Another Milestone

I was just solicited to write some blog-ola about a vaguely geo-related product that I'll never use. Weird. I'd never do that in a million years.

Speaking of commercial products: Fall -- and Saison -- couldn't arrive soon enough beer-wise. New Belgium's summer seasonal beer, Skinny Dip, was as gustatorially disappointing as it was profitable. Carefully and precisely made, it had no aftertaste, no middle taste ... no flavor at all, to be honest. This was a beer for the masses, for people who found Fat Tire to be far too heavy and rich. Even the tasteless bots who drink Smirnov coolers found Skinny Dip to be refreshingly and perfectly unchallenging. I should have seen this coming a couple years ago when I got the awesome (I'm serious!) behind-the-curtains tour of the N.B. cellaring operation, and learned that the favorite in-house brew of the cellaring team was their lightest beer at the time: Loft. Skinny Dip must have started as an after-work bet:

"Dude -- I bet we can make a beer more crisp than Loft."

"Oh yeah? I bet we can make a beer crispier than Bud Lite!"

Just because you can doesn't mean you should. Unless Skinny Dip's profits could subsidize lower prices on La Folie, or pay for year-round production of Lips of Faith.