what we have here is a failure to communicate

Although I have been tempted to write about my beery adventures since having so much fun in Sept. and Oct. with my spooky book and beer combos, I haven’t encountered a brew that I felt I simply MUST point out – until now.

Brewed in celebration of Stone Brewing Company’s 13th anniversary, the Lukcy Basartd Ale has several things about it that excite me. First of all, indulging in my love of all things wordy, the scrambled text that appears all over the 22 oz. bottle is a delight to my eye and brain. Remember that study about how the brain can read scrambled text as long as the first and last letters of the word remain in their usual place? It’s a phenomena that amuses me greatly, although due to the curve of the bottle it’s a bit harder than usual for me to decipher the three paragraphs of text that begins with ‘Oepn yuor mnid. Use a craobwr if you msut‘, goes on to congratulate you for deviating from the norm by picking this odd bottle up, and finishes with a call to ‘gsarp enitghnelnemt anmog tihs mnid-nmubnig culettr‘ with ‘coinscous itnent‘, saying to those who accept the norm without thought, ‘ “Setp asdie, and get the hlel out of our way.” ‘ Thrilling stuff from the brewers of the famous Arrogant Bastard Ale, ripe with their usual overbearing conceit!

While I have been known to drink my share of fizzy yellow beer, (in spite of Arrogant Bastard’s sneering claim that it is “for Wussies“) the Lukcy Basartd is no fizzy yellow beer. It is a gorgeous amber color actually. A blend of the three Arrogant Bastard ales, oaked and double-dry hopped, the Lukcy Basartd is an astonishing thing. I’ve never encountered a beer that had three separate drinking experiences in one swig – there is the initial taste, the swish through the mouth, and the swallow. At the taste, I got all the sweet malty pow that I expect from Arrogant Bastard. Then my mouth was flooded with a grapefruity zing that at the same time was…vanillay…? Before I could quite decide what I was tasting, the swallow was roaring down my throat and I was rocked by the extra hops from the dry-hopping. WOW! I liked it, but I kept having to assure CP that this was the case, because my startled reaction after every single drink made him think I was suffering. This beer sent me reeling – but in a good way. I still can’t quite figure out what the flavor of the mid-drink was (pineapple? orange? sugar cookie??) but I was thoroughly impressed, and I definitely want to scoot back to the beer store to grab a few more of this limited release. And you should too, if you have any boldness in you – or any “blodenss” for that matter!