6:00 p.m. - 2002-02-04
scuba tank
As any true connoisseur of forties can tell you, a #2 size paper bag emits a deep manila base-note...and, just before one's windpipe closes in anticipation of the glorious wheaten elixir that is soon to thunder down the fleshy spillway of one's throat, it drinks deep of the exotic mildness of the bag. The bag and...what is that other flavour? Perhaps some perspiratory vapour emitted by the bottle itself during the course of our stroll home from the deli? Some gaseous bouillabaisse of cooler flavorings? Turned milk, maybe? Pre-packaged egg salad sandwiches, and could it be? The slightest hint of Freon? Exquisite. The palatine arches are abuzz even before the chilled sweetness of malted liquor has reached the tongue. Context, my man! Drinking one's forty sans bag is akin to sipping one's martini from a jam-jar... Why drink forties at all then, why not consume instead the contents of three and one third twelve ounce cans? Perhaps you've never felt the need to articulate my friend, but you know there's a difference. I personally hold that it's the extra time required in the bottling process- that keeping the bottle open longer permits the contents more exposure to the wretched funk of the brewhouse. Thus imbuing the familiar 'brewsky' with the sort of complex palette we associate more with a Boudin Du Pays or a Vietnamese Mam Nem sauce... So yes, context. The brown, haunted, sweetness of a recycled paper bag (Port Townsend Paper makes an excellent one by the way) is essential.
And for the purist, might I also recommend that the whole experience be enjoyed alfresco, preferably on a cement "stoop" chilled, as it were, to a temperature cold enough to be felt through the worn bottom of one's trousers. Mmm, yes. Exquisite.
