Lagunitas Brown Shugga Ale

AFFORDABILITY: This was the Wine & Beer Warehouse store as well, and I actually took it to the counter and asked eastern Euro-looking dude who worked there about it (all dudes who work at beer stores and used record stores are Eastern European looking, for some reason, unless they are non-whiteys) and he didn’t know nothing about it. I was intrigued by the promise of brown sugar flavoring, as well as the 6-pack box talking up how it was all a mistake and they never meant to make this but they did and here it was and it was awesome. It was expensive I think, but I took the last 6-pack off the shelf. Then, while waiting to check out, a young couple was looking for a sixer of it as well, and there was none on the shelf, so the other eastern Euro-looking dude, the older one, who worked there, looked it up on their computer and was like, “Well, it says we have 116 bottles, so it’s either in the basement or there’s a few six-packs up here,” and he starts looking in boxes with the top half cut off along the counter and wall. I start looking and the couple is looking, and the girl of the couple goes, “THERE’S ONE!” So the older eastern Euro-looking guy starts playing six-pack Jenga with beers and cardboard and eventually unearths it for them to check out. All the while, I’m chatting up the dude of the couple about it, because I’m reluctant to give a shot in the dark to a $9 6-pack, especially more than one (and I would bet my hands were full), and he talks it up a nice game, so I’m sold on what I was already ready to buy, but now with less immediate regret. The whole thing was a great moment of forced deliberation and unique experience that made the purchase secondary to the memory. 8 out of 5.
DESTROYABILITY: Aside from it’s other brown sugar sweet release promises, it says “Life is Uncertain. Don’t Sip.” It also says 9.5% alcohol. It helped instill in me a gangsta lean, so much as a rural white dude raising three wholesome daughters and trying to maintain a small business on his own can be considered gangsta. 3 out of 5.
LABEL AESTHETIC: A very plain light yellow label, but with giant red “BROWN SHUGGA” on it embossed in the blackness. Plus, there’s mad Dr. Bonner’s soap bottle style nonsense kicking it in such a small space. At first, I would’ve been all like, “Man, fuck this shit,” but eventually I was like, “Nah, it’s cool.” 4 out of 5.
CORPORATE MASTER: It is a thing called Lagunitas Brewing Company of Pacoima, California (actually, Petaluma, but I like to say Pacoima more because Christmas just passed and I’ve listened to Cheech & Chong’s “Santa Claus and His Ol’ Lady” 139 times). I don’t really know anything about all this, but in my brain I have morphed together the George Lopez Show and the Drew Carey Show, and have imagined a funny sorta longhaired Mexican guy overseeing the assembly line of a beer manufacturing plant, and I’ve thrown in that scene from Take This Job & Shove It where they drink beer in bathtubs back in the woods (which is kinda warped now because of those dick drug commercials), and this all takes place right before lucha libre comes on Galavision on Tuesday night and I get to see Satanico teach Ultimo Guerrero & Rey Bucanero how to be properly awesome rudos, so awesome that that old guy rings his goofy bell like madness. 5 out of 5.
OVERALL AMBIANCE: You know, after the alcohol dork store pre-drinking hype, I was a little let down by the delivery of this beer. But I only drank like 2 of them mixed in with other shit, melting pot genetics style, which makes it harder to recognize the inherent beauty of a single entity contained within the mix. The second time a few days later that I drank upon this 6-pack, the couple of beers gave me a glorious feeling. There are beer dork blogs and websites that pour beers in glasses and describe all those aspects to you, but I am not from that cloth cut. The internet is made for such people, with science in mind to explain their own madness, but in an entertaining manner for random strangers. I know I’m fucking retarded, and I know I drink too much. Way too much, and this is even without ever allowing myself liquor drinks. Yet still, through all this, I can say, when I put on my professorial air and like to pretend I’m more than the average drunkard and want to dabble in fancy-pants beers, I can assure you, this here Brown Shugga Ale bridges that divide, making a fancy-pants closeted homo turn into a good ole drunkard (which is not to insinuate homosexuals aren’t good, or old, nor as good as drunkards; basically it’s all just SHOCKING TERMINOLOGY which has all become pretty played out inside the internets but I still use it because I don’t allow myself to talk shit like that around my kids, because I don’t want to raise daughters who end up in public service announcement commercials with Wanda Sykes). 4 out of 5.
TOTAL RATING: 4 & 4/5 STARS!