Pizza and the Gyro Pit. And unlike its brothers and sister bars up the street, Boots always guarantees you a good time and a quintessential American bar experience. It transports you back to an earlier, less health-conscious time, with the dim lighting, wood-panelled walls and a light but omnipotent cloud of smoke.

Bootlegger’s is the classic American bar, as its dingy, tiny bathrooms and Prohibition-era namesake clearly show.

A mix of college students and Pittsburghers means you aren’t guaranteed to run into an awkward conversation with acquaintances or your crush from first-year residence hall. Most bars in Oakland have a target population. Peter’s is for cool kids and Greek life, G-Door is for fifth-years and graduate students and Pub Underground is for the younger drinkers.

And to be quite frank, Gene’s used to be the best-kept secret in Oakland. But alas, the secret slipped, and now everyone knows it’s the place to grab a cheap beer and chat with friends in a casual atmosphere. It used to be the place for outcasts, but that very fact made it hip, so now it’s too often crowded with people who are far too cool for me.

Bootlegger’s isn’t really known for anything,

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which is part of its appeal. If it appeals to any type most directly, it’s definitely the Hufflepuff-esque inhabitants of Oakland.

And perhaps the best feature of Boots are the little treasures that sit in the back room, around the small doorway to the right, an oasis that should be a necessary requirement for any bar to be considered the best.

The duel pool tables sitting underneath the mural depicting all the big names of early 1910’s and 20’s American offer endless opportunities — ones you can’t find at bars in Oakland other than Boots and Garage Door Saloon: the pool tables. From taking turns with a big group of friends, playing a pair of strangers or slowly watching my boyfriend get better than me — you can read his not-sohot take on Oakland’s best bar across the page — Boot’s billiards make it the perfect destination for any time of the night or day.

It is, admittedly, hard to beat the prices of cheap drafts at Hemingway’s or Gene’s Place. But what you lose in a few dollars a night at Boots is well worth it for the vibe and experience. At Boots, you can get a drink in a matter of seconds and its guaranteed to be in the proper, bar glass.

And of course, I’ve had some great nights out at other Oakland bars, even with the crowded and crazy atmosphere. But when I look back on my best weekend memories in college, almost all of them revolve around the more low-key nights.

And more than their fair share of them include a trip down to Semple Street.

If you’re looking for a wild night or to chat with cool, new people, I admit, Boots might not be your first-choice destination. But if you’re looking for a solidly good time, it will never disappoint.

And for an easy-going lady raised in the backwoods of southern Maryland like myself, it’s exactly what I need to combine my love for city living with my nostalgia for a simpler time and place.

So if I’m lucky and I can convince my friends to go, that’s where you’ll find me. And if you really don’t believe me, I’ll meet you there. Next game of pool is on me.

Amber is the opinions editor at The Pitt News.

She primarily writes about gender and local politics.

Write to Amber at aem98@pitt.edu.

Paul Novelli STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

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Seth, pg. 12 Whatever” campaign. The “no” slogans first appeared in December 2014 and was pulled in April 2015. As a woman, it’s hard to imagine how the idea of removing the word no from your vocabulary even made it off the cutting-room floor, let alone into the actual advertisement. A more diverse team with a range of viewpoints would have surely considered the implications of that motto for women and other minority groups.

The U.S. marketing team for Anheuser-Busch, the owner of Bud Light, included 51 percent women in 2015. On a higher executive level, the company employed only one woman on both its 11-person leadership team in North America and its 17-person executive team. So while the numbers are fairly decent, we can see the discrepancies between men and women increase among higher-level positions.

And after the 2015 blip, Bud Light released a commercial with Amy Schumer and Seth Rogen that highlighted its commitment to equal pay between the

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sexes — with Schumer stating that Bud Light “proudly supports equal pay,” which is why a Bud Light costs the same no matter if you’re “a dude or a lady.” But following the commercial, AnheuserBusch declined to provide information about how many women it employs and if they make the same amount as their male colleagues.

Commercials and ads are a consist part of life. On the television, radio and billboards as we drive to work and school, advertising and marketing agencies hold large amount of influence on society and consumers. And thus they should also be taking the initiative to diversify the people working for them.

Recruiting a more diverse set of people from different communities and starting training programs for respecting diversity and cross-culturalism and highlighting unconscious biases is one way to start.

And they’ll pay off in the profit margins, too. A 2016 study from BabyCenter and market research company YouGov surveyed more than 2,000 people and found that 80 percent of parents liked to see diverse families in commercials, and

66 percent said such diversity was a contributing factor in what they buy. We’ve seen the benefits of diversity in other areas of media as well. A 2014 study from UCLA found that television shows with casts of 50 percent non-white main characters had the highest ratings, and films with 30 percent non-white casts earned the most revenue.

When one group of people are the main creators of commercials and ads, making those ads inclusive of today’s diverse America will be difficult. But by diversifying the people behind the ads, we can make them more representative of all people.

Doing so will benefit both sellers and buyers alike.

Rashi primarily writes on politics and social issues for The Pitt News.

Write to her at ras206@pitt.edu.

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The Pitt news crossword 4/14/17

oakland bar traditions Ever seen a viking marching through Oakland at 2 a.m.? Ever wonder how you get a mug at Hem’s? With so many bars to choose from and South Side a short Uber trip away, the Oakland classics maintain a loyal following through tried-and-true traditions that keep people coming back for more.

by Abhignya Mallepalli

Hemingway’s Cafe Hemingway’s is a staple of Pitt’s cam-

pus and has its share of traditions — including mugs and photos for faithful customers.

Hem’s kept a personal mug for their regulars on the top rack behind the bar to use when they came in but this tradition won’t continue for future regulars.

According to 2016 Pitt alum and hostess Silvia Craig, the criteria to get one was simple. “[You got a mug] if you were a good customer, and you didn’t get yourself kicked out that much,” Craig said.

After some customers got too “entitled” and began acting privileged at the bar, they decided to let the tradition go, Craig said. The staff declined to elaborate any further on the issue. Now, Hem’s is sending the mugs home with those who already earned them to serve as a souvenir. Hem’s will still sell mugs as opposed to giving them away, according to owner and Pitt graduate John Elavsky, but they won’t keep customer’s mugs on the rack anymore.

Though mugs will no longer sit behind the bars, photos of Hem’s customers will remain on the walls of the Oakland staple. Elavsky said they started the photo tradition about 15 years ago. He used to put up a photo of anyone who asked, before that became oas the bar filled their wood-paneled walls.

“We’re running out of wall space,” Elavsky said. “There are some pictures up there that can’t come down. They won’t ever come down.”

Due to the limited wall space, Elavsky no longer puts up photos of anyone who asks. They sometimes switch out photos, but Elavsky remembers some of the faces on his walls and won’t replace those.

Hem’s signature offering — shot pitchers — is a weekly tradition for many Pitt students. These mini pitchers of strong mixed drinks, often served with gummy worms on top, are an essential part of any Hemingway’s night.

The most requested shot pitcher, according to Craig, is the Long Island with vodka, rum, gin, triple sec, sours and cola. “Cathy on Acid,” made with Smirnoff sourced pineapple, mango rum, pineapple juice and cranberry juice, and “Sweet Caroline” — white rum, grape and Sierra Mist — are also favorites.

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Peter’s Pub

Just a block away, Peter’s Pub boasts a tradition that most newly legal drinkers look forward to from the moment they walk the streets as first-years.

“Birthdays are big here,” Ashley Wells, 29, of South Side and a manager at Peter’s Pub, said.

Wells is referring to the horns the bartenders give to customers when they visit the bar on their 21st birthday. Pictures of the plush spikes litter Instagram feeds and Snapchat stories as countless students celebrate this milestone in the most Oakland-esque way possible.

When Wells thought back to the horns’ origins however, she faltered.

“I think they started 10 years ago?” she said.

“20 years ago!” said a voice from the kitchen.

“I think it was about 15 years ago,” Dave Brehl, the current manager of Peter’s Pub, said.

Brehl, 27, of Squirrel Hill, said the management in the early 2000s were “some pretty creative guys” who wanted to start a new trademark at Peter’s. They came up with two ideas. The first: the birthday horns. The second: a drink called “Panther Bombs.”

Panther Bombs came with the advent of Red Bull, which entered the States around 1997 and sparked the craze of Jager-bombs — a shot of Red Bull dropped into a glass of Jagermeister.

Brehl said the Peter’s staff wanted to capitalize on that trend, so they made their own Red Bullinspired drink, using a secret mixture of blue liquor.

“It’s not Blue Wave,” Brehl said. “Everybody thinks it’s Blue Wave.”

Brehl said there were also traditions that existed long ago at Peter’s that have since faded away, since Panther Bombs took over. One of these is an older drink, the “Panther Tooth” — Goldschlager, Malibu, Sprite and Blue Curacao.

“People who graduated 25 years ago always walk in and order it,” Brehl said.

Fuel and Fuddle

Down the street at Fuel and Fuddle, celebrating traditions requires some more time and commitment. The bar created the beer and whiskey “cults” as exclusive clubs for customers who try at least 100 different beers or whiskeys.

There is no time limit to completing the task, but people interested in joining the beer cult must first request a blue pocket-sized “Beer Bible.” The whiskey bibles follow the same format but is clothed in red instead.

The small book contains all 100 beers that a customer trying to take the pilgrimage must experience — but unofficially, a person can get away with drinking any beer on draft to get a beer of their choice crossed off the list by a bartender.

The bartender must also initial a drink in the book after they’ve crossed it off the list to ensure authenticity. After reaching 100, the beer or whiskey devotee gets a t-shirt and a name plaque displayed on the back wall of the restaurant.

Hundreds of names make up the beer cult — a club that dates back to 1996, before most current Pitt undergraduates were born. Meanwhile, the year-old whiskey cult boasts a measly three members.

“Regulars come in here a lot and work [toward] it,” Sara Walker, a senior environmental studies and political science major, said.

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the economics of thirst: the perfect duo

Marcus Cox works at Mindful Brewing Company in Pittsburgh. Stephen Caruso CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Stephen Caruso

Contributing Editor

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The dry river bed in Andrea La Nauze’s backyard inspired her to study economics.

Fellow Australian Marcus Cox just wanted to quench thirsts with his self-crafted brews.

Together, the two make the perfect duo.

La Nauze, now a Pitt economics professor, and Cox moved from their native continent to the United States last year in pursuit of their respective professions. La Nauze, 34 and freshly armed with her Ph.D., came to teach and research, and Cox, 43, to become a top brewer in America.

La Nauze’s journey started at her childhood home in the Australian countryside.

Her parents “had a few acres, horses — the rural ideal.”

But she also recalls growing up in a time of drought. As farms cut back on water and families added water tanks, La Nauze found all the choices water’s scarcity forced fascinating. That curiosity directed her to economics, which centers on similar decisionmaking process.

“I loved that it could provide you with a

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framework for thinking about tough problems, not just ‘we should, we should, we should’ — [economics is] thinking about tradeoffs,” La Nauze said.

It was while learning about supply and demand at the University of Melbourne that La Nauze met Cox. He was working at the Belgian Beer Cafe with her roommate.

Cox had been interested in beer ever since he was a teenager because of “the other Michael Jackson” — a British television personality with the same name as the pop star, who toured the world to find rare beers and is credited with helping spark the craft beer movement.

Jackson’s thick beard and beer pairings entranced Cox, so he started take an interest in foreign, especially Belgian, beers as a teenager.

La Nauze and Cox met at the Cafe one night 15 years ago, where Cox worked behind the counter. La Nauze claims Cox tried to speak Italian to woo her. Unbeknownst to him, she was studying the language.

“I asked him a few questions in Italian, See Home Brewing on page 21

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Home Brewing, pg. 20 and he wasn’t able to answer them,” La Nauze said with a laugh.

At roughly the same time that Cox and La Nauze began dating, Cox found his entrance to brewing. Some engineers had a brewery in northern Australia, named Three Ravens, and had outfitted it with fancy new equipment — but they didn’t have a brewer to run it. Three Ravens hired Cox, and he learned to create beer on the fly.

By the time La Nauze was finishing up her doctoral degree in early 2016, Cox was running Thunder Road Brewery — named after an Australian movie, not the Bruce Springsteen song — in Melbourne.

La Nauze knew she wanted to go into teaching and research as a way to spend more time on the issues that intrigued her — such as water use and renewable energy.

She applied to more than 100 positions, heard back from about 20 and scheduled all the interviews during a three-day span in San Francisco.

La Nauze wanted a job in the States because of the “cutting edge” work done in economics — according to US News and World Report rankings, nine of the top 10 economics schools in the world are in the U.S. Meanwhile, Cox needed a new challenge after turning Thunder Road in Melbourne from “an empty building” to an award-winning brewery.

But according to Allison Shertzer, a 33year old professor of economics at Pitt who specializes in immigration — and a friend of La Nauze — there would be one caveat.

“There’s always this problem, because the H-1 visas do not grant the spouse the privilege to work in the United States,” Shertzer said.

Both La Nauze and Cox said they agreed to relocate together regardless of the outcome, but La Nauze would have hated to make her husband give up his career.

Luckily for the two, since 2005, there is a special visa for Australian citizens — the E-3 — which lets spouses work in the US. It’s the “one modern visa program” that works with 21st century couples, according to Shertzer.

After a cousin told her about the visa, La Nauze flew to Pitt — ranked 39th in economics by US News and World — to tour campus and make her final pitch for employment, knowing her husband could

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work as well.

She arrived on campus in the midst of a snowstorm and was immediately swept into a faculty meeting, or “bagel hour.”

Despite the blizzard, she was enraptured by the faculty around her — as well as the breakfast.

“Australia doesn’t have amazing bagels,” she said.

As if the delicious breakfast wasn’t enough, Pitt also offered La Nauze a job — her first offer. She didn’t wait for any others.

La Nauze started at Pitt in fall 2016 while Cox started working at a new brewery, Mindful Brewing Company, in Castle Shannon in January.

Cox found his job through an online brewer’s forum and runs the beer-making operation with fellow brewer Nick Jones. It serves as a welcome restart for him, working with mainly American ingredients for the first time in his career.

When it comes to choosing, even though Cox sees himself as a “conservative” brewer in terms of beer diversity, there are many styles on tap at Mindful, from IPAs and an Australian ale to an Irish stout and a “wacky” seasonal beet beer.

Made with special German yeast and colored a rich red, the seasonal beer was inspired by Cox’s hope to make a beer with fresh, local Pittsburgh ingredients. But “the only thing fresh was potatoes, onions and beets” in winter, he joked.

Meanwhile, 20 minutes away in Oakland, La Nauze has been teaching and working on research on renewable energy prices. She’s also trying to accustom herself to the banal features of her new home, but there is one thing she misses — Vegemite. It’s an Australian staple, a salty spread made up of old brewer’s yeast and vegetables.

After grumbling to her husband, however, La Nauze found a surprise in the mail.

“I was complaining so much that Marcus got on Amazon and had some shipped,” she said with a chuckle.

They could afford shipping the package nearly 10,000 miles because business had been good. Cox knew of Pittsburgh’s reputation as “a shot and beer” town but didn’t think it would mean selling beer at midday.

No matter the time, Cox has noticed Pittsburghers seem ready to drink.

“It’s not a question of if I’ll have a beer — it’s a question of what beer I’m going to have,” Cox said.

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Caruso, pg. 14 Music requires a generous soul to throw a buck into the digital jukebox.

While this occasionally leads to an awkward silence, the denizens of Gene’s are of the communal sort. Someone usually makes the sacrifice to bring the speakers to life with Run the Jewels, Third Eye Blind or Billy Joel.

Once flowing, the tunes fill in the space around you — they don’t intrude upon your conversation. At Gene’s, I don’t

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have to lean across the table and scream like I might at elsewhere at 9 p.m. on a Thursday, when I might still be trying to just enjoy a late-night feast with my girlfriend — you can read her not-as-good take across the page.

Because of this intimate setting, it’s also easier to strike up conversations with strangers. Even with a full house — for Wednesday trivia, big sporting events or a Friday night — the volume doesn’t weigh you or your conversation down. At one of the bigger bars, the room is so large and the crowds so dense that any casual aside

seems contrived from the start. But Gene’s is so small, you might overhear someone’s conversation or accidentally bump into another patron while playing darts.

The hours fly by sitting at one the bar’s high tables as my friends and I talk of the old friend who got a new job, the latest album we can’t stop listening to or the most recent tweet from our President that might forebear the apocalypse. By closing time — never indicated by the cliche blasting of Semisonic — you’re sad the night’s over.

Just as every night has to have a last

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call, I’ll be having my last gulps in these coming weeks as a senior. But if you want to commiserate on your job prospects with an “enemy of the people” journalist, I’ll be the guy talking about lead pipes on a Saturday night.

I’ll buy you a beer if you listen to me rant. I promise it’ll make my stories seem more interesting.

Stephen Caruso is the assistant visual editor at The Pitt News. He’s written about everything at this point. Write to him at stephencaruso23@gmail.com

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