In Which I Am Enslaved By Beer
/So I’ve been wondering, to myself, what my beer pals think of Unibroue, a Canadian outfit. I’m a slave to their beers, so it’s probably middle-brow crap that no respectable person would drink. A corporate joke of an idea of a beer, maybe?
Anyway. Thanks to that rumination, I drifted through memories of the day that beer -- the beverage, not the topic --- claimed me, body and soul.
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I’m at home. Opening what has become my nightly beer, this time a bottle of stuff I’d recently bought at the local grocery store.
I open the bottle, pour, taste. And fall.
That was it. For seven years, ever since I’d started researching beer, this was the beer that my imagination had concocted; the one for which I yearned. The ideal.
The beer of my dreams, man. The beer of my dreams.
Sophisticated. Complex. Mouthfeel galore; crispy smooth. Aromatic. And the color. O, the color. Shades of luscious amber.
Utterly seductive and I was its slut, if you will.
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Anyway.
Beer. Snare. Captive.
So now I love all kindsa beer --- but I owe my passion to my seducer.
But a year later, I still know zero about my seducer’s. So now I’m admitting: That’s intentional.
If I love this stuff, it’s probably crap, right? Because what do I know about good taste? Only one time have I ever heard or read anything about the heart-stealing beer. Once!
And if it some shit corporate whatever that everyone hates, then it means that, well, I don’t know what. That . . . taste is an illusion? It’s all branding? (Because oh, the label on that bottle, baby.)
Obviously, yes, I could google . . . but. No can do.
Anyway. Yes. I’ve only run across one mention of the beer. But that’s a delightful story. (*1) So. Bonus!
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In late 2012, Tom Dalldorf at Facebook posted a photo taken of him:
Wintry afternoon (one of my fav things in the world). Tom, lounging, book in hand, beer beside him, winter light snuggling with the room’s dim. Great photo.
Somewhere along the line, not sure where/when, he wondered aloud about whether anyone had noticed the beer he'd been drinking at the time: Fin du Monde.
Not long after that, maybe last spring?, I had recently abandoned wine for beer (another story) and was perusing beer at the grocery. And I spotted --- a bottle of Fin du Monde.
Fuck man, they nearly had me at the label. Wow. Perhaps best label ever. And I thought “What the hell. I’m gonna try it.”
And now here I am, in all my slutitude, admitting my fondness for not just Fin but the entire, swoon-inducing troupe. (Beware, ladies and gentlemen. Trois Pistoles is a predator. . . . .No one is safe.)
So -- it’s a shit corporate brewery that makes shit beer, right?
And having told this tale, I’m off to google “unibroue.” Which may not even be how it’s spelled. I’ll let HAL figure it out.
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*1: Honestly. I wanted to get through this with NO FOOTNOTES. But this is a note to myself (remember: I said I might be working here). As I was writing the bit about the backstory, I realized that, inadvertently but perfectly, captures the essence of what the craft community has tried to build the past thirty years. Nice. I gotta think about that. May not mean anything. But I’m pondering this book, it would involve craft beer, etc. So. Apologies for the footnote. (*2)
*2: No! What am I saying. No apologies. I think mostly I’m apologizing to my self because I’ve sort been promising said self to just deal with the here/now for a bit longer. And write with no intent. And, heh, no surprise, writing created intent. ‘Cuz that’s how it goes.