ADVENTURES IN BEERLAND
| Vince Capano is an award winning member of the North American Guild of Beer Writers. His column Adventures in Beerland is now a regular feature of BeerNexus.com |
Persuasion Power
| The power of the pen is indeed mighty. It can move people to tears, inspiration, anger, greed, and joy. It can topple empires, make and break, kings. It can get you to do what you don’t want to do. The internet has many such people of the pen. Sometimes they’re called “influencers”. Technically an influencer in social media is a person who has built a reputation for their knowledge and expertise on a specific topic, usually a meaningless one. They make regular posts about that topic and generate large followings of enthusiastic, engaged, easily led people who pay close attention to their views no matter how silly they might be. There are various types of influencers, or practitioners of social media shilling. There are the mega influencers - people with a vast number of followers on social networks. They usually have more than 1 million followers on at l east one platform and make an impressive income stealthily promoting things. There are micro-influencers who are one step down on the scale followed by the nano-influencers who only have a small number of followers. They tend to be experts in obscure or highly specialized fields. I’m personally a nano influencer on the topic of ventriloquist mimes who also do Elvis impersonations. Recently I just doubled the number of my followers to 2. Then there are beer writers who justifiably wield a special influence over their readers and even on other beer writers. I refer specifically to my colleague, the widely read Glenn “The Big G: Deluca whose January 2021 column about NA and Zero Alcohol beers was a revelation to me. I learned far more than I ever wanted to know about no- alcohol beer. He influenced me to try some for myself. Since BeerNexus demands full transparency (if the Invisible Man was a website this would be it) I do admit that my flirtation with NA/Zero beers also was influenced by the fact that I was on antibiotics for a sinus/ear infection. Now I know you’re thinking I should have asked the doctor if it was okay to drink beer while taking the medication. I did. In fact, I asked several doctors in a determined quest to find at least one who would say go ahead and knock a few pints down. I couldn’t. Eventually I was able to find one inebriated pharmacist at my local pub who told me that with the medicine I was taking, drinking “in moderation” was okay. I once drank in a bar called Moderation, but I don’t think that’s what he meant. Besides he seemed to actually be enjoying a pint of Bud Clamato which immediately lowered his credibility. All the doctors I spoke to agreed that to get the full benefit from the pills I should stay away from alcohol for the ten days it would take to finish them all. So be it, but it’s easier said than done. After all it’s my job. Well, technically drinking beer isn’t my job but writing about it is. One without the other is a bit hard to do. They go together like a horse and carriage. It's a combination you can't disparage, you can’t have one without the other. Then I read The Big G’s informative and fun article. Here was the answer to my prayers. I could drink beer and still follow doctor’s orders. I rushed out to my local beer store. Of course, I wore a mask. It was the Deadpool mask I used last Halloween. Hey, I didn’t want anyone seeing me buying this stuff. And being a good citizen, I wore a virus protection mask over that. I’m worried about catching the virus. It may be a matter of chance but I’m not the lucky type. With my luck if I was a politician I’d be an honest one. The store is a regular stop for me. It’s a huge place with hundreds of beers. It is so big people have been known to get lost in it for days at a time. A few of them unintentionally. Navigation for me was not a problem however since knew every part of the place or at least I thought so. It took me nearly 40 minutes to find the NA section. I had never been there before since in the past N-A was an N-O. With deft use of my phone’s GPS I found the section, well hidden in the far end cooler near the employees only auxiliary washroom. The cracked glass of the door of the cooler was half covered by a yellowing poster of Clydesdales merrily pulling a 50-ton beer truck (their smile had to have been CGI) over the saying “Wassup?! - Budweiser”. It was a classic. But not in a good way. Think of it like the difference between a classic ’57 Chevy and a classic ’57 Renault Dauphine. Unfortunately, I forgot to print out Glenn’s article as a reference, so I was on my own as I looked at the three NA and one Zero beer the store had. Clearly even this behemoth of beer purveyors didn’t give these types of beers any respect. Store management must think everyone hates these kinds of beers. That’s ridiculous, everyone hasn't tried them yet. Despite knowing about the amazing sales growth of NA/Zero beer I do admit to thinking I was in for a bout of liquid sadness. After all, simply because a lot of people buy something doesn’t make it good. Think of the countless people who bought Beanie Babies, the Pet Rock, double neck guitars, AstroTurf indoor dog potty rugs, and gold infused Lord of the Rings miniature replica helmets made by the Franklin Mint. Despite your taste buds providing evidence to the contrary it’s important to note that non-beer begins its life as real beer before the alcohol content is stripped. Therein lies a problem; alcohol is a flavor itself, adding dryness, mouthfeel and a soothing warmth. Without it, you get many NA beers that are sweet and syrupy, perfect for topping on your breakfast pancakes. I personally prefer Lawson’s Finest Liquids’ Fayston Maple Imperial Stout drizzled over my pancakes. For those who fancy themselves as a homegrown Gordon Ramsey in the kitchen give Porter Beer Pancakes with Porter Maple Butter Sauce a try. Cooking tip – drink all leftover Porter and another pint for good luck. Chef Ramsey will never know. Looking in the cooler my first surprise was that the NA beers were priced the same as most regular non-craft alcohol beers, around $10 for a six pack. That’s $10 you pay them, not the other way around. Essentially, you’re paying for what’s not there. It’s like paying the same price for the same size box of pasta that used to contain 16 ounces but now holds 13.25 ounces or a bag of Doritos which now hold 20 percent fewer chips than before. If you don’t believe me count the chips yourself. A store employee saw me trying to look through the cooler glass and asked if I was lost. I told him it was just the opposite; I had found the section of NA beers. He looked surprised and simply said “Why?”. Not wanting to cause a scene I responded by saying “it’s for a friend,” He nodded and said the selection is small since they just sold a six pack last month. He pointed to some scribbled tasting notes left by an anonymous defrocked Cicerone on the Clydesdales’ poster, fittingly on horses’ rear end. It was a review of the NA beer Sol Cero which “tastes like stale corn flakes in milk. awful! Watery, no carbonation, and it’s skunked.” Other than that, I guess he liked it. I opted for three beers I had heard of – Sharps, Heineken 0.0. and Lagunitas IPNA. I figured it would show me the wide range of flavors in the category since there was an immense difference in their ABVs going from 0.0% all the way to 0.5%. That reminds me of my favorite actor Keanu Reeves whose acting skill runs the gamut of emotions from A to B. If you’ve never seen him in a John Wick film, you should. How can you resist an action flick with the line “John isn’t exactly ‘The Boogeyman', he’s the one you send to kill the f**kin’ Boogeyman.” Almost forgot – back to the beers. Sharps is made by Miller. It looks like Miller. Smells like Miller. Tastes like Miller but with a double water chaser. It is flat and lightly sweet. Its best feature is an odd chemical something in the very brief finish that leads me to think it was made with authentic Chernobyl water. Heineken 0.0, when you drink it really cold, is reminiscent of Heineken, but there’s something vaguely still missing – beer. It’s somewhat malty, grainy and skunked just like its regular strength big brother. It starts off decently but then hops and malts are suddenly phased out to leave a dry, metallic taste. The beer is vaguely acceptable, which you can take as a compliment…..or not. Lagunitas IPNA certainly has a clever name. It must be clever since it took me several hours to figure out what the “N” stands for. No, it’s not for nose though this beer has one though not of Cyrano de Bergerac proportions. Its nose features noticeable smells of hops, pine and citrus up front, with a touch of dank green onion in the back- ground. Taste is similar but far less intense with a light hop and caramel flavor. Some pine notes appear at the finish. It’s not terrible and is quite tasty with a double shot of vodka, stirred not shaken, in it. As the days of my pill taking wore on my beer frustration grew. I sought the advice of another BeerNexus collague, the erudite Dan Hodge who has some expertise in the medical field. He once was the second understudy to an actor playing Dr. Moriarty in a community theater revival of the Medical Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Good enough for me. Dan told me to start drinking beer immediately, that doctors always say not to have it with antibiotics only because it’s what they were incorrectly told in medical school. To prove his point, he ended by saying “look around, there are more old drunks than old doctors. So who are you going to believe?” I’m now healthy and better for the experience. After ten days without any alcohol the biggest lesson I learned is I should feel sorry for teetotalers, when they wake up in the morning that’s as good as they’re going to feel all day. ============================ click to contact Vince |
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March 2021
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