Go ahead, make my beer: Something’s brewing out West, and Clint Eastwood hopes he makes a killing off it. The actor has made a deal with Celis Brewery of Austin to brew a signature beer, the proceeds from which Eastwood will donate to charity. "Pale Rider," a slightly hoppy ale named for the 1985 western, was debuted in July at the star’s private party in Carmel, California, and is now being sold in Texas, California, New Mexico, and Colorado. In true Eastwood spirit, Pale Rider’s label states, "No one will ever forget the day it came to town." Celis Brewmaster Peter Camps did his best to cement this idea when he rode down Congress Avenue atop a stagecoach to promote the new brew. Pale Rider Ale took seven months for the seven-year-old Belgian-style brewery to develop and test, and the beer is now available at bars, restaurants, and in stores all around Austin. With its fortuitous timing, perhaps Pale Rider Ale will become the official beer of the SXSW Film Festival that takes place this month.

European Rice: Rice University will be the model for a private university to be established in Bremen, Germany, the first private university in Europe. The Houston college was chosen as a prototype for its small size, low faculty-to-student ratio, and high academic standards, qualities apparently lacking in the German higher education system where currently, students might outnumber professors 600 to 1. The Bremen University will be erected as a science and engineering college, and among other opportunities, will provide Rice students more chances to study abroad. Rice will send two professors to plan the new academic syllabus and help put it into place, and it is hoped that members of the Rice board will act on the Bremen board of trustees. Once the school is up and running – somewhere around the turn of the millennium – faculty will be regularly exchanged between the two campuses. German educators studied other American universities, including MIT, Indiana, University of California at Berkley, and University of Maryland before choosing Rice. The Bremen University will be unique in that it will be funded by business, private donations and student tuition instead of government monies.

Enormous Ensign: A Mexican flag the size of half a football field raised on the banks of the Rio Grande in Nuevo Laredo in January has created feelings of patriotic rivalry across the river in sister city Laredo, Texas. The planetary pennant, measuring 164 feet by 94 feet, is half the height of San Antonio’s tower of the Americas, many times larger than the Alamo, and as wide as the wingspan of a Boeing 737. And its glorious wave, lit by spotlights and visible from many Laredo neighborhoods as well as Interstate 35, has prompted city council members to pursue the possibility of flying their own stars and stripes forever on the US side of the river. It’s an expensive prospect though; according to the national sales director of a flag manufacturing company in San Antonio, a streamer that size would put the city back about $25,000. The two giant flags side by side would be an awesome sight to see, and the city is hoping the private sector might be able to get the idea off the ground.

(3/1/98)