I DON'T ALWAYS DRINK URINE, BUT WHEN I DO, I PREFER ‘DOS EQUIS’

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Back in my Bay Street Daze, if you had asked me to recommend one beer, I probably would have answered,
“I don’t know. But if you’re only going to have one beer, you might as well make it six Mickey’s”.



I didn’t know Diddley about beer back then. Like every stupid male, I probably thought I did though. Truth is, I knew less about beer than Bo knew about hockey.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjpSH8qJ7c4

To be honest, if you had asked me in 1982 what the best beer was, I probably would have said something like, “Heileman’s Special Export”.



Uhp! I was an idiot! But ‘Heileman’s’ still stood half a degree higher than the Coors Light that Nappy and the other League members generally drank.

Nowadays, Nappy and I both consider ourselves to be something resembling ‘beer connoisseurs’, which is just a ten-dollar way of saying “suds snobs”. We would no sooner touch a can of Coors Light or Heileman’s Special Export as touch your Grandma Gertrude.

So when people today ask me to recommend a beer, I usually say: “I won’t say unless you pay”.

I mean, come on! I spent a lot of money over the years and suffered through a lot of bad beers to achieve my extensive knowledge of beer, and why should I pass all that “extensivisity” on to others free of charge? Isn’t it enough I would save your taste buds from the bad-beer-experimentation process without asking me to do that for nuttin’?

Alright, alright, leggo my arm! Stop twisting it! I’ll say, I’ll say!

The beer-judging template that many adhere to these days goes like this: Look / Smell / Taste / Feel / Overall. So I will keep up with the Joneses by using the same format.

Today we’ll be rating Prescott Brewing Company’s ‘PONDEROSA I.P.A.’ (psst… I.P.A. stands for India Pale Ale, which is a particular type of ale). And here’s my take on it :



Look – It spills out of the can into the glass like a drunken blonde falling out of a limousine, and it forms a large, tightly curled head with the height of a 1975 afro. It’s a deep copper color, the shade of a four-times used but still unflushed urinal. As you consume the ale, the head leaves layers of heavy lacing, reminiscent of your Grandma Gertrude’s bedroom at the trailer park.

Smell - As you begin the pouring process, your nostrils are caressed by a scent best described as a damp dog on an Autumn day, wrapped in a moist wool blanket and left for 30 hours in the closed garage. The middle section reminds me of something smelled but not heard, and toward the end of your whiff, the odor softens out into that intoxicating convalescent home aroma of old flesh and ‘Evening In Pasadena’ perfume that excites your nasal cavity.

Taste – Up front, I noticed heavy notes of Yngwie Malmsteen followed by a hint of chuckberries and Bing cherries, culminating in a trace of Charlie McCarthy woodiness. There’s an astringent undertone of lima bean and things heard but seldom seen. This ale was unmistakably brewed with a generous portion of Harvey hops which gives it that bitter pill to swallow front-end bite, but in the middle I detect the tell-tale signs of mashed potatoes and gravy leftovers. It finishes clean but sharp, like a bullwhip to bare buttocks, with a faint lingering aftertaste of “penumbras, formed by emanations from” undigested bits of corn. For an IPA, it’s a little too balanced with the burnt Sherwood Forest marijuana, but it had “a nice, piquant after-dinner flavor; heady, but with just a touch of mellow smoothness.” (Although “it depends on what the meaning of the word ‘piquant’ is.”)

Feel – The mouthfeel has the usual 40-weight chewiness we’ve come to expect from ales of this style, but despite that, I was left with the impression that there’s no ‘there’ there. It also has a unique hair-on-the-back-of-the-throat sensation that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. The carbonation was fizzy but NOT too fizzy, and NOT not fizzy enough. In other words, it had just the right amount of carbonation fizz, but it could have lasted a second or two longer in the mouth which would have improved this ale’s tongue presentation – you know, like, tongue presentation?

Overall – As I clearly said above, this is an excellent India Pale Ale! It could have been improved only by less hops/marijuana balance, a little more ‘there’ there, and an extra second or two of fizz on the tongue. This is a brew that would go great with a hamburger or just a football game. Keep some on hand for when company calls or for when you’re done beating your wife for the day.

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I hope you enjoyed that. But here’s the problem with satire:

You can’t make up anything anymore. The world itself is a satire. All you’re doing is recording it.
~ Art Buchwald

As a writer I’ve come up against a kind of wall that is starting to exist in America, which is that . . . there’s hardly anything left to parody. Almost anything you try to do satirically comes true within a few months.
~ Cathy Crimmins

If you think those quotes are incorrect, read some of the critiques of beer you’ll find by clicking the links I’m providing below. These are REAL beer reviews, and many of them are scarcely less exaggerated than the “parody” I composed above. I was attempting to be as ridiculous as possible, and yet the pretentiousness of these “serious” suds suckers is hardly any more over-the-top than what I wrote.

Here are the links, but even if you don’t Click ‘N’ Read ‘em, please be sure to scroll down further, as I have mo’ words to pour out into the glass of this subject:

PONDERSOSA IPA

DEANS BROTHERS ESB 6

DEANS BROTHERS IPA 7

O'DELL'S IPA

OLD NUMBSKULL

In all seriousness now, I want you to know that my brother Nappy and I both think that Prescott Brewing Company’s ‘PONDEROSA India Pale Ale’ is one of the best IPAs on the market today. Over the last 6 months we have conducted two blind taste tests, matching ‘PONDEROSA IPA’ against 6 or 7 similar high-quality microbrews, and both of us, both times - with eyes closed - picked out ‘PONDEROSA IPA’ as the winner.

Prescott Brewing Company’s ‘PONDEROSA IPA’ has a distinctive, very pronounced burst of hop bitterness, but it’s not taken to the “xtreme” as are some microbrew IPAs on the market today. In my opinion, it has a slightly too-heavy aftertaste; I would prefer that it finished more cleanly, not lingering quite so long. I have come to the conclusion that there’s no such thing as “the perfect beer”, however, the ‘PONDEROSA IPA’ comes about as close to that impossible standard as any I’ve found. Buy Prescott Brewing Company’s ‘PONDEROSA IPA’ wherever good buzzes are sold!
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From ‘Forgotten But Not Gone’ :
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FRASIER CRANE: “Dad, tell me if you think this is too subtle for my listening audience: This delightful offering is infused with the brooding, almost dangerous, presence of . . . vanilla”.
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MARTIN CRANE: “No, that’s not too subtle . . .  unless you want them to know what the hell you’re talking about”.
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FRASIER: “Well, you don’t think it’s clear that I enjoyed the wine?”
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MARTIN: “I don’t think it’s clear you’re talking about wine”.
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~ Stephen T. McCarthy

YE OLDE COMMENT POLICY: All comments, pro and con, are welcome. However, ad hominem attacks and disrespectful epithets will not be tolerated (read: "posted"). After all, this isn’t Amazon.com, so I don’t have to put up with that kind of bovine excrement.
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