Miserable damp weather, dragged into work early where there's nothing but a litany of complaints to sort-out, car dropped off to be fixed and returned slightly more broken, and when I went to get my lunch I got stuck behind some addled twit who insisted on arguing with the clerk for twenty-five minutes about the fact that the cherry pound-cake he was trying to buy wasn't on sale when the regular kind was (a savings of $0.79, I might add), and when I tried to switch lanes 400,000,000 people appeared at both other tills, all with carts brimming as though they were shopping for the Apocalypse.
But during the whole rotten day (slightly mitigated by the catharsis of beating a man to death with his own pound-cake), there was one shining beacon waiting for me at home. What kept me going? I knew I had beer in the fridge, and what's more, not just any beer.
This is Southern Tier's Unearthly Imperial IPA, and it tastes like a backrub feels. If life has handed you a great big drawing of a raised middle finger all day, coming home to crack one of these babies is like giving the ethereal etch-a-sketch a big ol' shake. Suddenly, All Is Well Again, and you can relax in a golden cloud of hops and lysed brain cells.
If you have not tasted this beer, then please download an iPhone app so that I can reach out over the Interwebs and slap you in the face. Then, go to your local private store (as you won't find it at the BCLDB) and buy one. Buy several, in case of emergency (shout-out to Cook St Liquor for carrying it).
Somehow, Southern Tier has created a beer that's packed with more hops than a rabbit smoothie but carries none of the bitterness you'd expect. It's a citrusy, chewy, stewy juggernaut that packs a wallop but never stings or bites, like being round-house kicked in the face by Chuck Norris while he's wearing cotton-candy slippers.
Unearthly indeed: with every sip, I can feel the accumulated slings and arrows of this earthly plane washing away, leaving only the transcendent carbonation of a well-made beer.
"Setting at eye-level with Snorri Sturluson
Who has come to bathe in a hot spring
And sit through the stillness after milking time
Laved and ensconced in the throne-room of his mind."
-Seamus Heaney
No comments:
Post a Comment