Good Beer Hunting

Read.Look.Drink

206. Read. Look. Drink.

These are the words, images, and beers that inspired the GBH Collective this week. Drinking alone just got better, because now you're drinking with all of us.

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CORY SMITH

READ.// “A rental listing posted on Zillow boasts that the house ‘is as good as it gets for a student rental two blocks from campus.’ There’s no mention of being featured on an album cover or a warning that grown-up emo kids will be stopping to take photos so you better keep the curtains closed.” Falling into a recent internet hole, I began reminiscing about ’90s emo albums while also thinking about why some album covers become iconic and some just fade. This article discusses both topics, focusing on the house featured on the cover of American Football's 1999 self-titled album.

LOOK.// The New York Times had a group of New York artists come together to capture what's outside their windows. But just as important as their illustrations are the accompanying quotes, which provide a brief glimpse into the ways that quarantine has impacted their lives and wellbeing.

DRINK.// Track Brewing Company’s Sonoma
Lately, I've been reaching for beers with big flavor, but small ABVs. I first had Sonoma during the London Craft Beer Festival last year, and it hit that target perfectly. At just 3.8%, it still delivers big tropical and piney notes in equal measure. It's the perfect anytime, anywhere beer for me. Luckily Track makes its way to Copenhagen with some regularity, but I think I'll stock up anyway. Just in case.

CLAIRE BULLEN

READ.// “That is the sound of somebody who has broken out a little bit. Who’s breaking the windows and the doors in order to get some air. Instead of the person who’s just walking into their own fog of their own perfume, smelling the same thing over and over again.” Has any album release been so well-timed as Fiona Apple’s long-awaited “Fetch the Bolt Cutters”? It’s a strange and wily masterpiece, and it’s pretty much all I’ve listened to for the last two weeks. In this in-depth interview with Vulture, Apple talks openly about the album’s creation, moving through past trauma, and her newfound adventurousness.

LOOK.// Undoubtedly my favorite Instagram follow of the last year is @pomme_queen. Apple enthusiast William Mullan posts technicolor portraits of fruits and blossoms, including rare heritage varieties and apples with origins in the wilds of Kazakhstan. His descriptions of their appearances, aromas, flavors, and textures rival the best beer and wine tasting notes I’ve ever read.

DRINK.// Donzoko Brewing Company’s Big Foam
Big Foam. BIG FOAM. BiG fOaM. *~*Big Foam*~*. I’m never a person who orders large quantities of the same beer, but I’ve got over a dozen tallboys of Donzoko’s Big Foam Rustic Lager in my fridge right now, and even still I’m worried about what will happen when I run out. This ebullient beer—pour hard for a cloud of froth—is warmly bready, piquantly bitter, clean, refreshing, joyous, the antidote to all sorrows. It is absolutely my quar MVP.

BRYAN ROTH

READ.// “We’re here because of love. Love is the best thing in the world.” How romance stays strong for two octogenarians in the time of COVID-19.

LOOK.// Pause on the empty spaces and exhausted faces in this photo essay about life with COVID-19, and consider how it may reflect your own experience these days.

DRINK.// Highland Brewing Company’s Daycation IPA
I find myself yearning for the bitter twang of a West Coast-style IPA these days, which feels like a fitting accompaniment to being stuck at home all day long. Definitively hop-forward, this lower-ABV version of the style offers a great little bite with an on-the-nose name for these times of self-isolation and lack of travel options.

Curated by
The GBH Collective