Pink Galah
Pink Lemonade Sour Beer
The Grifter Brewing Co.
It was a spring day and the sun shone through the windows. It was warm on my back. I drank a beer. The beer was cold, and good. It was tart. It tasted bright, like lemon juice if you took all the sugar out of it. A man shouldn’t drink sweet things, it makes him soft. The beer is pink, but not as pink as the can suggests. It was more of a red. In truth, the colour lay somewhere between the two, like watermelon if watermelon was electric. There was a time, not so long ago, that a man may call another man a fairy for drinking a pink beer. And then that other man would have to clean the other’s clock for him. Some men may look back fondly at those days. I don’t look back at them at all.
There is a note of raspberry, but it is subtle. It comes after the lemon juice. It is reminiscent of cough medicine, or of sugar free fruit pastilles. It is a beer like the best kind of woman. Bright, and acid on the tongue. The dryness this acid brings makes the beer less refreshing than it could be, but it is still good. It is not a chore to drink. The acid makes the beer moreish.
As the lemon juice flavour trails off, the red fruits come up. They don’t last long. The astringency excoriates the tongue. A cat dozes nearby. It is a small cat, and grey. I am sitting at a table, covered with plants. It feels like being back in the tropics. The heat on my back, the lush foliage around. The head on the beer subsides quickly and leaves no residue. This is common for sour beers. It is like youth, too soon gone, though it leaves its mark on the man. The fizz is almost harsh, which is welcome. It complements the citrus and lends weight to the deceit that this is a lemonade.
I haven’t worked today. The lockdown makes it difficult to find honest work. It makes my hands itch. A man who doesn’t work at what he can is no man at all. I sift through a pile of correspondence. It will take the rest of the afternoon to deal with the junk and make my replies. I flag a car and have it take me to the nearest post office so I can daw a check to resupply. I think about that beer. It would be good when the hotter days return.
Exit Pursued by a Beer 