In the beginning, God created beer. It mostly went downhill from there.
Soon after He created beer, God became bored and needed someone to get drunk and watch March Madness with. Thus man came to be. After a fortnight of drinking and yelling at the television, man got a little too drunk and tried to hook up with God’s girlfriend, which was a total dick move. Verily, God was pissed, so he divided the goodness of beer among many warring factions, doomed forever to fight amongst themselves in a vain attempt to recapture the majesty of that first Great Beer.
After many thousands of years of conflict, one tribe was all like “Fuck this,” so they decided to cease fighting and dilute their beer in order to sell it to college students. Thus, Natural Light was born.
Many legends have been told of the day when word of this new development reached General Keystone, head of the rival Keystone faction, but never before has the full story been told. Until now. Without further ado, Tiger Magazine presents an accurate account of what happened on that fateful day:
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Fade in on a solid wooden table deep in an underground bunker. Lining the walls are televisions displaying complicated diagrams and schematics. At the head of the table sits GENERAL KEYSTONE, one of the lesser warlords in the ancient Land of Beer. His ADVISORS sit around the table, quivering in fear.
General Keystone: How could you let this happen? You fools! They’ll corner the college market and we’ll be left selling to middle-aged Appalachia!
Advisor #1: But, my liege, perhaps with the proper campaign we too could sell to college students.
Advisor #2: Yes, my lord, we should dilute the beer.
General Keystone: And flaunt the time-honored recipe passed down to us by the ancients?
Advisor #3: It’s a changing world, highness. No longer do students demand quality from their beverages. To survive, we must adapt.
General Keystone: I’m not convinced. What would we even call it?
Advisor #2: ‘Keystone 2’?
General Keystone: Lame.
Advisor #2: ‘Water’?
General Keystone: Too truthy.
Advisor #4: ‘Keystone Light’?
General Keystone: Catchy, but spell it ‘Lite,’ so it sounds cheap and grimy. Okay, this is starting to make sense to me.
Advisor #2: Truly, my lord, we do this for the greater good.
General Keystone: Whatever. As long as we made enough money to maintain my harem, I’m cool. Take the old recipe, dilute it a hundred-fold, put it in a can and sell it. The only thing we need now is a slogan.
Advisor #3: How about, “Hey, You’re in College!”
General Keystone: Let’s try not to sound so desperate, hmm?
Advisor #1: “It’s Cheap!”
Advisor #5: “Slightly Better than Natty Lite!”
Advisor #2: “What Did You Expect? Look At How We Spell The Word ‘Lite’.”
Advisor #4: “If You’re Over the Age of 26 and Even Considering Purchasing This, We Look Down On You. Yeah, That’s Right. Keystone Lite Looks Down On You.”
General Keystone: Maybe a bit on the wordy side. And it’s not very complemen—
Advisor #3: I’ve got it! “Always Smooth, ‘Cause It’s Mostly Water”
General Keystone: It’s snappy, yet memorable. I think we’ve found our winner.
Advisor #2: Sir? We just invented Keystone Lite. There are no winners here.
General Keystone: Fair point.
They all perform seppuku.
-Big Tuna, with many thanks to Z ’12