What a Good Bad Hombre

Howdy folks! Hope everyone is doing well. I’m having a great week so far, I did my taxes finally, and I’ve been in a state of semi congestion since July 4th weekend. Fireworks being canceled in LA apparently means LA and every other neighboring city, plus the locals setting them off anyway. The air quality in the city is more trash than usual, I may be dead in six months. To really add the cherry on top of that ossuary sundae, I received an email yesterday with the subject line “Your Burial Insurance.” The email was just an advertisement for life insurance, but still…Either there was a glitch in the matrix, or someone knows something I do not. If this is the matrix, then we are living in one of the really shitty pre-Neo versions, fuck that. My money is on more of a purgatory, or maybe some version of Hell.

Social justice in the form of peaceful BLM protests has moved on to biological warfare in the way of COVID parties. Now in before times, a normal reaction to finding out that morons are having gatherings to purposely infect themselves with a virus would be ‘Holy Shit, that’s crazy yo’! Now it’s just another minor dunket in today’s newsfeed. Of course, I live in a neighborhood where no one wears masks, and grown men pee on the sides of buildings with their unimpressive penises in full view. So perhaps I’m desensitized.

I’m trying to focus on the little things that make me happy because otherwise (and the boyfriend will attest to this), I can get stuck on the negatives in my life. I think there is some saying about not complaining about things you cannot change, but fuck that. If there is something I can’t change, hell ya I’ll complain about it, feeling powerless is frustrating as fuck If there is something I can fix, I’ll fix it, not bitch about it. So here is what I am happy about currently:

-I made a bomb ass Nashville style crispy chicken sandwich this past Sunday. It was my third attempt, and I do believe I have perfected my seasoning and cooking time. Perfection. Gosh, I love having a dutch oven, you can do anything with those puppies. Crispy, crunchy, and just a dab of my homemade spicy aioli. Angelinos love the Nashville chicken, there are shops all over the city, but I’ve had the real thing, haha. Shout out to Hattie B’s.

-I just finished reading “Into Thin Air,” a first-person account of the disastrous 1996 Mt. Everest climb that left eight climbers dead after being trapped near the mountain’s summit. I love reading about mountains, and deep-sea stories because that shit is creepy! The total isolation, combined with extreme physical danger, titillates me. Since I began reading, I’ve been on a mountain climbing information bing, and with an event such as this one, many a book has been written on the subject. Of course, I am a weirdo who enjoys the macabre. I just started a book about fatal familial insomnia, a super creepy prion disease. Don’t Google prions unless you want to spend the rest of the day curled up muttering to yourself.

-The reboot of Unsolved Mysteries on Netflix. What millennial didn’t grow up watching the OG, with Robert Stack’s baritone voice stoically explaining this week’s stories while standing against the background of a creepy hospital bed. Viewing these episodes turned me from a wayward life of Barbie on Barbie crime (yes I did terrible things to my dolls), to a precocious consumer of true crime. This proclivity continues to this day. Bring on the serial killers, the missing wives, the vanishing families.

I’m also grateful for beer, so let’s get to the beer portion of the article. Oh yes, it’s our good old friend Boomtown again. Don’t like it? Suck it. In the last three weeks, Boomtown briefly reopened for social distance drinking, then closed again once COVID cases began to rise, and Mayor Garcetti ordered like businesses to close. Fortunately, their loading dock is still open for beer to go, so away we go. This week’s offering is Bad Hombre, a SoCal summer-friendly Mexican lager. Yes, I drank it with a lime as you can see from the picture, again you may suck it should your preference not align with mine. Plus, it ties into a summery, free-spirited whimsical aesthetic that I enjoy in my beer (actually I couldn’t give a fuck I just love to use the word “aesthetic.)

Pouring this beer was a visual delight. The liquid popped and fizzled away in the glass, leaving about ⅛ inch porous bone-white head. I’d be pleased if this glass was placed in front of me at a bar (oh bars, remember those?) Just look at that crystal clear early morning sunset, straw hued beauty. Corona (the beer, not the virus, because apparently, this needs clarification) has nothing on BH. I love a beer with a tint of orange, It reminds me of autumn, a season I sorely lack as a SoCal resident. The aromas are light but pleasant to the nose. I primarily noticed notes of lightly toasted, sweet buttery biscuit, standard in pilsners. This is fitting because many Mexican/South American style beers are similar in origin to German/Eastern European beers.

Time for a sip! The mouthfeel was quite thin, not a lot of noticeable viscosity, surprising for how bubbly BH looks and sounds. I actually found BH to be a bit under carbonated for my taste. However, I have not tasted the beer directly from the keg, so there is a possibility some carbonation escaped during the canning process. I’ve purchased cans from various breweries over the years that have had issues with flatness. But, this beer was not flat, let me be clear. BH may just be less carbonated until I can have a pint at the brewery I won’t be able to tell.

BH is smooth, but not velvety, more a crispy smooth. A clean crispness that reminds one of an apple orchard on a sunny late October day. God, I miss the Northeast. In a blind taste test, if I was drinking BH, I’d completely think that was a pilsner of some sort. This is definitely German/Czech style beer, nothing like your classic Corona beer. Although living in SoCal, my grocery store is full of Mexican beers, and there are more than a few that have the German taste, as I mentioned above, they are similar. BH reminds me of Carta Blanca, one that I recommend trying if you can get it outside of SoCal. So we have a crip, buttery, toasted honey biscuit in glass – try saying that five times fast. At the end of the sip, my tongue was awash with light bitters and fresh florals. This is due to the Hallertau hop, a German hop that lends notes of floral and hay to any beer, which is a great way to add brightness without adding acidity.

All in all, this is a great summer sipper, whether you are mowing the lawn or sitting in your stuffy studio apartment with nothing else to do!  German/Mexican who the hell cares BH is tasty. And you can drink a six pack without embarrassing yourself.