That’s the situation I found myself in (metaphorically, of course, if you’re reading this honey) as I sipped on a Jolly Pumpkin La Roja, a Flanders-style red ale that’s been aged in oak. It’s exquisite really, a beautifully made beer. It’s tart, spicy, and somehow manages to have a lovely earthiness to it, yet it finishes very clean. If beers were women, this one would be an angular supermodel, a creature of such beauty and grace that one look would turn most men into a fumbling jackass (or more of a fumbling jackass, as the case may be). I’d recommend it to a wine snob any day of the week.
There I was with my glass full of this wonderful beer, three sips in with another 10 ounces left in the bomber, and I was a little miserable. Because while this is a great beer in most measurable senses, there was zero chemistry happening between the two of us. It’s like the time in high school when I briefly dated this really attractive girl. She was nice enough, and she could stop traffic to look at her, but then I kissed her and decided she wasn’t my type. There was simply no spark.
So I’m drinking this amazing beer, and I start dreaming of more common fare. I didn’t want something interesting or something exquisite, I wanted something malty with a nice hop kick to it. I wanted a Sierra Nevada Torpedo. But I wasn’t going to pour out a wonderful beer just because I wasn’t in the mood for it – that’s too wasteful even for me, a guy who LOVES to pour beer down the sink. It makes me feel like Caesar giving the thumbs down at the Coliseum. This one dies!!!
Instead I sat there with the super model, dreaming of the girl next door.
I’ve often said that when it comes to craft beer, the heart wants what the heart wants.
I’ll be picking up a four pack of Torpedo on the way home tonight.
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Beer & Whiskey Brothers 
I found myself in this predicament with a bottle of ’09 Dark Lord 2 years back. I had taken it to the lake house for the weekend. One of the few true vacations I get in a year. I had been outside all day, swimming, playing with the kids and finally opened it up when everyone had gone to bed to sit on the porch and sip. Two sips in and I just wasn’t feeling it. It was delicious and chocolatey and creamy and just SO DAMN HEAVY. Sigh. But I had a bomber of Dark Lord. So naturally, I decided to walk next door to the neighbors on the porch and spread the love, cause I couldn’t handle all the love myself. Everyone loved the beer so it worked out. I happily went back to the cottage and opened a Victory Summer Love. I love Dark Lord, except when it is about 85 and humid in the evening.
Yeah, timing matters, but it’s good that you had folks to share with. Even if after you left they probably bitched about that mud you made them drink!
Lucky for me they were beer geeks. The fact that I pulled out a DL was enough for them to chomp at the bit.
Nice! Hate to waste the good stuff on people who suffer through it!
Well, to be fair, the girl next door was hot.
And she was certainly making eyes at me!!
I prefer to sometimes blend beers, can’t we have both at the same time?
Torpedo Roja FTW!!
My dog has one of those.
Mine doesn’t…
Great metaphor, except pouring beer down the drain seems more of a trait Caligula or the Marquis de Sade would have possessed than Caesar.
Beer certainly has personality, which in my experience is somewhat driven by geography. After all, why is Bourbon made in Bourbon County? Helllloooooo…… Should have seen that one coming.
There is more to the beverage than the name. After visiting breweries in Flanders and England there was a distinct method to the genius of these various beers. No need for jacketed, glycol tanks with banks of motors compressing refrigerant when Mother Nature supplies those precise conditions in Belgium and the United Kingdom. Once they seem to have dialed in a recipe, little more was done to tweak a beverage which appears to have been pitched by the very hand of God.
If you find yourself in Brugge, I suspect a super model, crafted by Trappist monks and served in a crystal chalice, will allow you to forget that girl next door in Chico, if only for a summer fling.
Yeah, i hear those Belgian chicks are WILD!
The hairy armpits alone will blow your mind…
In all fairness, I believe the hairy armpit-ed women of Belgium are Walloons. The Flemish women are statuesque and genetically bred as hairless in certain areas. I would also point out that in my experience, after several Triples, the Walloons began to look pretty darn good.
I’m just going to assume that “Walloon” is Belgian for “Wookie.”