Fooling the Pony?

On the day after Independence Day (July 5^th), which was a Friday this year, I was sitting around in my PJs staring at various items in my apartment – the wall, the chair, my computer screen. That’s when my friend, Forrest, g-chatted me, asking me if Mr. Green and I would like to go sample beers at a nearby brewery, the ‘One Trick Pony,’ in Lansing, Illinois.

Forrest was having a dinner party on July 6^th, and it was his intention to pick up an array of growlers from this brewery. And, it turns out, he had some errands to run near this brewery, so he figured that he could drop us off at the brewery, head out to run his errands and, when he came back to pick us up, he could purchase growlers based on our recommendations.

Obviously, we agreed.

Since we were there as investigative reporters, I brought a notepad and took elaborate notes. Our first round of beers included Selle Francais, a Saison, and Walkalooza, an American IPA. Mr. Green has a much more discerning palate than I (I have a terrible sense of smell), so he was the critique and I was the reporter. His judgement was that the Saison “kind of has a sewer water taste,” but he loved the IPA, saying that, “it’s one of those ones you think about when you’re drinking.”

The ‘One Trick Pony’ bar contains lawn furniture, mason jars filled with pretzels, and boxes of Trivial Pursuit queries. I passed the time quizzing Mr. Green with questions published in 1984. It felt a little surreal, since most questions were ridiculously out of date, prompting me to say, “we’re getting an inkling of the types of things people who were our age knew in 1980.” 

As you might expect, Mr. Green got very few questions right, and those he answered correctly were intriguing. Here’s the very first question he got right:

Me, reading off a Trivial Pursuit Card: “What are ‘fragmentation, smoke, and incendiary’ types of?”

Mr. Green: “Bombs!”

After I asked him a handful of questions, however, I began to suspect that he was getting most of them wrong on purpose just to amuse me. This is classic Mr. Green behavior (and is a reason why I love him so much). Here’s an example:

Me: “What is the chemical symbol for mercury?”

Mr. Green: “‘M’?”

Me: “Really?!?! ‘M’ is your guess?”

The pretzels, which were located in mason jars at every table, were delicious and fresh. But we needed another round. We both walked up to the beer-ordering window, encountering a woman who was serving pints. As is my habit these days, I started interviewing her about her life. I asked her questions like, “Do you enjoy working at a brewery? What do you think your professional strengths are?” (My friends will confirm that I can be pretty irritating after having consumed a pint of beer.)

But the thing about asking people questions is that, usually, they like it. People love talking about themselves. Our bar ‘tendress’ told us that she thought that her gift was, “having the ability to make anyone feel at home anywhere.” She then told us about her aunt, who was at that very moment getting a cardiac pacemaker surgically installed, telling us that, “She'll be driving by next week! She’s been wanting to drive for years …”

This wonderful bar tendress was also in charge of refilling the pretzel jars. After this conversation, our pretzel jar remained full, despite my gluttonous appetite.

Anyway, our second round of beer included the Warlander, an Imperial IPA, and the ????, a Belgian ale. Now, we weren’t sure if they hadn’t yet decided on a name for the Belgian, or if it was actually called, “????.” The IPA was, again, a hit. Mr. Green said, “There’s nothing different about it, it’s just good. And it has the highest alcohol content here, so it gets the job done.” For the Belgian ale I wrote down our exact conversation:

Mr. Green, after sipping the Belgian ale: “Mmmm. Highly drinkable.”

Me: “Refreshing.”

Mr. Green: “It almost tastes like pizza.”

Ah, almost. 

Now, for our third round, it was my turn to order. With cash clasped in my hand, I approached the beer-tasting window. There were several people sitting around, chatting with one of the brewery’s owners, who was serving pints. The owner saw me and called out, “let her through! She’s got money!” I replied by waving around the cash and saying, happily, in a sing-song voice, “Yay, capitalism!”

This, perhaps, was a mistake.

The vibe of the little group changed. The owner said, severely, “Maybe communism works at a small scale, but for a larger group of people, capitalism is best.”

I put on a very serious face. “Yes, yes, YES. Of course.”

This is when the owner told me about the secret beers, which were located in a secret room, and I could try them if I wanted to. So, of course, I ordered some of the secret beers and, while the owner was pouring my pints, he repeatedly told his friends, “I saw the money and my mind went blank. It. Just. Went. BLANK. ”

[Mr. Green technically got this Trivial Pursuit (©1984) question right:

Me: “What do the Kara, Laptev, and East Siberian seas have in common?”

Mr. Green: “Salt.”

Me: “Well, you’re not wrong. But that’s not the answer.”]

At this point, my notes got kind of messy. One beer was proclaimed, “the cotton candy of beer.”  Another beer was, “Good. That’s ‘beer’ beer. It tastes like butter.” By the time Forrest returned from his errands to pick us up, our opinion was, “Why don’t we just buy them all?” Forrest took our advice: approximately speaking (and, to be very clear, my memory of this part of the evening is somewhat fuzzy), he purchased a growler of every type of beer available at the One Trick Pony.

At some point we tore ourselves away from the brewery and started heading home to Chicago. It was a beautiful summer’s evening. We were filled with carbohydrates, including bottomless pretzels and a wide variety of pleasant beers.  The trunk was filled with growlers. Forrest was pleased with our overall analysis. Forrest had, however, accomplished something that was perhaps not his intention. As Mr. Green put it, “if you want a party [tomorrow] where Joanna and I are hung-over, you’ve already succeeded.”