the buzz log
Beers With the President
Thursday’s much-anticipated "beer summit" started rocking the Search box as soon as President Obama unveiled his plans to knock back a cold one (or two) with Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Cambridge police officer James Crowley. People are especially interested in which brews the trio will imbibe.
For those wondering why two regular joes get to hang with President Obama, a bit of history: Two weeks ago, Gates and Crowley were embroiled in a controversy when Gates was arrested outside his own home. Gates alleged that the arrest was racially motivated, a charge that Crowley denied. President Obama jumped into the discussion, saying the police "acted stupidly" in arresting Gates.
President Obama has since apologized for his remarks and wants to turn the incident into a "teachable moment." What better way to learn than by drinking during class? The three participants won't be boozing up with the same brand, however. Gates will enjoy Red Stripe, a Jamaican brew. Crowley will reportedly drink Blue Moon. And the president? A man with simple tastes, he's scheduled to drink Bud Light. (What, Schlitz is too fancy?)
The threesome's beer choices has been dissected by experts, and sought out in Search. Queries on "blue moon beer" experienced the biggest spike, but "red stripe" also enjoyed a nice bump. Even Bud Light let out a belch in the Buzz, thanks to Obama's unofficial endorsement. What are the odds we'll see a Bud Light commercial featuring an Obama look-alike at next year's Super Bowl? Better than average, we'd say.
Filed under: Beer, Barack Obama
A Few Less Bottles of Beer on the Wall
Boston Beer Company, brewer of Samuel Adams Beer, issued a recall of some of its 12-ounce bottles on Monday. Apparently, a "routine... inspection" found "possible defects in a small percentage of bottles" from a specific glass plant. The product retraction was voluntary; the potential harm small. The company acted quickly and responsibly.
But you'd think from Search that the heavens had collapsed. Lookups of "samuel adams recall" poured in so thick and frothy that the query is still riding at #1 in our top hourly searches. Demand for "sam adams recall" and—don't panic—"beer recall" bellied up to the Search box in droves. Requests for "samuel adams beer" more than doubled.
In Buzz, a well-timed article titled "How Beer Works" enjoyed a splash of attention. Thanks to the good folks at HowStuffWorks, cautious lager fans can ride out any recall-induced break immersed in the mechanics of barley, hops, and the seductively named "boiling wort."
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| 1 | Ford 400 | Breakout! |
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| 4 | Evan Chandler | 2322% |
| 5 | American Music Awards | 1841% |
| 6 | John F. Kennedy | 1529% |
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| 8 | Liam Hemsworth | 1172% |
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| 10 | Hendrick Motorsports | 888% |
top leaders
| Rank | Subject | Move | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Black Friday | +340 | 1290 |
| 2 | NFL | +489 | 670 |
| 3 | Jennifer Lopez | +451 | 515 |
| 4 | New Moon | -67 | 250 |
| 5 | American Music Awards | +236 | 249 |
| 6 | UFC | -36 | 239 |
| 7 | Miley Cyrus | +66 | 169 |
| 8 | Hulu | -11 | 154 |
what's the buzz?
A subject's buzz score is the percentage of Yahoo! users searching for that subject on a given day, multiplied by a constant to make the number easier to read. Weekly leaders are the subjects with the greatest average buzz score for a given week.
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