Evil Twin Molotov Lite

Apparently I am supposed to try all of the Evil twin beers in the most unusual scenarios possible. First there was the Nomader Weiss which suggested I drink it in some New York City Park at night, yet my first sip came in a Louisville Asian bistro which featured a tempura fried Twix desert.
Now comes the Molotov Lite which I had to drink at an end of year Daisy party.

You are probably asking yourself, what is Daisy party? Is it cool? Are they every Friday? Can I dress up like a llama?
The answers are: 1) Daisys are the warmup for young lads in the Girl Scout system. They can graduate to brownies and eventually full on Girl Scouts. Don't ask me what the differences are between each stage of Girl Scoutdom, all I now is my daughter got patches (one for attending a Daisy dance) and did have to sell cookies which meant I had to sell cookies. 2) As far as 7 year old parties with no birthday involved go, it was cool. 3) Maybe they are every Friday. It would be weird if I knew the answer to that. 4) No, you cannot dress up like a llama. But I've only been to one Daisy party so, I'm not confident that you cannot dress up like a llama.
Anyway, while the girls celebrated the end of the year which included meeting ONCE A MONTH, I decided to it was time to find the other Dads. This wasn't the easiest task. As you probably suspected, with no one in a llama suit in attendance, the Daisy party doubled as a Moms eating pizza and talking about the Daisy party.
Fortunately, the house where it was held included a man living in it. And this man likes beer. He was under strict orders though that A) if he were found, under no circumstances was he supposed to be offering alcoholic beverages to other adults and B) Well, I assume there were other rules, we just didn't have a conversation that would have given him reason to disclose those.
There are plenty of reasons not to potentially inebriate a bunch of people at a party for 6 and 7 year olds, and handing out beer I guess could fall into that category. But then again, once I saw the 8.5% alcohol content warning on the can of the Molotov Lite, I now understood that our hostess might have been onto something. It's one thing to responsibly get lightly buzzed at the Daisy party, but an unsuspecting sloshing could lead to a lot of rumors for next year's Daisy party.
Good thing you can really taste the booze here. I love beer. Overly alcohol flavored beers aren't exactly my thing so I did the responsible thing, and poured a little of it down the drain. Sorry Evil Twin.

It wasn't that it tasted bad, it just wasn't my flavor and having to drink it in some dark corner while watching 6 and 7 year olds from a window felt, well, a little weird. I didn't want to start any marriage problems for our pizza eating Daisy hosting hosts and, well, I didn't like it enough to be an asshole. So the circumstances to actually try to enjoy this beer were far from ideal. I did appreciate the can explaining that "in dark days" when beer was "tasteless," led to a creation of this sort.
So again, I think I owe the Evil Twin an apology for not adhering to his rules of beer enjoyment, but sometimes life takes you to a Daisy party and we just have to do the best we can.

Pinner Throwback IPA

So I'm at Tyler's new place in West Hartford attending his 4 year old son Samson's birthday party. It morphed into a super hero water fight which was..... Fine..
Tyler's Dad is Ron Ronald who owns City Steam in Hartford (just read the post on Innocence IPA for more background) blah blah blah blah..
OK, so as you might expect, I'm not the only friend Tyler has who A) likes discussing the various new beers out there and B) has a 4 year old who thinks being in a Super Hero water fight is the coolest thing on planet Earth.
So the tour began through a number of City Steam varieties (assuming you read the earlier post as directed, I shouldn't have to explain why this is a likely outcome) which included an amazing *Export Lager and a new one from the new brewmaster Sam that involved 110 pounds of fresh raspberries. And yet somehow it didn't taste like a Bartles and James Cooler.
One friend brought a Belgian red and a separate European sour. This isn't my thing. But then again I didn't think Gose was my thing either (I found out they pronounce it with one syllable even though the Internet says otherwise) and I was surprised.
But I'd already tried three different City Steams so by the time we got around to the Belgian Reds, I was ready to use "driving my kids home" as an excuse to stop. Disclaimer time: I don't drink my kids drunk, ever. Seriously. Clearly I like to day drink but most of the time they aren't there or I'm not at Tyler's house where the beer is too good to pass up.
OK, where was I? Oh yeah, more drinking as I explain to my wife that she'll be driving them home. So Tyler pulls out Pinner Throwback IPA which says on the can is made in North Carolina, but he says started in Denver and is "about to blow up." The timing of this next sentence was crucial: "It's low alcohol." Bingo. Daddy drunkard just got himself what we in the biz like to call "an excuse."
I'm not sure I'd go so far as to call 4.9% "low" but when in Rome with heavy laden alcoholic beer drinkers..

Tyler says it is one of his recent go to varieties and I can see why quickly, the aroma is just fresh. You think Colorado when you smell it, mountain air and the like. It's kind of like walking outside at a mountainous lake town and taking that first deep breath.
The smoothness is almost unreal from start to finish considering that IPA is included in the description.
I smelled and even kind of tasted some banana in there but I was wearing a Viking hat at this point and was openly rooting for a child dressed as Captain America to win the birthday battle. So my state of mind wasn't exactly in diplomatic relations with Iran mode. Which made me immediately go buy a six pack of it and, upon being beer one, still remained smooth and satisfying.

*Lesson learned about lager and why the craft boom hasn't quite swung this way. Tyler explained to me that it takes a considerable amount of time longer then say an IPA for that beer to be ready to be distributed. Thus making it more expensive. Throw in the "people think of Bud and Miller" as lager and you can understand why educating that lager can be of a different quality is a tough sell on the people who want to make beer their business. Point is, if you are in Hartford and find yourself at City Steam, ask if they have some of the Export Lager. It helps change those opinions quickly.

New Belgium Fat Tire

Airlines got it wrong with the bag fees. The generation below me will only know this as the norm, but me: frequent traveler knows there was a time not that long ago that all the airlines charged you nothing to check your bags. Zero.  #NeverForget.
Southwest Airlines remains the lone hold out of the majors. So let me start by saying that I love Southwest if for no other reason I don't have to swipe my credit card to get them to take my bag and I know that I won't be dealing with 38 yahoos who didn't check their bag and are going to try to squeeze it between by femur and the 4 inches of leg room provided in 23 B all for the sake of saving $25.

So Southwest makes me happy because swiping a credit card just to get on the plane you already paid to ride is a behavior I'll never overcome. #NeverForget. 

Here's another huge plus for Southwest, if you do want to fork over a marginal fee, you can get into the first 3 rows on the plane. And while there are no free drinks and no extra leg room, you still get that feel of being in better then economy class. I like this because like most pampered Americans, I feel like I have a right to be treated better then everyone around me AND not pay for that! 

Here's the downside to Southwest if you are like me (rarely paying for that upgrade) and don't think about checking in online at exactly 24 hours before my scheduled departure. You end up with a boarding pass in the back of the line. Get that dreaded "C" and you know you are going to have to pick and choose who is going to hate you for not passing them over and selecting that other middle seat. It pays to be fat and ugly with an "A"boarding pass. The only people who'll "want" that middle seat next to you are the people who are left with no choice. 

Anyway, I got a high "B" for this flight to Baltimore. We'll be less then an hour in the air, so while I know I'm probably settling for a middle seat, it won't be for an unconscionable amount of time. Now the question is, who is the unlucky sucker who lost their precious space because I picked their row? 

As a Southwest Airlines vet, I now have a good guesstimate of whether I can steal a back of the plane window or aisle before scanning my boarding pass so my game plan turns to surveying the first 5 rows for anyone dumb enough to pass over an easy exit for a roll of the dice in the back. After plesantries with the welcoming flight attendants (which I assume is mandatory at Southwest based on their kitschy nonchalant announcement Schtick) I'm in full on game mode. Within 20 seconds I have spotted my row, my victims. And now I must in the most pleasant and apologetic tone, explain that there are no more Windows or aisles and I am forced to make a middle seat selection and today, my friend, is not your lucky day. "If it wasn't me, it'd be someone else," I'd tell them with the look of, hey, I'm pretty thin, pleasant and clearly have acceptable hygiene. Don't complain. 

The first reaction tells you everything you need to know about your neighbors. Complete eye aversion as they let you get settled is a sign of dissapintment and complete dislike for you and everything you stand for. Some give you the "I understand, come on in, this is a safe place, but it won't be where we talk about life." And then there is Mara, the woman I selected to give up her middle seat freedom. She was welcoming, almost to the point of wiping down my seat so I'd feel like this would be as close to a spa experience as possible. Jackpot.

Mara is a friendly people person. I didn't know this when I picked her row, but was happy to know my instincts about which row to pick were spot on. 

I gave Mara the whole, "I hate being the bad guy" spiel in dissapointing her into that feint belief that she'd get lucky and have that row for her and the silent person staring out the windows in seat A. Mara didn't care, seemed happy to have company and started chatting. She works in the medical industry. I don't pay close enough attention to people so I couldn't tell you if it was a device or pills she was hawking or if she was working on teaching a new procedure to help with some awful ailment. I think it was the latter, regardless, it sounded like she was doing good in the world about something I'd care to think about as little as possible. So I'm good at faking that I'm not a shithead. Whatever. 

Mara and I hit it off in the way that plane mates hit it off. A feigned interest in where each other is heading and what they are doing there, what are families are like and whatever else a broadcaster and medical specialist can possibly talk about for 15 minutes. That's when the drink cart made it's way to us. 

That's when Mara turned to me and offered her Southwest free drink coupon. Another point in the pro column for this airline. They give away drinks the way I used to give away the bar when I tended it on our special fraternity night at the Georgetown spot  that literally didn't care how old you were to get in. 

I accepted gracefully and asked which beers they had. Pretty standard selections: Miller Lite, Heineken, something else like that and, shockingly, Fat Tire. 

I have a special place in my heart for this beer. It might be the first beer I encountered where I realized that not all beer has to taste like... (I'm not going to say it because I appreciate the Millers and Anheiser Busch's of the world too much but you know what I mean).
Sam Adams may have enlightened the casual drinker to what Craft beer can be. Fat Tire was the one that I happened on during my travels out west (when you could only get it west of the Mississippi River) where my eyes and taste buds were opened. This was eons ago.  So I have a nostalgic feel about it, like it was my first beer girlfriend. My long distance relationship with a beer I could never have with me 24/7.
Things have clearly changed for Fat Tire becoming one of the selections on a major airline beverage cart.
Having been on a beer journey with the craft explosion, I wondered for a moment before taking that first Southwest sip whether I'd still appreciate or like it as much as I used to. I hadn't had a Fat Tire in years. You can find it on the east coast readily now but based on the amount of craft options, going for new, younger varieties has more appeal. So it has been a while since me and one of my first loves had a real moment. This was our time. In Row 3 B, next to Mara on our way to Baltimore, discussing medical maladies and the merits of having a dog versus having a child (Mara's dilemma)
Was it as good as I remembered? Frankly, no. But that seems to fall in line with any relationship with anything. That old long distance girlfriend probably won't have that same appeal 20 years later. Neither does the McRib or Mardi Gras.
But it's still wonderful. I appreciate the goal of setting an American  standard in Belgian style brewing. It's deep orange color is close to the shade of the Texas Longhorns logo. It's aftertaste is sweet. The amber ale is very smooth. There is an orange tinge to it, but like a version where the fruit isn't exactly ripe yet.
But there ultimately is not a lot of distinction to it, but that has more to do with the amount of competition it has then it's sheer quality.
Fat Tire was a game changer in my beer drinking experience. A right of passage from the days of drinking Mickeys Big Mouth and the garden variety big brands. Here's hoping it's remembered for a legacy is helped set whether you are drinking it in the Rocky Mountains or flying over them in 3B next to your carefully chosen flying companion. #NeverForget

Two Roads Evil Twin Collaboration Geyser Gose

So back to Vermont where I had the showdown of Treehouse versus Sip of Sunshine. We'll call that one a draw. The wild card in the whole shin dig was the introduction to Gose (pronounced Go-zah or Go-Zay, or who the fuck knows really). I've never had a Gose before. Keep reading asshole. It's not like this is right next to the 12 packs of Natty Bo. In fact I never heard of a Gose before this night. Keep reading asshole. Do you know what Tempranillo is? You don't. Now shut up.

So, while this night turned into the "Treehouse is the unicorn of beers versus groovy groovy groovy Sip of Sunshine," the Gose was the most memorable thing probably because, as you the asshole already know, it's as unique a beer as one can find. And good thing the first version I tried of this was the Evil Twin Two Roads Collaboration Geyser Gose, because it is one of the most memorable beer experiences I've ever had.

It's an ale brewed with Icelandic Moss (can't be easy to procure. "Hi Sir, and what aisle could I find your Icelandic Moss?"), herbs, kelp (I didn't even know kelp was a real thing, always thought it was slang), and sea salt. Let me tell you something, that sounds awful, like the most awful thing ever put in a glass.

Once poured, it smells like the Atlantic Ocean, specifically the areas where you'd find a ton of stringy seaweed covering the sand At sunrise. It was extremely salty to the nose as well, kind of like walking around Portland Maine.
So you have to get over the description and the smell because this basically is nothing like beer, it's like something you assumed the Vikings forced their young to feed on. So, I closed my eyes, considered pinching my nose and took a sip. And it was... Great.  It's wildly unique like eating a fresh oyster for the first time, briny, salty, really unusual. But it's strangely like an aphrodisiac. It's crisp and has this vague touch of Sunkist Orange soda.
It's a burnt orange in color with the head almost disappearing as quickly as it is poured, kind of like low tide.
The salt really overwhelms the beer but ends up clean and extremely palatable. That first sip is like that unique scotch where you question how you could possibly like this but then it grows on you fast.

So the Evil Twin has done it again, forced me to like something that borders on the bizarre. I now know that Gose isn't as rare as it would seem to this good ole American drinker, but it is certainly a massive change up to whatever your or my flavor of the week happens to be. And it turned the Treehouse v Sip O Sunshine debate into a 3 party race.