urine

4 drinks (or is it 5?) to make that Hitler birthday party a success

As much as I doubt any of my fellow inebriates would celebrate Adolf Hitler’s birthday today, I thought I’d better provide some booze suggestions for any party planners drifting through this space today. After all,  if you fit into any of the celebratory categories listed below, you probably need some help.

As impossible as it was to find beverages commensurate with the occasion and/or the ideological enthusiasm involved, I do have a few choice reviews that might do in a pinch for anyone wearing a party hat labeled Mein Führer. Without further ado, the categories:

  1. You believe the Holocaust did not happen.

    CATEGORY 1
    Offensive but impossible to take seriously

     

  2. You do believe the Holocaust happened, and you think it was awesome.

    CATEGORY 2
    Redolent of chicken coop

     

  3. You entertain both premises simultaneously while you await evidence not yet provided by 60 years of historical scholarship.

    CATEGORY 3
    For people with incongruous tastes and ideas

     

  4. In addition to evincing skepticism about the Holocaust (while applauding it), you dispute evolution, anthropogenic global warming, and the Big Bang, along with the absurd corollary that the earth exceeds 6,000 years of age.

    CATEGORY 4
    For those who need no assistance with mind alteration

     

I trust the selected doubleplusgood beverages will capture and reflect your enchantment with Hitler, not to mention get you into a mellow space to appreciate this video of the late Christopher Hitchens effortlessly disemboweling both John Metzger and his dad. Cheers.

And because, let’s face it, I’ve been monumentally unfair to the undeserving brewers and vintners depicted above*…a bonus beverage.

Bottoms up, Neo-Nazis!

*who have, to my knowledge, absolutely no association or sympathy with the neo-Nazi movement

ROGUE DEAD GUY ALE—Welcome in our fridge (although apparently a lot of things are)

My Fellow Inebriates,

If you want a beer in our house, you have to reach past a sample jar of urine in the fridge. It doesn’t need to be there, but a certain four-year-old is so pleased with herself for having produced it that no one dares remove it.

If my parents think this is a good way to keep bears away, they are wrong. To mark the fridge as territory, Miss V would have to let loose her number one on the whole appliance, not place a neatly sealed jar beside the margarine. Just saying, parents.

Who am I kidding? I don’t have any thumbs. I’m beholden to my parents. I get to sample beer when they do. Sigh.

Both kids are still sick, cuddled together under a blanket with yours truly trembling beside, hoping Gravol can thwart a vomit splattering.

On the upside, it did make for an easy bedtime last night, which left us bears and my parents free to catch up on Fringe, accompanied by a beer: ROGUE DEAD GUY ALE. My dad bought a few onesies this week, including Friday’s disastrous FRÜLI, in a bid to get out of our beer comfort zone and into some experimental territory. DEAD GUY ALE promised to be more of a beer than FRÜLI, and it certainly was.

We used the Reidel stemless glasses to get a good look at it. Slightly hazy amber, DEAD GUY ALE displays white foam and good lacing. The aroma is roasty, herbal, and slightly citrus with some yeastiness—very promising. The flavor jibes nicely: brisk and citrus with just enough carbonation; this ale suggests a mineral spring, flowers, possibly trying on dresses. The mouthfeel is reasonably substantial, even a little sticky. Hoppy bitterness punches through each sip, balancing nicely with the malt but perhaps not delivering the deeper caramel tones we generally favor at LBHQ.

There’s quite a lot going on in DEAD GUY ALE—a little too much for my mother, whose bandwidth of beer preferences is not terribly wide. She passed her glass over to my dad, who accepted it happily. For me it was like a game of keepaway—they didn’t pour me my own glass, peeps, so I had to do some ducking and weaving to get a share.

DEAD GUY ALE is interesting stuff. A little IPA, a little Bock—a 6.5% party in a 650mL bottle. Maybe not something we’d get again, but I’d certainly rather see it in the fridge than a urine sample.