beer

COORS LIGHT—Best enjoyed when it’s free

My Fellow Inebriates,

Our next-door neighbor has a sign on his lawn that reads:

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along with some gardening implements and…a chainsaw.

Amazingly, since yesterday the free hoe and spade have disappeared, but the free chainsaw remains.

This is astonishing given how many tween- and teenaged boys walk this road to and from school. What one of them wouldn’t want his own chainsaw? Especially without having to undergo the red tape involved in requesting such a tool from one’s parents.

That the chainsaw is a hedge trimmer shouldn’t limit its appeal. Are potential miscreants concerned, perhaps, that it’s broken and not worth the hassle? Or is our neighborhood gentler than I thought?

MayJune2011-001-free-rocksI don’t want a chainsaw—OMG, can you imagine?—but when one is lying at the foot of a grass-mounted sign that says “FREE,” the urge to take it is strong. Researchers have demonstrated that people will avail themselves of free things even if they have absolutely no use for them. In a famous study, people were invited to take “free rocks” from a sidewalk stall, and many of them did just that. Because they were free.

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This is exactly why I had a COORS LIGHT the other day. It was free. Somebody said, “Hey, do you want a beer? Sorry, it’s COORS LIGHT.” And of course I said yes.

Straw-yellow and blandly corn-flavored with frothy foam, its aroma wafted a veritable periodic table of unwanted metals. Cold temperatures are indeed a friend to COORS LIGHT; while cold it is mercifully flavorless, but as its temperature increases, so does its ability to deposit lingering, unwelcome aftertastes.

But I’m being a douchebag here. COORS LIGHT has no pretensions of “sessionability” or even quaffability. It’s a straight hockey beer and fully capable of delivering refreshment after you’ve, say, trimmed the hedge, cursed your crappy hedge trimmer and resolved to buy a new one, then left it on your lawn with an open invitation for anyone, including neighborhood children, to take it home.

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ALHAMBRA LAGER—Happiness in a bottle (or at least some kind of ALHAMBRA brew, maybe not this particular one; you can blame my sweaty mother for not clarifying)

My Fellow Inebriates,

Everywhere she goes, my mother ends up conversing with strangers about alcohol. Sometimes she doesn’t even initiate it; people just mention beer or wine when she’s around. She must have a “lush” vibe.

The latest recommendation came in a Superstore lineup. To be accurate, it was addressed to the cashier, not my mother. The dude in line behind her, asked how he was, gave an actual answer, saying he was brilliantly happy—mostly because of his hobby: drinking unusual beers from around the world.

4460What was his favorite? The cashier didn’t ask, but he volunteered that it was ALHAMBRA from Spain. Presumably not being a lush herself, the cashier didn’t elicit which ALHAMBRA brew, and my mother, not having pushed her way into the conversation and being filthy and sweaty following a morning workout, didn’t either. But she did get showered and make a beeline for the liquor store that afternoon, where she bought the only ALHAMBRA brew on offer: the lager.

Based on the Superstore dude’s demeanor we surmised that ALHAMBRA must be happiness in a bottle. And we were all the more disposed to try it given that Spain has been rocking our world oenologically lately.

Another plus: 6.4% alcohol. Happiness in a bottle indeed.

ALHAMBRA LAGER’s first impression is a skunkiness not dissimilar to Grolsch’s. I don’t mind skunky beers but my dad—who wasn’t thrilled in the first place that a lager had come home—had reservations about it.

The color is rich gold with a generous creamy head. On the skunky spectrum it rates “intriguing,” stopping well short of “disturbing.” I couldn’t wait for the first sip.

Ahhhh! ALHAMBRA’s generous ABV gives it some welcome heft, making it more than a fizzy Eurobooze vehicle. Round and substantial with punchy carbonation, it strikes hard with sweet malt, corn, and moderate hoppiness. It’s not a one-note beer—maybe a three-note beer—and it’s weighty enough to be an effective “transition beer” for those months when the weather doesn’t know what the hell it’s doing and if you didn’t have a calendar you wouldn’t know it was April and not either March or June.

I doubt our fellow Superstore customer was talking about this specific ALHAMBRA offering in his ravings to the cashier (who said she preferred wine). Chances are our government-run liquor store buys the most mass-market variety ALHAMBRA brew. Which is fine because I was enchanted with the 6.4% ABV. I loved it, people, and it even tasted pretty good.

PHILLIPS SLIPSTREAM CREAM ALE—by the hundreds, please

My Fellow Inebriates,

Who knows whether all elementary schools celebrate “100 Day,” but it’s a huge deal here. V’s class is an all-out party with cupcakes, party hats, and prizes. Meanwhile, P and her classmates are dressing up as decagenarians and going apeshit with cupcakes, etc. With all this revelry, you may wonder if they do any work in kindergarten and/or grade 2.

They do. The grade twos had a math test, while kindergartner V was tasked with identifying 100 things she would like…

V loves marshmallows...

V loves marshmallows…

And 100 things she would not like…

But not, er...poo

But not, it seems, poo

Encouragingly, V’s teacher hasn’t called our parents in for a meeting to discuss why V was the only kid to identify excrement as something she wouldn’t like in quantities of 100. No doubt other kids chose items like broccoli and tuna casserole, but V marches to a different drummer.

So kudos go to P for declaring her math test “the best part of her day” (sarcasm?) and to V for being an original. She steals my heart the most when she says, “Do you want a beer, LB?” Then her eyes go zanily wide and she says, “HAVE A BEER!”

phillips slipstream creamaleA good idea, and continuing through the Phillips sampler pack, we next hit SLIPSTREAM CREAM ALE. Red-amber with a thick off-white foam that leaves a ring of lace around the glass, it exudes the “house aroma” we’ve been experiencing as we go through the pack—nothing offensive, just something unplaceable that ties all four Phillips offerings together. The overall scent is malty-nutty and a tad metallic, but otherwise not too differentiated from your typical cream ale—and yet, there is that Phillips redolence…

On the palate you get malt up front with some caramel and woodsy-fruity notes playing backup. The metallic quality amplifies on the tastebuds, but not obnoxiously. This is a decent beer, but with the sort of complexity that messes with your head; you wonder if that flavor is an exotic hop combination or…metal?

One thing Phillips gets right on the money is the mouthfeel. SLIPSTREAM CREAM ALE is creamy and smooth with a luxurious finish I wouldn’t have expected for all its punchy carbonation. It puts me in mind of an old-fashioned bar with peanut shells on the floor, and only an idiot bear would have a problem with that.

Of the four in the sampler pack, SLIPSTREAM CREAM ALE was close to being my favorite. That dubious honor goes, surprisingly, to ANALOGUE 78, the lightest of the bunch (although all four clocked in at 5% ABV).

I’d like a hundred bottles of SLIPSTREAM CREAM ALE. Or a hundred cases. Just not a hundred poos.