The best beer for a fresh start

I've been eating so many vegetables and they are helping, but not enough.

I was awarded this country’s highest civilian honor last night when my cat chose to sleep between my feet. This, like all honor, was paid for with sacrifice, which means in this case not being allowed to adjust my hips for eight straight hours. I will not be walking fully upright until at least Thursday.

It’s particularly unfair that my body should fail me like this during such a deliberately and painfully healthful month. I’m doing OK with my dry and damp day goals, and I’ve been eating tons of vegetables, some of which are not even beige or suitable for mashing. I go on big carrot kicks every 18 months or so, and buddies are we in the thick of one right now; I been sticking those bastards everywhere they fit, whether medically advisable or not; yeah, you heard right, I’ve even been cramming them in my gumbo. And yet despite my alpha carotene status, I still find myself under-capacitated for the next 48 hours or so, what to do, what to do. 

Fine, fuck it, I’ll watch the inauguration. I don’t normally get into political theater, but since the real theater and every other goddamn thing is closed, lately I’ve been accidentally learning which one’s Rick Scott and which one’s Marsha Blackburn and similarly degrading things. I hate it. 

I can’t remember exactly where I ranked Biden among the several score of bodies who ran for the Democratic nomination, but it wasn’t real close to the top. I liked him more than Bloomberg, I’m pretty sure. Wait, did Bloomberg run or was that DeBlasio? I always mix up dour, odd-heighted NYC mayors with Boston roots and delusions of grandeur. Was the magic crystal healing lady real or was she part of the same fever dream that convinced me a brewery owner named Hickenlooper was running? Anyhow, Biden. He’s fine, and so’s Harris. They’ll do for now. 

I was one of those people excited for the new year just for the collective psychic benefit of not having to write “2020” on our cries for help anymore. This doesn’t mean I was shocked that something as evil and stupid as the storming of the Capitol could take place a mere six days in—none of us 2021-philes overestimated the power of flipping the calendar. We aren’t all dummies, we’re just taking little boosts where we can get them. New president is a pretty big little boost! 

Biden won’t do enough, and we won’t like enough of what he does. But he’ll be 1,000 times better than the last shithead, and he’ll at the very least chomp through some of the lowest-hanging fruit in short order. He’ll rejoin the Paris climate thing and the Iran nuclear thing and his secretaries of education and the interior won’t utterly fucking detest the concepts of schools and buffalo, for instance. It’s something. Plus just by forcing the last batch of assholes out he’ll make Washington a cooler place to drink beer. 

Last time I went to DC was also the first, and it was a couple years ago. Highlights included Right Proper’s Shaw Brewpub—I remember frankly irresponsible assortments of both saisons and cheeses—Pizza Paradiso, the African American Civil War Museum, that ChurchKey place everyone rightfully raves about, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture, where I swear to god I heard a kid claim to not know that Michael Jordan had played basketball before settling into sneaker entrepreneurship. He may have just been trying to give his father a heart attack, and if so he came close. 

Next visit—maybe this fall? That’s not an insane timeline for getting farther than walking distance from my apartment, is it?—I intend to track down as much Bluejacket beer as I can. The other day I tried my very first of their kind, the stunning Fantastic Damage IPA. It’s sweet and modern but not all chunky and stupid, with enough pine and grapefruit to make an honest beer of all the dried apricot, honeydew* and second-day pineapple. It’s 7% ABV and double dry-hopped with Galaxy Moutere. I paid $20 for four cans, which is ridiculous, but I think I got a little bit ripped off; you can probably get it for $15 if you live on a more reasonable planet. 

Today’s other recommendation is Northern Hospitality by the lovely young Volks who own Original American Portland’s Hunt + Alpine Club. It’s a clever, beautiful book full of recipes, photos, and stories, and it’s so evocative of the attainable high life that I’m seriously considering browning some butter to fat-wash aquavit, if you know what I’m saying.

*This is a bit of a guess, for I do not know the melon family as comprehensively as I should.