This review is mainly for historical records. I don’t think Two Brothers brews this beer anymore and I’m not sure they ever will again. This is taken from my beer diary, written sometime in late 2010.

I’ve been to the Two Brothers brewery, and their tap house. It’s right next door to Fermi Lab, the famous atom smasher in the Chicago suburbs. I imagine the place is frequented by all sorts of theoretical physicists, but I don’t know because I could never get any of them to admit it.

Government secrets, right? For all I know my phones are tapped right now for even asking.

When this beautiful bottle showed up at my local beer haven, I was overjoyed. A honest to goodness SCIENCE BEER! You don’t happen across that everyday.

So I sit here contemplating it, afraid to open it. What if the elusive Higgs-Bosen is inside? I’m not sure I’d want to drink the God particle. Who knows what it would do to me?

But yet I must. You know … for science.

I pop the cap off and take a sniff. It smells yeasty, and not much else. Hmm. Here goes nothing. I raise it to my lips…

GULP ALERT! This is one of those brews that are so good you have to fight to stop swallowing it. It’s very smooth, with a light vanilla maltiness, low carbonation, and a pervasive sweet fruitiness that that permeates the flavor to the point where it nearly attains critical mass. We’re talking a high density of flavicles, here.

(You know, flavicles – the sub-atomic building blocks of flavor.)

I don’t want to put it down. I want to keep sipping. I could drink this all day long. All night, too.

Alas, I only had one bottle, and now that bottle is empty. It leaves me with a very clean, toasty, golden finish.

I hereby bestow upon this October Style Lager a 7.3 on the Holy Grail Scale, and proclaim it a very groovy beer.

I must get some more of this. You know … for science!

God bless Albert Einstein.

1. Bathe in it
2. Put out a fire
3. Marinate meat
4. Polish pots
5. Make beer barbecue sauce
6. Use it as shampoo
7. Loosen rusty bolts
8. Clear up brown spots in your lawn
9. Steam clams in it
10. Use it to help pass a kidney stone
11. Boil shrimp in it
12. Bait slug traps with it (apparently slugs have good taste and love beer)
13. Use it to make a magnetic compass
14. Soak your feet in it
15. Use it to lubricate a homemade Slip-N-Slide
16. Lower your blood pressure
17. Adjust a locked thermostat
18. Use it to make bread
19. Bait mice with it (slugs are not the only pests who love a good beer, apparently)
20. Use it to create fishing lures
21. Cure insomnia
22. Massage yourself
23. Calm an upset stomach
24. Build a house out of the bottles
25. Cook rice in it
26. Use it to stop snoring
27. Build an airplane out of the cans
28. Roast chicken with it
29. Ice an injury
30. Use it as hair mousse
31. Scale fish with the bottle tops

I’m sorry but if this isn’t the silliest, most bloated list I’ve ever seen … some of these are good and make perfect sense, but most of them … no.

Beer is for drinking.

When coffee and beer are mixed, I’m drawn to it, and when it’s a coffee and a porter I’m doubly intrigued. This explains why I picked up this bottle of Meantime Coffee Porter. It has to be a winner. Right? Well, we’ll see.

Popping the cap and taking a nice long whiff I get a distinct scent of coffee. In fact, it smell exactly like iced coffee. Period. Not beer at all.

Unlike Meantime’s other porter, there’s no carbonation to speak of. So I tip it up to my lips and take a nice long sip. And it tastes like … iced coffee.

As the coffee taste fades, the dark roasted malts kicks in. Softly. It goes to a very dark bitter chocolate, then fades to a distant hoppiness.

It’s like a hoppy sunset.

Pretty good, I have to say, as long as you enjoy iced coffee. Which I do. In fact it’s good enough for me to rate it a 6.8 on the Holy Grail scale.

If this is true, why am I not a genius?

Cheers to Brad for sending this in!

I only know this because of camera phone pictures I took, because my memory is rather blurred from the combination of jet lag and alcohol. Upon returning home, I for some reason remembered the name of this brew as “Raging Black Bitch” (no racial slur intended, I’m referring to the image of an angry female dog with jet black fur). I had the three lovely ladies to my right, and Jani and his two cool, fun friends to my left. We tried many, many beers, one of which was a Duvel ale that looked and tasted like Champagne.

I only know this because I took a video of it. Jani said, “This is the stuff!” Actually, “stuff” isn’t the word he used, but he was speaking highly of it.

Last night I went looking for the “Bitch Please” Barley Wine and actually found it, but it had (of course) a different label, and the price made me back away. I remembered it being good, but not that good.

The main part missing from the American label was the original description and ingredients list, which fortunately I photographed while in Finland. You’ve got to love an ingredient list that includes, “…other fun stuff, punk rock music, and an air of aristocratic nonchalance.”

What did it taste like? I’m afraid this is where I fail as a reviewer. I remember it being rich, chocolately, with distinct whiskey overtones, and that I liked it, but not enough to dish out $12.49 for an imported 12 ounce bottle.

Here is something I can offer as a takeaway for my local stateside readers: of the many talks I had while across the pond with my European friends about beers and ales, I picked up something. The wonderful selection of craft beers that are brewed, bottled, and distributed in the USA are for the most part completely unknown over there. And for all the richness and variety of the brews available in Europe, with hundreds if not thousands of years of heritage, I’d put our upstart craft beers right up against them as equals.

Sitting in a booth at a pizza parlor in Stockton California, I was sharing a pitcher of beer with my friends when the most amazing person walked up and began talking to us. He was a tall, skinny African-American man, looking about in his mid-twenties, wearing a tee-shirt and Levi jeans with pant legs split up the sides all the way to his hips. That was the first thing I saw when he came up, these long, flapping split pant legs that were like four denim flags hanging from his upper thighs. They made a loud flopping sound with each step.

“Hi,” he said, “I’m Crazy Bob.” He slurred his words a bit and had a lisp, so it sounded like this: “Hi. I’mb craythzee Bawb.”

We all stared at him in silence for a moment, not sure whether to be amused or terrified. Dan, always the outgoing friendly one, suddenly said back, “Well hi there, Crazy Bob, my name’s Dan. How’re you doing?”

My other friend, DT, gripped his beer mug tight, ready to use it as a weapon if necessary.

“I’m Crazy Bob,” Crazy Bob said again. “I wasn’t always like this. You see, the Martians they took me and put a needle in my spine, and they made me like this.”

“Really?”

“The government, they put a needle in my spine. The put a needle in my spine and turned me into a vegetable.”

“Really?” It was about all any of us could think to say.

“They turned me into a vegetable. The government, they put a needle in my spine. They turned me into a vegetable. Vegetable. Vegetable…”

We sat staring in stunned silence, thinking to ourselves: Where did this guy come from? We were just sitting there, minding our own business, drinking beer and waiting for our pizza, and here comes this guy. We didn’t know what to make of it. We didn’t know what to do.

“You see,” he continued, “I have to endure. That’s what my brother told me. He told me that because the government stuck a needle into my spine, I would have to endure.”

“Your, ah, brother told you this, huh?” said Dan.

“Yeah, my brother told me I must endure. It was my brother, Gerolda. Gerolda. Gerolda.” He continued repeating the name, turning slowly to one side, and his voice grew quiet and faded.

“Gerolda told you this?”

“Yes. He’s my brother. My brother Gerolda, in the home, told me that because the government put a needle in my spine, I must endure. They turned me into a vegetable.” He was walking around the room now, his split pant legs flapping, each step he lifted his leg so far into the air it was nearly a kick. “The Martians, they control the government. The Martians told the government to put the needle into my spine.”

“The Martians? Like from Mars?”

“Yeah, the Martians, they came down here. See, the Martians, they control the government, and the government controls TV. They put a needle into my spine. Turned me into a vegetable.”

“The Martians control the government?”

“The Martians control the government, and the government controls the TV.” He was standing right in front of the table again, and DT was holding his beer mug so tight his knuckles were turning white. “My brother Gerolda told me this when I was in the home. Gerolda, he’s my brother. Gerolda. Gerolda. Gerolda…”

“Hey Crazy Bob,” called a lady behind the counter.

Crazy Bob did his flapping goosestep over to the counter, and to our amazement the girl handed him a boxed pizza. Crazy Bob took the pizza and, pant legs flapping, he marched out the front door.

“Who was that?” I asked.

“Oh, that’s just Crazy Bob. We give him a pizza and he leaves.” She shrugged. “What else can you do?”

We all looked at each other, our eyes wide. Indeed! What else could you do? After that, we would occasionally see Crazy Bob flapping his pant legs down Pacific Avenue, rain or shine, summer or winter, and we’d honk and wave at our strange new acquaintance. It’s been thirty years and the image of him is still vivid in my mind.

From Tales of the Lizard Hunter
By Jerry J. Davis

Update: This review was originally posted on July 3rd, 2009. It was overshadowed by my love for Okocim Porter but, since I can only find that occasionally anymore, I have rediscovered this one … thankfully from these very notes!

Either my tastes have changed as I’ve aged, or this beer has changed, or both … but in the original review below I kept referring to a hint of clove. I’m not finding that anymore. I’m just finding a good, standard imported Baltic Porter, heads above most in quality and taste, abundantly available at the Binny’s next door to me for only $1.79 a bottle. This has become my standard beer.

And so…

The original review from 2009:

It’s another Polish Porter on my plate!

Right up front I’ll say I don’t like this one as much as I did the Okocim.  It’s not as smooth nor as sweet.  But unlike the other, Zywiec seems to have some hops in it.  It tastes of robust, burnt rye, black roasted malts, caramel syrup, and toasted wheat.

And hops.  There are definitely hops in this one.  They give it a sharp, bitter ping right up front, fading to a hint of clove and a clamoring background of more hops bitterness.  The burnt malt taste rises somewhere in the middle of this, cresting with a sweetness, before falling back to the bitter.

A complex taste, yes.  And I don’t like the hint of clove.

Clove does not belong in beer.

That’s my opinion.

Had I not been already spoiled by the Okocim I would probably have rated this Porter higher, but as it stands I would still mark it down as a Holy Beer Contender, but only give it maybe a 5.6 on the Holy Grail Scale.

I mean, it’s still good.  No, still delicious.  Even with the hint of clove.

This limited release beer is as totally over the top as you’d expect from Lagunitas Brewing Company.

Imagine going to Starbucks and ordering a beer.

This would be it. Cappuccino Stout.

I drank two of these without writing a single word. I didn’t want to be bothered. The brew demanded all my attention.

This beer is for someone who drinks black strong coffee straight up. No cream. No sugar.

This beer is for someone who has turned so jaded that everything tastes the same and has blended into a grey muck, and life has turned dim, and all pretty women look like hard plastic. It’s for someone who can’t stand to turn on a radio because the entire spectrum makes you gag. You want to smash cell phones, you want to wreck your car on purpose, you want to set fire to a bank.

This beer is for you.

It will realign your Universe, reset your brain, and help you regain your love of humanity. This beer will pull you back from the brink. This beer will help you breathe.

This beer will help you create.

This beer will give you the urge to put on big heavy boots and stomp around in the mud, laughing hysterically, and roll around on the floor with a puppy.

This beer just might save your life.

I hereby proclaim it a Groovy Brew and rate it 8.1 on the Holy Grail Scale. Get it while you can, it’s seasonal, and it’s disappearing fast.

(Just to make it official.)