Ode on an IPA

Introduction

Sometimes when I’m feeling grateful for something, I am moved to write an ode to it. This is one of those times. Also, I’m planning to create a new category in the albertnet index, “Drink,” and it’ll be nice to have a fresh post to top the list.

The poem

Ode on an IPA

Of any beverage, I like beer the most.
But not just any rotgut swill will do.                        2
In fact, I’d like to now propose a toast:
To holding out for only first-rate brew.

What use have I for lagers, which are weak?
Or stouts and porters, cloying as they are?             6
It’s strength and bitterness my palate seeks.
In this regard, the IPA’s the star.

I can’t imagine any better booze:
It’s hard to beat in terms of ABV,                             10
And truly unsurpassed in IBUs,
With feisty hops that add to its esprit.

   So what should therefore fill our holy grail?
   A hearty, hazy India pale ale.                                 14

Footnotes & commentary

Title: Ode on

Why is it sometimes “ode on” and sometimes “ode to”? Beats me. I almost wrote “Keats me,” because it’s hard to think of “ode on” without remembering Keats’ famous “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” Hmm. Perhaps I can only speak for myself here. You may have no idea who Keats was. You might be saying, “Wasn’t he that groundbreaking economist?” No, that was Keynes. And I see we’re getting way off track here, only two words into the title of this freaking poem.

Title: IPA

It’s tempting to think if you don’t know what an IPA is, you’re on the wrong blog. But in fact you should read on … you’re about to be educated on something really important!

Line 1: beverage

I think “beverage” is a really corny word. It’s right up there with “luncheon.” I can hear it now: “Okay, ladies, what beverages would we like for our luncheon? Shall we set out doilies? Perhaps we can sit out on the veranda.” But I couldn’t use the word “drink,” because a) I’d have to fuss with the meter some more, and b) “drink” has connotations of alcoholic beverage, and I want to be clear that I like beer more than any other ingestible liquid, alcoholic or not. (I’m not counting water here; if I could only drink one thing the rest of my life, beer would be an obviously fraught choice.)

Line 2: rotgut swill

After reluctantly settling for “beverage” in the first line, I was very pleased to pen “rotgut swill will do.” I think “rotgut” is a word that deserves more usage, though we’re fortunate in our life circumstances if we have little need to trot it out. For guidance on using “rotgut” in a poem, click here.

Line 3: toast

Next time I have a drink with friends, I’ll propose a toast, and it’ll be this one: holding out for a first-rate brew. Of course, if my next drink happens to be a Coors Light, this would be a pretty hypocritical toast. Fortunately, the likelihood of that scenario is slim. This was not always the case, I hasten to add. As a starving student, I sometimes had to make do. For example, I was once headed to a BYOB BBQ (in this case, the “B” was for both “beer” and “beef”) and was hoping to mooch off my friend. Alas, he was hoping to mooch off of me. So we dug around in the change jar, under sofa cushions, etc. and came up with around five dollars total. This was enough to purchase some house brand chicken franks and buns (fortuitously on sale!) and a twelve-pack of Meister Brau, so we were good to go. In some ways I don’t really miss those days.

Line 5: lagers

In case you’re not an aficionado, there are essentially two main categories of beer: ales and lagers. There are wide variances within these, of course. Most watery American macro-brews (e.g., Coors, Budweiser, Miller) and most Mexican beers (e.g., Corona, Tecate, Pacifico) are lagers. Lagers really are weak and watery. This can be objectively confirmed by looking at their alcohol content and IBUs (more on this later). I’m tempted to say lagers are for people who don’t actually like beer and would like it to be as close to water as possible, but that’s not really fair. Lagers have their place, like after a really long, hot hike, or when you’re eating Mexican food, or when somebody offers you one.

(To the wise guy in the back claiming the two main categories of beer are regular and light: you are not funny, and there’s no valid reason to even acknowledge the existence of light beer.)

Line 6: stouts and porters, cloying

Full disclosure: I probably couldn’t tell a stout from a porter in a blind taste test, and I doubt I’m alone in this. But then, I’m no expert; as I said, I have little use for them. I almost wrote “stouts and lambics.” Although one source claims that lambic is actually the third main category of beer, it’s really not very common. It comes only from a single region in Belgium and although every one I’ve ever tried has been sweet, I’ve read they can be sour. I figured I ought to focus on beers readers are familiar with, rather than trying to act like some kind of know-it-all.

I do enjoy a Guinness now and then, actually, and though it really is kind of sweet, I will acknowledge that “cloying” is a bit of an exaggeration. (Chalk it up to poetic license.) I recently read somewhere a very believable account of why Guinness, a very low-alcohol ale, is so popular in Ireland: it has to do with the pub culture and the desire for patrons, typically men, to spend a very long time socializing there. A strong beer wouldn’t do; everyone would be passed out, unless they developed a strong tolerance, which would of course destroy their livers.

Line 7: strength and bitterness

I do like a strong taste, in pretty much everything. Ever been at a restaurant, and you ask the waiter about some fish entree, and he says, “Don’t worry, it’s mild, not too fishy”? I never got that. Why shouldn’t it taste fishy? It’s a fish! I never eat tilapia because it tastes like nothing. It’s the lager of fish.

The other sense of strength has to do with alcohol content, which I’ll get to later.

I’ll grant you that bitterness is an odd thing to desire, outside of the obvious metaphorical sense (i.e., “I want a beer as strong and bitter as I am!”). Bitter beer is certainly an acquired taste, just like strong black coffee, espresso, green tea, very dark chocolate, and arugula. (I personally don’t see the point of espresso, other than European affectation, but that’s why the Americano exists.)

I remember the first time I had an IPA. It was like fifteen years ago, and it was the excellent Racer 5 from Bear Republic Brewing Company in nearby Cloverdale, California. I was throwing a surprise birthday party for my friend Trevor. I chose Racer 5 without regard to its quality, actually: I simply liked that the “5” on the logo was red, because Trevor’s nickname was Red 5. (He was the best sprinter on our UCSB cycling team, and, particularly if he got a good lead-out, he almost never lost. I once gave him a lead-out and as I pulled off, I thought of the scene in Star Wars when Han Solo sets up Luke Skywalker to blow up the Death Star, and yells, “You’re all clear, kid!” Red 5 being the name of Luke’s X-wing fighter, I tried pinning that name to Trevor and it stuck.) At the party, a pal complimented me on my excellent taste in beer. At the time I totally disagreed: the Racer 5 was far too bitter for me. But now it’s one of my favorites.

Line 8: the star

This is a bit problematic, since arguably Stella Artois could claim to be the star since it’s their name, or Heineken because there’s a star on their label. But “star” makes sense here, and it rhymes properly, and I’m sticking with it.

Line 9: booze

The point here is that in my book, an IPA not only beats out other beers, but beer beats out all other alcoholic beverages. Mixed drinks can get you into trouble, as can the imprecision of pouring wine. Moreover, I just like beer.

Line 10: ABV

ABV is alcohol by volume expressed as a percentage: the other measure of a beer’s strength. Legend has it IPAs were stronger in order to survive the trip from England to India, but Wikipedia says this is a myth. For whatever reason, IPAs are traditionally more highly hopped than other beers, and stronger. Most beers put the ABV number right on the bottle. This is kind of handy if you’re making an effort to modulate your intake.

You might think I prefer a higher ABV because I want a strong buzz when I drink. Not so. I will readily admit that part of the point of beer is the alcohol, which is pleasant, and which does aid in relaxation at the end of the day, and helps ease any residual pain in my legs from a hard bike ride. But I’m a big guy and a 12-ounce, 5% lager just doesn’t do it for me, while two beers is more than I care to drink at a sitting. A 12-ounce IPA in the realm of 6.2% (the ABV of a Lagunitas IPA) or 7.5% (a Racer 5) is perfect. Two lagers would be like a 10% IPA; not even the Drake’s Denogginizer Double IPA has that (though it’s close).

Line 11: IBUs

IBU stands for International Bitterness Unit, an objective measurement of bitterness (details here). I’m not sure how scientific or accurate it truly is, but I do find it helpful. Anything over 50 is a good, strong beer. (A small number doesn’t mean a lousy beer; I like Fat Tire ale and it’s only 15, which is typical of a lager.) The highest I like to go is the Denogginizer at 90 IBUs. The main use for this figure, for me, is when I’m at a pub with my wife mansplaining to her what watery lager she’ll like the best.

Line 12: feisty

Did you know that the word “feisty” comes from the word “feist,” meaning a small mongrel dog, especially an ill-tempered one? Fun fact!

Line 12: hops

Hops make beer bitter, but that’s only part of the story. I think, or like to think, hops make beer sprightly in other ways. Maybe this is all in my head, but who cares? Placebos are legit.

Line 12: esprit

From the Latin spiritus, spirit. Pun intended.

Line 13: grail

Let’s not forget that a grail isn’t just something that’s sought after. It’s a chalice. And what’s the point of an empty vessel? Let’s fill it! With good beer!

Line 14: hazy

Lots of IPAs are hazy these days. Wikipedia says this is “achieved using a combination of brewing techniques, including the use of particular strains of yeast, the timing of adding the hops, and adjusting the chemistry of the water.” I just love the taste of a hazy IPA. It seems to be the specialty of my favorite brewery, Fieldwork, which—just my luck—is walking distance from my house. Look how different this Fieldwork hazy is from the red ale next to it:

I think of a Fieldwork hazy as the grapefruit juice of beers. Just delicious. In fact, I would have worked the name Fieldwork into the poem itself except that I can’t: the word is dactylic (i.e., the first of its three syllables is stressed and the next two unstressed), which is incompatible with the iambic meter of a sonnet. I thought of writing the whole poem in dactylic trimeter just to work in Fieldwork, but that would have taken too much effort.

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I’ll Drink to COVID - the Pandemic Beck'sts

Introduction

I feel like we’re finally far enough along in our nationwide recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic that we can start reflecting on it instead of just reacting to it. Of course the virus is still raging, and morphing, but hospitals haven’t been overwhelmed in a long time, and most of us are out and about in the world again. Throughout the ordeal, I drank a lot of beer and sent a lot of Beck’sts, but it seemed “too soon,” until now, to blog about it. I think now it’s finally okay to look back and that strange, shut-in, deeply isolated period, through the lens of what beers my friends and I were drinking, in what environments, and how we attempted to safely share that experience.

(What? You haven’t heard of Beck’sting? What rock have you been sheltering-in-place under? Get thee to a brewery! Or, click here.)

Note: as with previous posts about Beck’sts, I’ve grouped these thematically. I’ve included captions and commentary, and the initials of the Beck’ster. Where you see one letter only (e.g., “E—”) that’s generally somebody’s spouse. These are arranged chronologically, oldest at the top, spanning the period from late March through late July, 2020.

Newbie Beck’st

JH: Aaaahhh. [This was a Beck’st snapped during our first Virtual Pub Night (VPN) the previous week.]

MC: Nice one! Let’s do another session very soon!

JH: Agree. I’m free every night forever.

DA: JH, I think that’s your very first Beck’st, innit? And it’s a great one ... interesting beer, we get to see the color, it’s good lighting, and the Clorox wipe for context. A solid debut! As for our next VPN, I’d be up for tonight! I don’t have a lot of variety in the beer department but I just stocked the fridge so quantity-wise I can totally outlast this coronavirus... Should we do Hangouts or does someone have a Zoom?

JH: I’ll set up a Zoom. Otherwise my carefully selected wallpapers will go to waste.

Temperance Beck’st

DA: Since I did Virtual Pub Night (VPN) last night I figured I better go easy on the booze tonight, so E— and I are splitting this watery lager. (As watery lagers go, Stella is hard to beat.) DW, please pardon the unsightly stemware ... these little etched glasses, which we got from somebody’s driveway “FREE” box, are the perfect size for this. It’s weird going for walks because Albany is like a ghost town, and shelter-in-place seems to be awakening people to how overcrowded their homes are with stuff, because every other driveway seems to have a box of unwanted treasures. It’s like a garage sale except nobody wants any money.

JL: I went alcohol-free for eight weeks [to lose weight for cycling] but couldn’t take it anymore about two weeks ago when things started to get “real” with the ‘Rona. But even without any pandemic anxiety, I can’t imagine ever drinking just half a Stella and being satisfied! I admire your fortitude in these uncertain times…

Shelter-in-place Beck’st

DA: It’s tempting to complain about being stuck at home and about work being overly busy, but then I think of Dr. S manning up and caring for the sick and I stop myself. Nevertheless I do turn to beer in these trying times, such as this very good Deschutes Fresh Squeezed IPA. Would you fellers be up for a Virtual Pub Night (VPN) soon, maybe Friday? PCS, can you make that work?

DW: I’d be down for that sometime. I have a standing “Book Club” @ 4pm on Fridays with my [school] staff via Webex and I think we have another one with some friends going this Saturday. Geesh...sounds like we drink a lot. This pilsner from Terminal Gravity is outstanding. Tiny little brewery in Enterprise, Oregon, which is pretty much far away from everything.

DW (continued): Looking forward to it - now on to my day of public school Distance Learning administration!

Tall, fluty Beck’st

DA: DW, where do you come down on the question of tall, narrow beer glasses? Are such fluty vessels as offensive as stemware? Frankly, l like how full this is from a mere 12-oz bottle. The empty space at the top of a pint glass always irritates me. Anyway, this Racer 5 is really taking the edge off my shelter-in-place.

DA (continued): In other news, JL, I took the liberty of including your full name in my latest blog post. I hope that’s okay. You’re famous now! In other news, how does Saturday night work for a VPN?

JL: Aw yeah, more free press for me! That public relations firm I hired is really earning their keep! Are you charging them pay-per-click or something? I can’t wait to parlay this notoriety into a popular podcast — maybe something like, Homeschooling for Dummies! Or, How to Gain 15 Pounds and Keep it On! Or, Takes One To Know One: A Podcast About Bipedal Hominids! I’ll make a million. Oh, and yeah, I’d be up for a VPN on Saturday.

Cooped-up, stir-crazy Beck’st

DA: After a couple weeks of grey and cold we got some lovely weather today. When’s our next VPN!?

BA: I’m sorry I missed the last VPN! I didn’t open my email in time, you know, what with the virus and all. Let me know about when the next one is and I’ll try to get over to the store to buy some beers. I’ve been out of beer for a week now … I haven’t been in a store since I hear they put face shields up for the clerks, so that we can’t cough on them as easily. I don’t get out much...

DA: PCS, since you’re the one out there saving lives and can’t work from home, why don’t you suggest a few times? I’ll text BA this time since he clearly can’t stay on top of his email. Maybe he’s trying to be cool like our teenage children...

DW: I’m going to bring some serious, that is Orygun, IPA to the next VPN. No more of this Pilsner nonsense. Boneyard RPMs are available in cans now. Just happened. So there’s that.

DA: OMG, Boneyard RPM ... I love that beer! Alas, E— has us on this crazy pandemic lockdown where we can only shop like every two weeks, so my beer variety is almost nil. Not that we can get Boneyard here anyway…

Free Beck’st

DA: So, we haven’t had restaurant food since March 15 when we picked up Alexa from college for the lockdown. E— just isn’t comfortable. So I said what if we get a slightly underdone Zach’s pizza and put it in our oven for a while? She’s fine with that so I ordered it uncut so it wouldn’t slop over on the pizza stone. But when I went to pick it up, they’d screwed up and cut it. So they had to make me a whole new pizza, meaning I had to hang around for over half an hour, risking my life in their (albeit entirely deserted) restaurant. In recompense they offered me a free beer so I picked this giant Racer 5!

DA (continued): So, it turns out E— wants to bake the crap out of this pizza, long past the agreed upon five minutes. With the delay I already incurred, the family will be eating without me at this point, since I have virtual book club, but at least I have plenty of good beer to drown my sorrows in. Family and pizza (especially overcooked pizza) are overrated ... am I right?

PCS: Look at that MASSIVE brew, how many ounces are in that? Damn, no sorrow for you. So, was the pizza good or no??

DA: 22 ounces, baybee! The pizza was delish. I’m not sure it was worth the hassle but I’m sure my kids were stoked and that their stokage was unalloyed. Maybe they’ll look kindly on me one day.

JL: That beer looks epic! We’ve been getting restaurant food delivered about once a week. We usually stick it in the oven for a few minutes once it gets here, but none of us are convinced it’s doing anything... it’s just a matter of how much risk is acceptable and from whence that risk comes!

Dura-Ace Beck’st

DA: Do I look like I’m f***ing around?! (Hint: I am not. Not with this Double IPA, and not with my new Dura-Ace wheels...)

JL: That’s a nice looking Beck’st. I counter it with this not f***ing around Beck’st. Nothing in my photo is in focus because I’m already drunk — with power!

Anger management Beck’st

DA: If the anger is not too pronounced, beer can actually help. So what am I angry about? Two things: 1) the sad fact that this beer, the highlight of my day after ten hours of teleworking, will soon be gone; 2) the lack of Beck’sts I have lately received (or, more to the point, not received); 3) the dearth of VPNs lately; and 4) my evident inability to predict how many items will be included in my lists. You bitches are on the hook for items 2 and 3. I have taken care of item 1. Item 4 is hopeless. Item 5 is pending. So how about a 5pm PDT VPN on Sunday, 5/24!? DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT. RSVP ASAP.

PCS: Angry white man....BAM!

DW: I could potentially make a Sunday PM VPN. However, I have a Herd Immunity Get-Together at a pub at 4pm with my anti-vaxxer group. Those tend to go on for while… Also, I will only attend the VPN if we can dedicate some portion of the discussion to my wheel dilemma, without bringing up the fact that they are not Dura-Ace.

JL: Yeah, 6 pm PDT works for me. And I am happy to discuss at this VPN all subjects, as long as they are about Dura Ace wheels or wheels that are not Dura-Ace (but secretly wish they were Dura-Ace).

Broken hero Beck’st

DA: I bought this Kick-Ass fieldwork IPA crowler for our VPN that never happened. Since these crowlers have a shelf life, and I’m not allowed to drink until late next week at the earliest (due to my upcoming surgery), I have to give this away to a nearby friend. Alas, ye broken hero, I never got to drink ya...

DW: Alas...what the heck happened? Are you OK? Are you having surgery because of a bike accident? Not sure I can wait for our next VPN.

JL: Yeah, what DW said — what’s up? Upcoming surgery?? This was not discussed during the Dura-Ace wheel VPN.

DA: Dudes, here is what I had originally written about it before I decided to get an x-ray.

I’m resorting to this fallible voice recognition software instead of just typing, since I can’t type right now. That’s because I took a little spill on my bike the other day. I was descending after a bit of rain, but it had rained all night so the oil should have been rinsed off the road, but I came around a curve and my tires slid right out. I got up and got off the road and was putting my chain back on, and another guy came around the curve and stacked exactly as I had, and then a few seconds later a third guy came through, and he hit the tarmac exactly as we did, as though we had all rehearsed this together beforehand. Another guy came riding back up the road who had come through right behind me and almost crashed. He said his tires were sliding all over the place. The road was slicker than snot as they say, really almost like a bunch of soap or oil. So it was just kind of a freak thing, maybe something spilled in the road, I don’t know. I’ve done that descent many hundreds of times and my line was perfect. Anyway, my hand is all scraped up and swollen so I can’t really type, and I think I cracked some ribs because it hurts to breathe, and my shoulder seems pretty wrecked up. But, I was able to ride home, and I don’t think I’ll need to go to the ER or anything, which is good because they’re pretty packed lately, because of all the riots and so forth. Well, I suppose they’re pretty packed, I’m actually just guessing, but I don’t imagine I want to take valuable medical resources away from the agitators and so on.

Update: I went to Urgent Care for an X-ray and my collarbone turns out to be broke as f***. So I have a surgery scheduled on Tuesday. Happy happy joy joy.

DW: Damn, DanaDrive! No way that shoulder is going to grow back together. You’ll finally be riding some titanium with that break! Sorry that happened. What a bummer. The Fieldwork would be pretty handy at the moment.

DA: I donated the beer to JH and he Beck’sted it. Looks delish, eh? <sniff>

JL (a few days later): This is such a bummer of a story. Not the broken bone — the giving away of perfectly good beer! But seriously, the surgery should have happened by now … how did it go? I could VPN tonight I think.

DA: It apparently went well. I am typing with just one thumb which is really tedious so I am going to paste in a big block of recycled text now, which I’d dictated to my phone:

I have the sling that seems like it was made in shop class by a junior High kid, combining his father’s sling with a shoebox. The shoe Box presses against my belly making me feel like the Buddha, if the Buddha were an obsessed consumerist American who loves to carry around a box of treasures, if only his shoe box had a lid. I had a nerve block in my arm, which makes it feel like I fell asleep on it so my hand is all tingly, but instead of whacking the hand to wake it up because that’s annoying, I’m just leaving it because the tingling, as it spreads up my shoulder, will gradually be replaced with pain. I think it is going to be a very boring 6 weeks, followed by some very boring physical therapy, but I guess we were all destined to be bored anyway now that our library DVDs are all spent, and we realize that Netflix and Kanopy and Hoopla and YouTube are still all tools of man, and man is essentially boring. But I’ll take boring over zombie apocalypse, in the final analysis, though the way things are going I guess I wouldn’t be all that surprised if a zombie apocalypse did come to pass. I guess the silver lining there would be that all of their staggering around and flesh eating would be diverting.

I can give you more detail if we ever get the next VPN pinned down. That’s right, I’m off the pain meds and can have booze again! BA, are you back from your road trip yet?

BA: I am indeed back from the road trip and [our late] Dad’s teardrop camper trailer [which BA inherited] is now parked in front of the house. I don’t believe I contracted COVID-19 along the way, only time will tell on that (or not, depending, I guess). I had to figure out why T—’s van (a newer and shorter version of our 15 passenger van) wouldn’t drive the running lights on the trailer, and I managed that. I ended up pulling a relay from the fuse box in the engine room and installing a jumper instead, and lo and behold, it worked. It’s kind of surreal seeing the trailer there, like I expect to see Dad cooking out of the back of it when I look out. I don’t even know what to do with the thing, I don’t even have a vehicle that can tow a trailer.

DA: So BA, I’m glad your road trip went well and the teardrop came through okay. I’m quite impressed that you thought to pull a relay from the fuse box and replace it with a jumper to get the taillights working … that’s an ingenious trick the likes of which English majors don’t generally learn until grad school (though we did mess around a bit with jumpers during my honors post-modernism seminar). So here’s what to do with the trailer: you need to start a celebrity blog/vlog called “Teardrop Life” or something and drive around to scenic places in the US taking glamorous photos and shooting tantalizing video footage. You and J— are getting pretty old, so to stay “current” and “vital” you’ll need to attract a steady stream of groupies to help “fill the frame.” I think you still have the star power to make good money with that. Just be sure to wear your masks around those groupies. Don’t worry, the masks add an air of mystery and emphasize your eyes, one of your strong points. Well, two of them I guess, technically.

Controversial Beck’st

DA: Just because.

PCS: Wait....is it legit to Beck’st Heineken?

DA: Oh, so since you’re a big fancy doctor, you’re too good for Heineken?

PCS: I just don’t know why you would Beck’st a bottle of water! But please, feel free to send pictures of the next LaCroix you’re having. I know you love those.

DA: Now you look here, Mr. Big Shot, if I happen to like my water to have a golden glow to it, and its green bottle to cast a lovely green shadow, and if I’m secure enough in my masculinity to admit I like flowers, and nice arrangements, I think maybe you should just honor that and remember that some of us have feelings, and we don’t need to be pushed around by the big Associate Professor of Medicine with the American car, the big bully who always took the top spot on the podium. Sometimes our wives try to tease out our sensitive side by refusing to buy the IPAs we like, and so tonight it was either this Heineken or another 11.2 ounce 4.2% ABV Spanish thing. Oh, sure, you can stand in judgment, all high and mighty with your Deschutes Juicy Haze IPAs and your dual suspension mountain bike. Just kick a man when he’s down, would you? All injured and everything? Really? Does that make you feel powerful? I have to go. I think I’m starting to cry.

JL: I’m torn here. Because on the one hand I agree with PCS (as an aside, I decided against “Beck’st’ing” my white wine spritzer with a lime garnish tonight because I thought it was similarly against the rules). But on the other hand, denying a guy his Beck’st — especially when he’s injured and hurting [we assume] — seems cruel. In the end, however, I think this is a fair Beck’st, if only for the cute flower arrangement and the lovely table cloth, both of which (along with the dappled sunlight) evoke the ineffable redolence of a quaint European café — the sort of place where when you ordered, “une biere, s’il vous plait?”, they would bring you this pathetic ersatz ale, while sneering at you with that European contempt and superiority that only sweaty men from the continent, with their crisp white shirts and their glossy black hair, can muster. And even though the beer is lame and the service is perfunctory at best, it is served very cold (as evidenced by the drops of condensation languidly forming rivulets descending the emerald glass) and it is, at that moment, the best thing that you have ever tasted.

Epilogue

Did you notice that the last Beck’st in this chronological sequence made no reference to the pandemic? No inquiry about the next VPN? This was during that honeymoon period, post-vaccine but pre-Delta-variant. Alas, as we all know, that taste of unsheltered freedom was too good to last, so watch these pages for another post about Beck’sting through the pandemic…

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Beer Pix - Pure Beck’sting Satisfaction

NOTE: This post is rated R for alcohol references, mild strong language, and an obscene gesture.

Introduction

As I’ve noted before, people seem to really love photos of beer. Once in a while I forget to turn Location Services off on my phone before Beck’sting, and Google Maps asks if I want to add my Beck’st to their giant consumer-facing photo library. As a result, this chance photo of one of my beers has been viewed almost ten thousand times to date, dwarfing the popularity of the blog posts I slave over:

What, what did you just ask? “What’s Beck’sting?” You mean you haven’t heard of Beck’sting? Well, click here for the full scoop. It’s a tiny bit like Frexting, except that men tastefully send photos of their beer instead of themselves. Not only has this global phenomenon totally outpaced Frexting, but if you google “is frexting still a thing?” you’ll find my groundbreaking Beck’sting post on the first page of results.

So, to slake my readers’ likely thirst for beer photos, I’ve decided to share some highlights from the hundreds of Beck’sts I’ve exchanged with three friends and one of my brothers over the years. I’ve grouped most of these thematically. Since a Beck’st isn’t just a photo, but a photo with a caption and/or commentary, I’ve included that too, and the initials of the Beck’ster. Where you see one letter only (e.g., “T—”) that’s generally somebody’s spouse.

Lakeside Beck’st

JL: I took this at a party last night. A colleague of W—’s just bought a house on Cayuga lake, turned 70 and had a kidney transplant, so it was party time!

DA: When you’re getting ready to party hard, it’s always good to start with a fresh kidney, especially when you’re super old! Really great photo ... makes me want to crack open an Anchor and then not jump into the lake!

Paying the rent

DA: “Paying the rent” while I blog at The Pub. Coaster notwithstanding, this is a Racer 5.

JL: That’s not a pub, that’s a library! Look at the green tint pull-chain lamp! Stop drinking in the library you degenerate!

Stemware

DA: Watching Paris-Roubaix at the chichi road bike shop. Don’t yet know what this beer is but it’s a Belgian style and very tasty...

DW: Nice looking beer...but, I have to say, I don’t like drinking beer in those glasses. Maybe it’s a Berkeley thing, because I noticed that’s what they served an IPA in at Fieldwork. Maybe that’s because I ordered from the wrong line though.

DA: Now, are you against all “stemware” or does it depend on the beer? The Chimay label shows a little picture specifying stemware for the beer. Seems kind of pretentious and wine-y (as in, what a wine person would do) but I’m fine with it. What I cannot abide are small glasses that hold half a beer. That drives me crazy.

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DW: This is a Snake River Pale Ale. We are in Dubois, WY. This little town is about 50mi east of the Tetons. I had one of these beers when I was here about 12 years ago and it was delicious...still is. You have to buy alcohol in this town at a drive-through window at the saloon. Press this little buzzer and the saloon gal will set you right. She is a gruff, tough, woman who somehow knew I’d been wearing Lycra earlier in the day … this showed in her attitude.

Cheers to you all - btw, my daughter bought me this pint glass. It says ‘Yellowstone’ on the other side. She understands what a proper beer glass is.

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DW: I had this at Pelican last week with some overpriced Fish & Chips. This is called the “Umbriaga Negra.” A Pacific Northwest version of the a Mexican dark lager, like Modelo or Dos Equis Dark. I was thrown by the name, Umbriaga, but checked in with T— and she told me it meant “drunk.” It was actually really good and the high ABV% and low IBU was a good combination for me. I asked the bartender if there was any stemware in the house for the Umbriaga and he looked at me, completely puzzled, then with scorn, and walked away. That’s him in the background looking into the ocean, searching for answers, doing some soul searching after I dropped the stemware question. He did not come back and ask if I’d like a refill; just kept looking at his watch and then at me.

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DA: Boulevard Tank 7 by Under the Sun Brewing in Boulder.

DA [later the same evening]: This is a Big Krane Kolsch. Fcuking off the chain! Good times, bitches!

DW: Finally...a decent picture of beers in a proper glass. I couldn’t even look at the other two wussy beers. Where are your lapdogs in the first pic?

Brotherly Beck’st

DA: This is a Mojo IPA from Boulder Brewing. Pretty yum! Note the reflection of my checkered napkin, and of course Evil Uncle B— in the background.

BA: Too bad your phone has such a tiny lens with such a small aperture, otherwise you’d be able to blur out the background a bit better!

DA: Actually, I was thinking the main flaw with this photo is that you’re so bald.

Deluxe/Getaway Beck’st

DA: Bear Republic Racer 5 IPA at a nice restaurant near Mendocino. Long weekend getaway, sans kids! Livin’ large!

Pliny the Elder

DW: This is a Barley Brown’s Pallet Jack IPA.

DW (continued): Damn good beer! There are only a few places in town that carry Barley Brown’s and it’s only on tap, kinda like Pliny the Elder. There is a big mystique about Pliny and people up here are very secretive about its whereabouts.

DA: I had Pliny the Elder a couple summers ago, at the Flamingo Hotel in Santa Rosa. We were meeting friends there, one of whom had formerly managed the Flamingo, or maybe just managed its restaurant, or maybe just its bar, or who knows, maybe he was just a bartender. (I hope I’m remembering this right and that he wasn’t just a bar patron.) The Flamingo didn’t have the Pliny on draft or anything; my pal had some of it up in his room at the hotel. That felt kind of creepy, going up to somebody’s room for a secret stash of beer, in a little cooler like a World Tour rider’s EPO or blood bags. Kind of felt a bit like scoring your black market beer on the mean streets. I suppose this should have added to the Pliny mystique, but the whole affair felt a bit squalid. Anyway, the Pliny tasted fine, but after all that build-up (believe me, the fact of my being real lucky to get this, and the size of my friend’s largesse, were well emphasized) it didn’t seem amazing or anything. Of course I would drink it again, but I’m not going to wax eloquent about its citrus or citra, or its hint of pine, its whiff of tobacco, or its meth-y malt. I wish beer descriptions weren’t going in the direction of wine descriptions but I guess that’s inevitable.

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DA: Here it is, gents! Pliny the Elder IPA! Like you said, Dan … rare, seasonal, kind of a big deal around here too. It tasted, well, pretty good.

PCS: Why are you flipping us off?

DA: That’s not me flipping you off. That’s my “friend.” Our food had just arrived with the drinks, and as you can see, my pal only got a salad. I asked him, “Did you order a tampon with that?” Perhaps that’s why he saw fit to desecrate my photo in that fashion.

DW: Thanks for rubbing the Pliny in my face, Dana. You know that is highly coveted in these Pacific NW parts. A guy at Crow’s Feet Commons pulled me aside last week and quietly told me that they might be getting a keg at the end of the month—“after the tourists go home,” he said. I forwarded your Becks’t to another friend who is also on the lookout for this mystery beer. I wonder if it is really that good.

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DW: I heard about this secret wine store that had some Pliny the Elder in the back. I had to go there and try this mysterious beer. T— would not go with me, she was just fine reading by the fire on a rainy afternoon (man, I was ripped off in this marriage: she does not like coffee or beer and is not really fond of hanging out in breweries, unless we are playing a card game that requires way too much thinking for me! On the other hand, ha ha, she loves to watch cycling). So, here it is, my first Pliny!

Dana, I have to agree. It was just “fine.” It was really smooth and tasted good, but not nearly as good as some of the other IPAs I’ve had, like the Mosaic, or anything from Boneyard or Barley Brown’s. I wanted it to blow me away. I went in with a super open mind, cleared my pallet, gave it a good wiff and huh, just fine. I must lean a little to the Pacific Northwest flavors. I don’t think I will need another Pliny. So...

... because I’m a hypocrite and don’t really understand my wife after 30 years, we stopped in at Pelican after a nice walk on the beach and I had a most excellent 20 ounces of Mosaic and put it on a pedestal; like all beers from Cascadia (Dana, is this the proper use of a semicolon?).

JL: I nominate this Becks’t for the Best Becks’t of October Award, the coveted BBOA!

Branded pint glass

DA: Double IPA. Most beers at this Jack Russell brewery are $5 or $6, or for $9 you can get one in a commemorative pint glass you get to keep. This beer is like 8% and $8 ... or $9 with the pint glass. SCORE! Awesome—a proper (stemless) pint glass for a buck! E— hassled me about bringing more junk into our home but I can’t be stopped. Not this time, anyway.

DA (continued): The only problem is this warning sticker on the bottom of the glass:

DA (continued): Dr. S—, do I need to be worried about this? Or does it help that I have already been born?

PCS: You'll most surely have a 2-headed child after using this glass!

DW: Do you have any plans to be born again?

Mystery Beck’st

[I cannot recall who sent this ... I think it was PCS. The photo metadata was lost at some point. Maybe I’ll do some more forensics next time I’m bored. Oh, wait, I never have the luxury of boredom anymore. Sigh…]

Selfie Beck’st

DA: I almost wasn’t going to send another boring photo of the same Lagunitas IPA on the same round blue table against the same brick wall with the same framed photo at the same coffee shop. But then it occurred to me that my laptop has a built-in selfie camera (the one on my phone being broken). I hunted around and found an app, pre-installed on my laptop, that actually makes use of this camera. It is a crappy camera indeed, but I have a hunch that this will give my photo a grainy, gritty, handheld cinéma verité look that will make you admire me a whole lot. I hope I’m right.

DA (continued): The young buck at the next table is singing along with Coldplay. Ah, millennials. I just read some article that they’re going to be the brokest adults in ages. Oh well. At least they’ve got their freedom, unlike corporate wage slaves like me, nursing at the blue-chip teat like a suckling pig (as the millennials would surely think of it).

JL: “Corporate wage slave”? That photo of you looks positively blue collar, man! Angry, tired and just wanting a goddamned beer! And I hear you.

Autofill Beck’st

DA: South Beach, you’ve met your match! This beer obviously isn’t some amazing discovery, but I do like it contains all your belongings and it was hella good to me and my liver via the app and the girls are going to backfill for the next few days so I can drive to the airport and then we can go from there to the full pint. Most of the preceding sentence was brought to you by Android Autofill word suggestions. I hope you enjoyed it.

JL: Go home Android Autofill — you’re drunk!

“Something missing” Beck’st

DA: I totally meant to have a beer tonight, just for the empty calories [to try to regain weight after losing too much on the South Beach diet], but I plumb forgot! And after eating so much that the skin of my belly is stretched tight as a drum, well ... what’s the point?

JL: This is by far the craziest Beck’st to ever done been beck’sted. I cannot conceive of forgetting to have a beer. That just doesn’t happen in my house. I’m not sure which one of us has the problem…

DA: I agree with you. (Above response generated by the Google via its A.I.-driven one-touch reply suggestions.)

JL: Man, you should let the Google answer all of your emails! Though I would soon miss the trademarked Dana Acerbicity[TM]. Acerbic-ness? Ornerarity? There’s a word. Here’s an example of a beer that I did not forget to drink (I rode for 80 minutes on the trainer — I earned this!):

DA: As much as I like “acerbicity” and would like “acerbitiousness” even more, I guess the real word is acerbity. I wonder if Google’s machine learning will start to offer up more acerbic responses to the e-mails I receive? The Google has a long way to go before it’s passing the Turing test.

Gratuitous eye-candy Beck’st

DA: Fieldwork wheat Saison … brilliant!

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