Canadian guys drive like this, but American guys, they drive like this…

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Anthony Easton: I don’t drink beer, though in Alberta, where I did my first drinking, the age of majority is 18 — so you would have kids coming up from Sweetgrass. (Though that’s Mormon country, so you have your own problems there, and I grew up in Edmonton, which is almost closer to Alaska than it is to Montana.) I mean I could nitpick through the rest of this, but I love my country, I think that we do have the best lake fishing (the perch in Northern Ontario is the best thing you will ever taste), and that I watch much more American television than Canadian, and living in Montreal, hockey is a civil religion. All of that said, this could be a Molsons ad, and everyone knows that there is no weaker beer than Molson.
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Patrick St. Michel: I showed this video to my Canadian roommate, and he was able to get every single joke before Tim Hicks sang it. We both agreed the song isn’t any good, and rolled are eyes at Hicks’s subtle 69 joke. But “Stronger Beer” also sparked an interesting lesson from my roomie about the geography of Canada and where Mr. Hicks is from, so extra point for helping me learn all about Canada.
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Jonathan Bogart: I don’t often acknowledge myself as identifying with U.S. exceptionalism, but this really makes me want to rustle up a Canadian just to bully him.
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Josh Langhoff: Not to be chauvinistic, but this sounds like something Martin from Walla Walla would’ve recorded senior year for his backpack-distributed Beer at the Union CD, only “Stronger Beer” is less likeable for several reasons. I don’t know Mr. Hicks personally. Since he’s a professional recording artist I’m not impressed by the mere fact that he’s produced a professional-sounding recording. His scripted revelers laugh at things that aren’t funny (“colour with a u,” “ha HA!”), and most of these comparisons don’t even make sense — the Foo Fighters spell “colour” with a “u,” Bryan Adams had the biggest hit of whichever year, and I constantly steal Smarties from my kids, one of whom enjoys lake fishing. Hicks is peddling the idle sociology of someone who still gets a kick from arguing “soda” vs. “pop.” Hot guitar solo, though — especially since his fingers must be FREEZING.
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Brad Shoup: Most Yanks could rattle off a song’s worth of northerly stereotypes in the span of a boarding penalty: Tim Horton’s, the Grey Cup, “bacon,” Loonies, Molson, Labatt Blue, moose, curling, Alanis, Joni. I omitted “politeness” because my gracious. I’m guessing Hicks is pitting his warm piss against ours, in which case he wins via technicality. At some point, this morphs from a Canada vs. USA thing into a Canada vs. American country thing, which is apparently a rift that will take a Paisley/Buck 65 duet to heal. Regardless, Timmy’s cheesecloth-thin arrangement and Jeff Foxworth-eh shtick make me feel like I did when I first heard “The Hockey Song”: is that it?
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Jonathan Bradley: You know that stand-up comedian who think his jokes become twice as funny when he tells them over a simple acoustic guitar chord progression? Tim Hicks is that guy. But: beer. Now I can’t really speak to Canadian beer (Moosehead is fine) but I’ve been hearing Australians crack making-love-in-a-canoe jokes about US brews for pretty much ever, even though up until about five years ago, it was darn near impossible to buy Yank-made beer in our stores. I swear it was this absurd prejudice that caused us for so long to import extensively from Europe and Asia while ignoring one of the most creative and well-developed craft beer markets in the world. And “Stronger Beer” is just silly considering American brewers are, if anything, conducting an arms race over who can produce the hoppiest, most bitter, most alcoholic double-strength rye super-IPA or whatever. Anyway, back to Tim Hicks. Canada, you’re better represented by Drake. Honest-to-god, Drake!
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David Lee: Instead of hiring a murderers row of songwriters and producers to craft this song, as is often done in Nashville, Tim Hicks seems to have recruited eager trolls from /r/canada. I’ll grant this a few points for flipping the genre most often employed as a vehicle for ra-ra USA patriotism to poke fun at his “southern neighbor.”
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Alfred Soto: Here’s novelty: another defensive red state anthem, but from — get this — Canada! Keanu Reeves and banjo pickin’ are supposed to go together like Timmys and Dunkin Donuts. Keanu Reeves? In 2013? Jason Aldean and Toby Keith have Twitter accounts, for god’s sake.
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