The Scandal That Wasn't

Tony Magee

Last week, Guys Drinking Beer posted a most intriguing take on a $25,000 donation Lagunitas made to the election campaign of Chicago mayor Rahm Imanuel.

Lagunitas Brewing Company cut a check to Rahm Emanuel’s re-election campaign for $25,000. It certainly isn’t the brewery’s first contribution to a political candidate but is the most sizable contribution and the second time this year it’s dropped 25k on a politician.

It wasn't the only check the brewery mailed out to politicos:

In July, Lagunitas cut a $25,000 check to incumbent governor Pat Quinn (who lost to Republican Bruce Rauner). In September Lagunitas dropped over 10k on Alderman Patrick O’Connor. $9,225 of that was an individual contribution while another $1,275 was an “in kind” contribution of beer and appetizers — most likely for a fundraiser. Alderman O’Connor, who represents the 40th ward on the north side, is Mayor Emanuel’s floor leader.

And then there’s the Christmas Eve contribution of $25,000 to the mayor’s campaign. It brings the total amount contributed by Lagunitas to Chicago politicians, since July, to $60,500.

For the most part, the incident seemed to garner very little attention. Things like this were rare. Lagunitas's Tony Magee has 20,000 followers, yet when he discussed the matter on Twitter, just a few people responded.  (Mostly about how they hated Rahm, it seems.)  Given the scrutiny beer geeks give breweries, I was surprised by this.  Politics is messy and ugly.  There's always an aroma of quid pro quo about political donations--how could it be otherwise?--and that's the kind of thing beer geeks hate.

Having formally written about politics, this not only doesn't surprise me, it makes a ton of sense.  To ignore the realities of politics--which is to say the realities of public policy that affect things like zoning, distribution laws, taxation, etc--is crazy short-sighted.  And brewers have become much more politically engaged and politically savvy.  But still; I'm surprised it wasn't a bigger story.

The Doomed Lagunitas Experiment That Wasn't

Lagunitas's Jack Alger called me last week to see if I would like to participate in an experiment.  The brewery had had a refrigerated truck full of fresh hops shipped from Yakima (Equinox, Amarillo, Mosaic), put them into a beer brewed on the equinox, and was offering to overnight me a bottle the day the beer was packaged--which was yesterday.

I have no idea if Jack knows that I have been assiduously documenting the maturation of fresh hop ales for years or that I am incredibly skeptical of 1) any fresh hops that spend longer than a few hours off the vine, 2) the techniques of breweries distant from the fresh hop epicenter where brewers have learned how to use them, and especially 3) bottled fresh hop beers. If he did, it was a ballsy move.  In my mind, this was an almost certainly doomed experiment.  But, because it was Lagunitas, where brewers are master-level hop wranglers, I figured I'd give it a shot.  I knew it wouldn't work, but I wanted to see for myself, anyway.

Guess what?  It worked.

The beer is called Born Yesterday, and it is in the market now (look here to see if it's in your area).  As with any fresh hop beer, the sooner you taste it, the better, and you should definitely track down a bottle/pint in the next week if you want the full experience (though Oregonians may rightly yawn after having indulged in our annual lupulin bacchanalia).   

There's a chemical compound in fresh hops that does not survive the kilning process.  Well-made fresh hop beers have it, and no other beers do.  The aroma resists description because it only smells like one thing: fresh hops. (Words like "green," "fresh," and "lively" sort of hint at the quality but are completely useless as identifiers.)  I have found good fresh hop flavor in beers without this aroma, but only very rarely. So as I poured out the bottle, I lowered a skeptical nose, expecting nothing--but there it was, the fresh hop smell, wafting mightily off the beer.

In a blind tasting, I'd guess it was Double Mountain's Killer Green.  Both Born Yesterday and Killer Green are IPA-strength (7.5%) and both are aggressively bitter (unusual for fresh-hop beers).  Like Killer Green, Born Yesterday starts with a loaded bitter charge that starts things with a pop.  Then the fresh flavors surge in, full of cannabis.  Sticky but lively and green, with a quality that seems to tickle the trigeminal nerve with the same zing as mint or menthol.  It's all there--a perfectly kosher, honest to goodness bottled fresh hop beer. 

I didn't think it was possible and I still don't think it's advisable (and I don't want to guess what Lagunitas spent making it), but I now know it can be done.  Kudos to Lagunitas.