Strange Land Brewery Atholl Brose Scotch Ale

Well, holy shit, that's a good beer.  It's sweet and malty.  It chews back at you like you were making out with a starving hyena.  It comes in a big damn bottle, so there's plenty more.  Nice friggin' work, whoever-the-hell Strange Land Brewery is!

OK, so look at this picture over here.  Burn the label art into your memory banks, hard drives, cloud servers, and gelatinous meat-brains.  Now go buy some.  Then drink it.

Assuming you followed my instructions, you are now a much happier person.  A happier person who is currently enjoying a bouquet of fancy flavors like fresh bread, sweet honey, caramel, raisins, and fuckin' good beer.

Here are a few fact about this beer and how much I give damn about each of them: my bottle came from batch #2 (I don't give a shit), it is bottle conditioned (more fun than being gassed, but I don't care), it derives its name from a whiskey which derives its name from when the Earl of Atholl poisoned a well (OK, I actually think that is pretty cool, but it has nothing to do with enjoying this beer), it registers a fancy 16 IBUs (part of my brain just hanged itself out of boredom), 8.9% ABV (good to know, but not impressive enough of a number to make me care), and it says it is "hand crafted" (... just fuck that guy, to whoever spawned that bullshit phrase).  I hope you learned something about this beer from those facts, and I hope you learned something about skipping the trivia and just drinking the damn beer, too.  Drinking beer is a good thing, maybe the best of things.

I'm two glasses into this beast of a 22oz bottle, and the going is getting rough.  Sure, I've had four beer earlier today, but not within the last hour.  Yes, I ate a big tasty cheeseburger and fries for dinner.  Certainly I'm feeling shooting pains down my arm.  Dammit, I'm short of breath.  And, of course, I'm dizzy and nauseous.  But, none of that is important right now.  The most important thing right now is to keep drinking my tasty tasty beer. It is a struggle, but I'll stiffen my lip, gird my loins, stand up straight, clutch my chest, and soldier right on down to the bottom of this glass!  It's gonna be a long trip though.

As good as this beer is, and despite my normal position that a good beer should be horded, this would be a great bottle to share with a friend.  You'll both have plenty of tasty drinky-booze but not enough to land you in the cardiac wing.  It would be great shared between two people on a comfy couch watching some baaaaad asssssss blacksploitation cinema or a grainy kung-fu, Shaw Brothers epic.  Try it, you'll see.

This beer has balls, but it also has class.  If you've been jonesing to swallow some classy balls then this is just the thing for you.  So, go on, get out of here.  Have some fun.  Drink too much.  Take a cab to the bedroom and watch the world spin.  Do me a favor, though: when you're drunk and talking too loud, don't turn to a stranger near you and slur loudly, "Atholl Brose".  I like your nose just fine the way it is now.

Buffalo Bayou Brewing Co., 1836 A Copper Ale

"If you have to ask what 1836 stands for, please put down this beer and leave our country."

This Houstonian beer has a request.  You probably read what that request is.  I wrote it down, in bold and italics, centered, as the first line of this week's beer blog.  It's right up there at the top.  Go read it again.

So, what does 1836 stand for?  If you aren't sure, don't know, or know exactly what the fuck it stands for, then you are probably right.  I looked it up*.  Let me just say this: whatever you think or don't know at all, more than one thing happened that year.

I'll go into details at the end of the blog, but first, let's all raise a glass to the hopes of one day razing Houston (the city that shares a slogan with Bruges) to the ground.  If you toasted that disgusting swamp with this 1836, then you already know that you are holding 12oz of 5.7% ABV of "handcrafted" (whatever that means) ale from the good people at Buffalo Bayou Brewing Co.  And you also know that it isn't half bad.

This is a very clean beer.  While mostly balanced, and certainly with a solid malty chewiness, the flavor finishes towards a slightly citrus-y and mildly bitter hoppiness.  There are no frills, no bells or whistles.  Excitement and exceptionalism aren't the point of this beer.  This a beer for a beer drinker, and the aficionados can go to hell.  I'd drink this in a bar with my friends, and I'd be having a good time doing it.

One glass in, and no signs of slowing down.  I was worried the malt might get heavy, or the hop finish might turn my sour stomach, but, no.  I think I need a six of this in the fridge.  I'm glad that I'm drinking this Hoth-cold.  It seems right.  I don't think this a beer that would still work as it warms up.

Hey!  Ben Mallott's Shotgun Suzy just came on, and it might be just the perfect pace and tone to fully enjoy the 1836.  Go find it**, crack a can, pour, sit, sip, and listen.  I think you'll agree that your life is now a slight, but important bit better.  See if your local beer DJ can't hook you up.

But, back to the elephant on the label: 1836.  Did you think of the Alamo?  How about Texas independence from Mexico (because fuck you, Mexico, with your sovereignty and slaveless-ness)?  Did you perhaps conjure images of Charles Darwin and the Beagle returning to Englad?  Well, I don't know what this can was thinking specifically, but it has an old-time-y looking map and a fringed-sleeved arm lofting a rifle, so probably either the Alamo or Texas independence.  For the sake of shitting in Buffalo Bayou's breakfast cereal (for the crime of lacking specificity), here is a short list of some of the notable events of 1836:

Jan 5th - Davy Crockett arrives in Texas, just in time for the Alamo
Feb 23rd - Alamo besieged for 13 days until 6th March by Mexican army under General Santa Anna; entire garrison eventually killed
Feb 25th - Samuel Colt patents 1st revolving barrel multishot firearm
Mar 2nd - Republic of Texas declares independence from Mexico in Columbia
Mar 5th - Samuel Colt manufactures 1st pistol, 34-caliber "Texas" model
Mar 6th - Battle of the Alamo: after 13 days of fighting 1,500-3,000 Mexicans overwhelm the Texans at the Alamo, killing 182-257 Texans including William Travis, Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett
Mar 16th - Texas approves a constitution
Mar 17th - Texas abolishes slavery
Apr 14th - Congress forms Territory of Wisconsin
Apr 20th - Territory of Wisconsin created
Apr 21st - Battle of San Jacinto, in which Texas wins independence from Mexico
Jun 15th - Arkansas becomes 25th state of the Union
Jul 4th - Wisconsin Territory forms
Aug 30th - The city of Houston is founded by Augustus Chapman Allen and John Kirby Allen
Sep 5th - Sam Houston elected president of Republic of Texas
Oct 2nd - Darwin returns to England aboard HMS Beagle (after 5 years)
Oct 22nd - Sam Houston inaugurated as 1st elected pres of Republic of Texas
Dec 7th - Martin Van Buren elected 8th president
Dec 14th - The Toledo War unofficially ends.
Dec 28th - Spain recognizes independence of Mexico
Dec 30th - Lehman Theater in St Petersburg catches fire; 100s die

Did you guess right?  Do you have to put down your beer and leave the country?  Either way, Houston sucks and you don't have to do anything they tell you to.  But do try the beer because I tell you to.  S'good beer.

*Googled it

**https://youtu.be/h1JMp0_Yjvs This is not the best recording, so go buy the album you pirate!