St. Maarten - Goldilocks and the Three Beers

With all our work on the generator done, we decided we'd head over to the French side to do a little sightseeing and sample some French cuisine. We got all dressed up (for us, this means wearing a t-shirt with no stains or holes) and dinghied over to Marigot, the capital on the French side. There was a pretty boardwalk surrounding the marina with lots of shops and restaurants. Only problem was that everything was closed! So much for our fancy french lunch! There was one restaurant open, a creperie, so we had a meal there and ordered beers. Although they were the same price Kevin made the mistake of ordering a Heineken. When the waiter brought out his beer I almost mistook it for a jar of tabasco sauce, it was that tiny! Something like 7.5 ounces. It's surprising because we see everyone drinking Heineken, paying the same price as other beers and getting much less for their money. It made me very curious -- I know Heineken is a premium beer but it's not THAT good. Over lunch we decided that since fate didn't want us to take a day off to sightsee, we would spend the rest of the day running errands so we headed back to the Dutch side of the island.

The first stop was finding a laundry. We found one but of course it was closed on Sundays. Then we stopped by the market to pick up some bread and produce. By the time we got there it was closed, having only been open a few hours in the morning. We were able to fill up some jerry jugs with fuel and water, but by this time it was nearly 5pm and we'd barely accomplished anything. But at least the bars were open so we stopped in at Shrimpy's and ordered beers (both Carib this time). Another boater stepped up to the bar next to us and ordered a Miller lite and a Heineken. Curiosity had gotten the better of me so I asked the bartender why the Heinekens were so small and she said she didn't know, to her it seemed silly to just order a "sip of beer". Then she said "let me show you something" and pulled out a bottle of Presidente (12 oz). Next to the big Presidente our 10 oz Caribs looked like a momma bear portion and the Heinekin was clearly baby bear-sized. I finally solved the mystery when I asked a French guy why the Heinekens were so small. It's very logical really. The Dutch brewers have figured out exactly how much cold beer an average person can drink before it starts getting warm. So smaller bottles means you never end up with warm beer for the last swig. So that mystery is solved, but here's one for you: does Heineken come in bigger bottles in the US because Americans drink faster than the Dutch?