March 6, 2009 by Tomme

The taste of Cold

Today is session # 25 and it’s off to Lager Land for today. I don’t visit lager land too often. I’m not a hater but at the same time, I’m rarely get excited about lager. For those of you who visit The Lost Abbey, you may witness on occassion my affinity for a certain “stinging” Lager of sorts. You see, I drink Mickey’s Malt Liquor from time to time. It pretty much leaves people scratching their heads. Me, I don’t care. I drink Mickey’s for one simple reason, it’s the only beer I can drink AND shut my brain off at the same time.

Now, this doesn’t mean that I turn into a babbling fountain of idiocy. Nope, turning my brain off means that when I am drinking Mickey’s, I am not analyzing the beer for how well it was made or how coarse the bitterness lingers. That’s what brewers do. We drink beer and deconstruct the production of every single thing we pass through our lips. It’s what we are trained to do. As such, I have this completely ridiculous inability to drink things without dismissing (or championing) them. It sucks sometimes.

So, you’ll often find me nursing a Mickey’s Malt Liquor on Fridays and Saturdays during our tasting room hours. I prefer the Grenades over the 40 ounce bottle. I’m a big boy but my arms get tired of holding the 40 ounce bottles. Besides, the grenades stay colder and go down smoother. You know in a taste of cold sort of way. An extra added bonus of the Grenades is that they have puzzles under the caps(called Rebus). I suppose that is one way to deal with adult ADD.

Perhaps your wondering how this all came to be. It’s not like I haven’t been “out” of the Mickey’s Closet for some time now. I suppose it goes back to that fateful April 1st in 1998. Tom Nickell had the bright idea to replace all the handles on the Pizza Port Solana Beach Bar with Mickey’s taps for the day. (Looking back, I can only imagine how much glory the sales rep felt that day!) We also ordered two 1/2 bbls of Mickey’s Malt Liquor for the bar. Scooter was tasked with writing up the sign for the promo. $1 pints and $6 pitchers was the pitch. Scooter(his real name) broke out a giant black marker and wrote on the Mickey’s Banner (graciously supplied by the distributor). It said in all its’ glory

“GET DRUNK AND FIGHT LIKE THE IRISH.” And no, I wish I was making this up. The first keg lasted 2 hours and at one point I think every patron in the building had a Mickey’s Pint or Pitcher in front of them. All at once, everyone was transported back to their youth and describing awful malt liquor experiences. That April 1st was my first foray into Mickey’s Malt Liquor land and certainly not my last. You see, over the years, Mickey’s Malt Liquor has been an unwaivering wing man of sorts for me. Mostly, you’ll find me drinking Mickey’s when nothing else strikes my fancy. That’s my brains way of saying shut it down.

So today is Lager Day in the blogosphere. I’m glad to be able to finally profess my love for one of the most decorated Malt Liquours of all time! Sure, it’s not often you find a brewer who professes admiration for beers that don’t make them think. But that’s exactly what Mickey’s does for me. I think every brewer needs to be able to steal sips from a bottle without putting any thought whatsoever as to how the beer was made. Thank you Mickey’s from the bottom of my heart. Now if you’ll excuse me please, I have a curb to go kick…