The Resident Spike Buckowski’s Red Rye Ale

By moniker alone, this beer had me sold from the outset. One, it is a red ale: my favorite style. And two, the guy who makes it shares a surname (if not the spelling) of perhaps the finest degenerate wordsmith rolling in his grave: Mr. Charles Bukowski. I had to write something. And I had to wait until I’d had several of these fine brews before I did so.

Slow Sunday afternoon.

Nothing like Mozart to

Chill the wind

Whipping down from the mountains

Extinguishing cigarettes

On the workaday weekend

Bender.

Except maybe Schubert

To wash down these beers.

Alright, that’s enough of that. This is an excellent beverage with rich flavors, good rye-intensity and a solid hop-profile.  It even references baseball and Tom Selleck’s moustache on the back of the label.  How’s that for a taste of nostalgia? Only one problem, though.  Upon closer inspection, it seems as though the brewery is not independently owned as the marketeering would have you believe. Instead it is a second small-batch label from an Auckland-owned conglomerate, no doubt the brew-master’s pet project.

I think the master of debaucherous pulp fiction and rugged poetry would only approve because of the relatively high alcohol percentage and the fact that at least they’re honest about exploiting American-bred ingenuity and kicking them out of NZ when their visas expire.

Choice as, bru.

Beermigos rating: Ballpark Brew. The booze-factor, the American influence and the fact that they mention baseball right there on the label would make me want to crush about a dozen of these at the cricket, hopelessly try to understand what the fuck was going on and d then go out on the town to chase some women with my mates. I’m sure both the brewer and the writer would support this.