12 beers of Tartan Inn.. Day 4 Leinenkugel's Snowdrift Vanilla Porter

I sold my first short story when I was 19 years of age and, ardently fueled by the incendiary alphabetical embers of literature and all things poetically post-coital, I aptly did what all lapsed Lutheran lads who hail from the genital wart of the Midwest do when they sell their first short story-- I bought a one-way airplane ticket to Appleton, Wisconsin to pursue the benevolent frost-bitten fingertips of the proverbial  girl of my dreams  (i.e., the one who got away--elbow nudge-- eh, son).

Needless to say it didn't work out. Largely because she was still in high school and still living with her parents.  Partly because she harbored loveable jean-jacket Lesbian-proclivities which I adored (she sent me high school standard mixed-tapes of the Indigo Girls). Inevitably I left the state of Wisconsin downtrodden and disconsolate, adverse to all things related to cheap pilsner and overpriced cheese curds.

Ibid for the Green Bay Packers as well, who opportunely won the Super bowl shortly upon my return.

 

That was many blue moons ago and my antipathy towards our northern neighbors has waned, largely in part to the quality libations imported by beers imported by New Glarus and Schell and cheapo Lacrosse and (oh yeah) Jacob Leinenkugel.

This is a beer that the Tartan has on draft. The beer is gentle and offers a sprouting yet mellifluous pour. For a porter (and I like my Irish brick heavy porters) it baptizes the palate with the trickling pluck of a Christmas Goose feather. Out of the 12 superlative Beers featured on the Tartan Inn's Holiday Beer tour I would argue that this one is the lightest. There is an almost tangible fluff. Like catching a flake of arctic precipitation on the tip of your cheekbone or (after being double-dog dared, of course) sticking your timid schoolboy tongue to the frigid phallus of a courtyard flagpole only to find yourself seconds later,( momentarily, at least) making out with lips of snow angel minutes before she melts in the incipient breath of spring.

It is a delicate beer.




drinkin' Snowdrift vanilla porter at T.I w. my good friend Kyle Devalk

Those who drink with me know that every year during the first breach of accumulative snow, in homage of the late-great Rick Baker, I forgo my allegiance to my beloved Sam Adams and plant Moosehead (The beer Baker states in MARY,ME was the 'best damn beer he ever tasted') in the fresh tuft of snow. The last year I found myself inexplicably including the Vanilla porter to keep the Canadian Lager company.  Like an ice-sculpture it is delicate and complex, evaporating in snowflakes beckoning the talents of your taste buds to succumb to a second round even if, another Christmas ago, you lost the love of your life, this beer somehow will serve as a bellwether, a harbinger of chin up holiday-hope keeping the kettle of your spirits warm.

--this is what happens when Ernest drinks too much Linenkugel's around the holidays (note 80's side-pony tail crimped hair girl of my dreams in the background)....