Two Hearted Ale: a Single-mindedly Excellent Potion

Its outrageous prices notwithstanding, WholeFoods is the place to go for the best in food and drink. I am by no means a chef; I leave the cooking feats to theskilled hands of my luvly wife. That said, I do wield a mean sponge and Palmolive, the perfect complement to her culinary artistry.

Hence, I cannot really speak to the quality of Whole Foods' ingredients, and if you asked me about which garnish would best bring out the flavors of miso salmon, I'd have to paraphrase the great Jasper (that guy with the beard from the Simpsons, juh) and reply, "who shot who in the what now?"

What I do know a good amount about, for better or worse, are the pleasures of a fine alcoholic beverage. One brew with which I recently became acquainted is "Two Hearted Ale," bottled and brewed by Kalamazoo Brewing Company, and carried by WholeFoods.

The company literature (that is what I call the curled up, moistened, semi-peeled off paper affixed to the brown bottle) sez:

An India Pale Ale style well suited for Hemingway-esque trips to the Upper Peninsula. American malts and enormous hop
additions give this beer a crisp finish and an incredibly floral hop aroma.

My unsolicited two cents places this constellation of malts and hops at the intersection of very and good. I am a big fan of the hopped-up pale ale that my one-time colonizers sent to my motherland during the late 1700's...Goose Island in Chicago, and Brooklyn Brewery in NYC are some of my most favoritest microbreweries.

Kalamazoo's marketing of this product is uncanny. My eyes glazed over the other brews boasting a tradition-laced lineage, having been guzzled by the finest rapers and pillagers of days gone by.

Here, on the other hand, was an unassuming sextet of brown bottles, each with an orange border, faded green background, and a dessicated PCB-filled specimen that only the most compassionate of ichthyologists could love.

I had to have it.

I was not disappointed. The fluid was crisp and had a bite, and the bitter aftertaste was simply sublime. This potion demonstrated that beers are like cars: while they all fall into the same general genus, it would border on blasphemy to say that an Alpha Romeo is "just a car."

Similarly, I would like to go back into the future and kick square in the pants the arse of the 19-year old version of myself who said that Natty Light is just as good as any other beer because you can't taste it after eight of them anyways.

At any rate, go to Whole Foods, or call any of THA's distributors so you can also experience the pleasure of this brew.

Just...cut yourself off after two for the sake of the people who have to read your review afterwards....