Breweries: Stop It with the Tight T-shirts, Already! Please!

A sad moment occurred last night: While visiting the FFF brewpub--after a round of amazing, brewpub-only beers; Samurai Gazebo, Stygian Darkness, Cimmerian Sabertooth Berzerker--I made my way to the new merch kiosk. I was extremely excited because FFF finally released a black t-shirt with their kickass skull logo on the front. I'd been waiting years for this! My Gumballhead-on-a-unicycle and Gumballhead-fistfighting-a-skeleton t-shirts are amongst my most treasured possessions, and I couldn't wait to add this one to my rotation. Once I held the new t-shirt, though, I immediately noticed it was different. I asked, and it turns out FFF has changed t-shirt vendors and gone with American Apparel. I will never buy a FFF t-shirt again.

(At this point, I should invite young, college-age craft brew drinkers, those new to craft beer, and those with regular work-out regimens to ignore my post; you're skinny, and you won't get it.)

If you're unfamiliar with American Apparel, they make, in my opinion, t-shirts for teenage girls. Skinny teenage girls. If you're a thin, bosomy young woman, an American Apparel t-shirt will hug your curves in quite attractive ways. Unfortunately, if you're a gutty, somewhat bosomy male beer drinker, the shirt will have the same curve-hugging results for you, leaving nothing to the imagination (also, be sure to buy a shirt about fifteen times larger than you usually would as an adult Large would be tight on an infant). I have a Half Acre brewing t-shirt sadly languishing in my dresser drawer unworn because I forgot to check the label before buying it. It's an American Apparel.

Having said that, I make this appeal:

Breweries: I love your product. I want to advertise for it on my chest (and back). I will quite gladly pay for the privilege of becoming a walking billboard for your product IF you stop making shirts that accentuate the man-boobs and belly that your products have given me. For every craft beer drinker who regularly works out to burn off those beer calories, there's also a guy like me with two kids, a time-consuming job, no free time and--while I'm not the chubbiest guy around (I can suck it in enough)--a belly. To FFF specifically: I say this with all the love in the world; your brewpub is one of my favorite places on Earth. But while I'm sure your newest addition, Abby Titcomb, looks quite fetching in American Apparel, I've seen your other brewers, and they look like me (baldness and beard and all), and we're not American Apparel material. Help me help you. Go back to the old vendor.

Thanks for reading. Anyone who tells me to go to the gym can [insert profanity-laden rant here].

 

I could, but their shirts are still thin as tissue and drape my tiny man breasts a bit too nicely.

 

I visited the Surly brewery recently on a family vacation, and because of my fear of the American Apparel-izing of the t-shirts of the craft beer community, I bought an X-large t-shirt (a size bigger than I normally would), and it's like a circus tent on me. Surly t-shirts are apparently still made to fit the needs of today's chubby beer lover.

 

I agree.

 

Thanks for taking that one for me.