Please forgive me, Joel VandenBrink, but this beer got lost in my review shuffle a LONG time ago. I meant to sing LOUD praises of it – God, how long ago WAS that? Eight years? Ten?!? – and just…fumbled at the one yard line. But let me do it now – in NO uncertain terms…
I had two breweries in Seattle (or, as we hip NW types say, sometimes, if not prevented, “Sea-patch”) that I constantly confused and I have no idea why, as their names are not even remotely similar: Two Beers Brewing and Schooner Exact Brewing. See? Just as I confuse Christine Baranksi with Wendy Malick and Christine Lahti, for no rational reason, I got these two intertwined in my twisty brain practically ever since they came on the PNW brewing scene. This was complicated by the fact that both started in 2007 and both started as nano-breweries which struck a nerve in the Seattle-area IPA culture and blossomed. Joel VandenBrink was a home brewer who eventually decided that, “…if we all take some time, we can see things a bit more clearly. The daily grind will become less, the pace of life will slow, and friendships will be enjoyed.” This was his hippy-dippy rationale for the perilous financial risk of opening a brewery. If this sounds a bit, well, Lollipops ‘N’ Unicorns for ya, rest assured that here, in this soggy corner of America, second only to Parisian attic apartments as fertile growth medium for belly-button gazers, it resounded with a LOT of folks.
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