Producer Douglas Petrie says despite the intensely negative reaction of the fans to seeing Buffy being "battered about by the forces of college" and being treated so callously by Parker, they had to "ride that out" until now because "we didn't want her to find her strength immediately in this new setting."
In an interview, Joss Whedon revealed doubts he and David Solomon had about the quality of the script: "The fourth season's Beer Bad wasn't everyone's cup of tea, especially with Buffy fans". Solomon had some doubts but it turned out to be better than he expected. "Joss wasn't entirely pleased with this story," he says. "He came into my office at the last minute with the script and said to me, 'I tried to make it better but all I did was make it funnier.' I took that to mean, 'We're not exactly sure what this is supposed to be about so just enjoy yourself.' So I actually had a ball doing it. It was a laugh to watch frat boys turn into cavemen and have Buffy affected by the same thing that was affecting them. We just let everyone go 'crazy' and nothing all bad came out of it."
While this is often called one of the worst by fans and critics, Joss Whedon has a different perspective: "It's interesting, every single episode contains an attempt to do something real, and contains at least one or two lines that crack me up, or one or two moments that genuinely shock me. I know there are ones that are not favorites among fans. And there are definitely ones where I scratch my head and go, "You know, this seemed a great idea on paper." But I never actually singled one out and went, "Here's a total failure." .... "Everyone always talks about the Frankenstein one, but I think it has some beautiful stuff in it. And I think the same thing about "Beer Bad," where Buffy goes all cave man. A lot of people groan at that one, but I think it has some lovely stuff in it."
In 2017, Kal Penn tweeted some photos of scripts from his earliest days of Hollywood auditions for small roles on TV shows and in commercials to show how often he (as an Indian American actor) was asked to portray a white screenwriter's stereotypical, offensive idea of a foreigner. But he also singled out this episode of Buffy as one of his few positive experiences during that time that didn't rely on ethnic or racist stereotypes: "There are too many in this stack [of old scripts] to tweet, I'll be here all day. That said, there were also some wonderful 1st audition & work experiences! Stuff like Steve Harvey, Buffy, Angel, 24, really smart, creative people who didn't have to use external things to mask subpar writing."
Xander's fake ID is a mock-up of an Ohio driver's license, with a zip code (43226) located on the far north side of Columbus.