I have a soft spot for Flanders red ales, so when I saw Vanguard/Loyal Legion’s Red Don, a Flanders red ale with cherries, well I’m pretty sure you can guess what happened next. The nose smells like cherry juice and that feels…weird. There’s a little bit of funk under that, too, as though the juice might be turning in an intriguing way.
The beer itself is also a challenge to get my head around. The mildly sour part of the Flanders red style is there but without much sweetness, and the tartness of the cherries is in full force so it’s both a contrast and a counterbalance? I suppose if I had to pin it down, I would call this beer grapefruit cherry sparkling water.
I suppose I’m spoiled due to my experience with other versions of Flanders reds, that have a definite dry fruit or chocolate note of sweetness to keep the whole thing corralled in and I’m missing that. Is this beer bad? No. I know there are people who will love this. Buuuuut it’s not quite working for me.
On the I-5 southbound this morning, I saw a mini-van with a giant sheet of paper covering an unwise amount of the back windshield that said: Jesus is the truth, the light and the way, handwritten in fat black marker.
With a handicapped emblem.
And a Trump sticker.
So, what is practically a perfect storm of delusional behavior; unsafe driving created by poor vision, unsafe behavior created by Trump support, in a vehicle that is operated by a person who desperately needs society’s support structures, is in front of me.
In the meantime, I’m listening to this.
The freeway is for everyone, though. I don’t need to monitor this person, so long as they stay in their lane. The rules help keep everyone safe. My job is to stay aware of what’s going on around me and to maintain my own safety. My job is to take care of everything I can in order to keep that freeway a safe place to be, starting with my own driving and care of my vehicle, to the money I give so that these public spaces are in good shape and don’t endanger anyone.
So I keep on keepin’.
This second pint is for the ACLU.
A pint for Dionysus 