I have never been a beer drinker. Even back in the day when several friends would gather for a “kegger” and ingest enough cheap brew to either urp into the azaleas or fall asleep on your parents’ bed, I was never much on being a part of the fun.
I think in large part it was because I’d drink two beers and feel like I’d just eaten downtown Cleveland. One on a really hot day, great! But anything beyond that, I’d feel like I could go to a costume party as the Michelin Man.
So, it was never my drink of choice. Now, if they’d had Scotch whiskey keggers when I was young and bushy-tailed, then I’d have been the one in the azaleas. Unfortunately, I’d be alone.
I used to spend a month a year or so in London, and my go-to pub order was lager and lime. It just seemed like a nice compromise for a non-beer drinker. It looked like beer, but was cut by the addition of Rose’s Lime Juice. It tasted good, and I could say I had my daily ration of fruit. And, I never got scurvy or rickets.
But back home I could never wrap myself around the taste of a longneck Bud. I love Clydesdales, mind you, and I like the commercials, but for some reason the stuff tasted to me like a dog got loose in the barley patch.
And then, years later, my friends starting using words I’d never heard attached to a beer. No longer was it the smash-the-can-on-your-forehead crowd guzzling hooch. Now there were IPA’s and artisanals, aging in wood barrels and hints of everything from chocolate to whoopee cushions. No longer would your friends be impressed by your amazing ability to open a bottle with your teeth and chug it in one swallow like a vacuum tube in a department store.
Won’t you miss the old drinking songs that begin, “Oh they had to carry Harry to the ferry….”; or “99 bottles of beer on the wall….” You can’t sing those songs while sipping an “artisanal.”
I was just reading a review of 25 of the greatest beers on the market today and it read as though I was perusing the Wine Spectator. “Raspberry with hints of oak and cherry, chocolate, vanilla and leather.” This is all good — except for the leather part. Leather has always stuck in my throat when included in a beverage.
How about, “maple syrup with a rich chocolate backbone.” Wait a minute! Now beer has skeletal features? What ever happened to “Taste’s great; Less filling”?
One greater Bay Area brewery did make the list of top 25. Russian River Brewing Co. appeared on the list for its “Supplication,” a brown ale with sour cherries and yeast, aged in pinot noir wine barrels in Sonoma. It sounds great to me, but old Gussie Busch I’m sure is rolling over in his hops.
And where will it all end? Apparently we’re nowhere near that point yet, as our own Alastair Bland pointed out in his IJ column on Wednesday. It seems that local beer maker Kevin McMahon has come up with a beer I would buy if only for its creative name. It’s called Umami Mommy, and the secret ingredient is — eat your hearts out sushi fans — seaweed!
The idea was born while McMahon was at Trader Joe’s and saw packaged nori. Of course, he did what anyone would do. He bought it and dumped it into his boiling brew. And, for good measure, added some oysters and sea salt for the final 90 minutes. Here’s the rub — it’s good!
And just when Mr. McMahon thought he’d discovered the second coming of Kombucha, some guy in San Francisco had the same idea — seaweed, oysters and all. Now I’m stuck. I just can’t make up my mind who’s got the better seaweed.
In the end I’m going with whoever gets the Clydesdales?
Barry Tompkins is a longtime sports broadcaster who lives in Marin. Contact him at barrytompkins1@gmail.com.
