{"id":215,"date":"2017-09-12T20:23:34","date_gmt":"2017-09-12T20:23:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fnpsites.net\/uncapped\/?p=215"},"modified":"2017-09-13T00:34:34","modified_gmt":"2017-09-13T00:34:34","slug":"lesssons-learned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/uncapped\/2017\/09\/12\/lesssons-learned\/","title":{"rendered":"Lesssons Learned"},"content":{"rendered":"

Don\u2019t Fear the Fear<\/strong>
\nYou can call me a lot of things (the overwhelming majority of them negative), but one thing you cannot call me is a beer connoisseur. You say, \u201cpotato,\u201d I say, \u201cpo \u2026 what\u2019s the cheapest thing you have on tap\u2014and oh, wait, is it happy hour?\u201d<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong. I love a lot of people who love craft beer. It\u2019s with those precise people that I have the following understanding: I won\u2019t judge you for wasting 17 minutes of any given day lecturing me on something called a \u201chop,\u201d and you won\u2019t judge me for regularly shotgunning warm Natty Bohs at the age of 33.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On weeknights. In dress clothes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is to say nothing of the fact that I\u2019m hopelessly in love with Flying Dog\u2019s The Fear. If I could afford to drink fancy craft beer eight days a week, I\u2019d drink it a lot more than I do. Or, well, there\u2019s that and there\u2019s the fact that it\u2019s only available around this time of year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Among the other things only offered around this time of year? Football. Leaves. NBC sitcoms that last no longer than three episodes. School. Candy corn. Less daylight. Apple cider. Hooded sweatshirts. And the thing worse than them all: pumpkin beer.\u00a0
\nAnd that list included \u201ccandy corn.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anyway, because I love The Fear so much, and because The Fear is technically a version of pumpkin beer, I set out to find some other candidates that could stare The Fear directly in the eye and \u2026 well, you can finish that clich\u00e9 yourself.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One very unpleasant clerk and two liquor stores later, I walked away with the only two very large bottles of pumpkin beer I could find in Maryland in the middle of August (hey, we have early deadlines): Southern Tier\u2019s Pumking Imperial Ale and Rogue\u2019s Pumpkin Patch Ale (brewed with Rogue Farms Dream Pumpkins to boot!). The former came in an atypically big bottle, while the other came in something so orange I needed eclipse glasses just to drink it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is going to be good,\u201d I thought. \u201cNot only is this beer cold, but it also costs more per bottle than what I\u2019m making per word right now (which, to be fair, is nothing). And if we go by the old adage that if it\u2019s expensive, it\u2019s high quality, then this stuff is going to change my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

And change my life it did. I wasn\u2019t halfway through the Southern Tier bottle before I could feel my body temperature rise and my nose start to run.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sweating,\u201d I texted a coworker after she asked how things were going with the experiment.<\/p>\n

Then I found the all-caps function on my cellphone and fired off these perfectly reasonable messages:
\n\u201cI MAY DIE.\u201d
\n\u201cNOW MY BACK HURTS MORE.\u201d
\nAnd the kicker …
\n\u201c!!!\u201d<\/p>\n

In short, the beer was just so \u2026 pumpkin-y. In fact, it was so pumpkin-y, I very seriously considered not finishing the bottle and canceling this column. It was like I took a bite of a pumpkin and knocked it back with arsenic. The flavor was so sweet I wanted to make a dentist appointment. It wasn\u2019t until the 8.6 ABV kicked in that I could stomach it. But even then, the sweats kept coming and the nose kept running.
\nThe worst part was that after the experience of the Southern Tier concluded (mercifully), I had yet another, very bright bottle staring me right in the face, daring me to pop the cap.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, the Rogue Farms Dream Pumpkins proved to be not nearly as sweet as their predecessor\u2019s, and Rogue offered, at the very least, something that resembled a real beer. Far from a warm Natty Boh, but clearly the easier of the two to throw down the gullet. \u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nSo, what\u2019s the lesson learned? Well, for one, pumpkin beer can go pound sand.
\nFor two, Southern Tier, whose ale I really wanted to like because I have a history with the brand, can go right ahead and stop producing its seasonally atrocious Pumking.
\nFor three, what the hell does \u201cPumking\u201d mean?<\/p>\n

For four, this better not mean I\u2019m allergic to beer, because that\u2019ll jump right to the top of Colin\u2019s List of Issues, just above \u201cWhen will they bring back the grilled onion hamburger at McDonald\u2019s?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

And for five, let\u2019s raise a glass to The Fear. For we now have proof that the only thing to fear is anything but The Fear itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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