Author: Charles Andres

Posted: Thu Sep 08 14:50:19 -0700 2005

My first encounter with Mighty Moose Drool --

I must say I am as impressed with Moose Drool as I
ever have been with a beer. That includes home town
hand crafted fine British Ales and German Duesseldorf
Alts.

I must first disclose that the events of the evening upon
which I chose to conduct the review may have had much
to do with my state of mind. But then again, maybe the
Moose Drool was the cosmic manipulator...

It is a hot muggy night with the temperature about 79 and
humidity around 95%.  It has been one of those days when
it is one difficult gristly piece of work after another, and nothing
is in sync.  Not the traffic lights. Not the people jumping for
the pump slots at the gas station. Nor the arbitrary nature
of complex business processes.  Not dinner. Not dinner
conversation. Not the mail. Nada.

I am outside in the gazebo, and about to turn on the AM
radio I use to listen to Boston Red Sox games the old
fashioned way. Baseball is first and foremost a radio game.

I remember that the Moose Drool had been sitting in a refrigerator
chilling for the past 24 hours after arriving here.  I felt that was
necessary to cool it to restore it to full body for the review

I headed up a flight of stairs to the screened-in porch to enter
 the house to get the Moose Drool.

BAM! On the porch,  Amber the indoor cat who has not been outside
in 5 months, and never in the summer, and who is the nicest of indoor
cats, came flying out the screen door as it opened a crack, hellbent for
a taste of warm muggy freedom, into a sea of bugs, moths, mice, ants,
and who knows what else.  I move after her, changing in speeds from
tai chi slow to crouching tiger fast, but Amber is light years ahead.

90 minutes later, I find myself lying in muck under the yew bushes covered with
mosquito bites, Amber's 'mother', ( i.e. my daughter) finally catches her
with a tin of fresh crabmeat. There is not a kind word in the world.
Yes, both parents were in the rainforest  braving mosquitoes, unable
to swat them for fear of 'scaring the cat'  and also soaked
during the 'flush-the-cat-out-with-the-hose maneuver'.

I hide in the screened-in gazebo. I am dripping with sweat from head to 
foot. There is muck to wipe off.  Mosquito bites to scratch.  

I sip the Moose Drool.

I am impressed by the full body, lack of any bitterness or unpleasant 
aftertaste of any kind. I am amazed how complex the flavor is.  It reminds me of
several different beers, in sequence. When the first sip produces a thick
head with tiny bubbles oozing out of the neck of the bottle, it looks and
tastes like an Alt.  The smoothness is familiar in the alt way as well.

I turn on the AM Radio.  The Red Sox are at Fenway playing the Texas
Rangers. It is the 7th Inning.  Boston leads 7 - 1. Bronson Arroyo is
pitching well.  The Moose Drool is beginning to resemble a good British
Ale, like a Watneys draft.  It is amazing to have a brew this smooth out
of a glass bottle.  I wonder how well it ships.

The Rangers score 4 runs in the top of the 8th.  It is now 7-5. We need
to bring in Timlin to close the door. Too many times, the pitcher Bradford
got ahead 0 - 2, and then fumbled to put men in scoring position; doubles
but not double plays.

Now the Moose Drool starts assuming cosmic proportions.  There
actually is a picture of a big old Moose drinking from a clear mountain
icemelt and drooling all over., as all of you know...

The Sox proceeded to score by  getting doubles and triples,
 loading  the bases  again and again.
Texas went through a bullpen of mediocre right handers.  Then
runs  scored by wild pitches and walks. By the end of
the inning, the Sox were ahead 16 - 5 scoring 9 times, the most
in any inning since anyone can remember.
At the end, they were leading the American League East by 5-1/2
games, since the Yankees lost as well.

I discover that even sitting outside in the humidity, I am now perfectly
dry somehow and in the best state of mind of the day.

Any beer that can turn around that kind of a day has to be special.
Did Moose Drool help Boston absolutely crush Texas? I think only
the Montanans who craft it know for sure. I like to think so.