BY DOUG FALWELL, OWNER & PROPRIETOR, BaTshIt INsaNE BReWerY
Ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered here today to mourn the loss of Daniel Burling: son, brother, father, friend. Obviously this is a very sad occasion, and I’m very sorry for your loss. But grief, like a dose of Blue Chinook hops, needs to be balanced out by a more delicate malt.
And in this case, that malt is more hops.
Though he was young, Daniel had a mature and refined palate. He wouldn’t have wanted us to mourn him with industrial, corporate-brewed swill. He would want us to mourn his death as he lived his life: flavourfully, with local, craft-brewed IPAs so thick you could stand a fork up in them.
Excuse me, I seem to have started crying.
Ladies and gentlemen, just because we’re at a funeral, doesn’t mean we can’t savour the fine aftertaste of Daniel’s existence, which, like the Cosmic Battalion hops found in our small-batch brewed Ach-toberfest Scottish Ale, is bittersweet.
Daniel isn’t dead, he’s just been laid down to give the bottom-fermentation process time to eat away the sugars of his sins, and leave a clean, dry finish. Ladies and gentlemen, he does not rot in this coffin: he merely absorbs the delicate vanillin of its oak flavour. In time, they’ll be pulling pints of him at a little gastropub called heaven.
So why should we not also pull pints?
For myself, I see Daniel’s fiery and gruesome demise as a reminder to savour the smoky notes of German Rauchbier. I see the briefness of his life as a reminder that the finest of Lambics are impossible to replicate in a second batch. I see the tears in his wife’s eyes as a reminder that no coriander wheat beer should go unsalted.
His children are walking proof that there is no substitute for the finest ingredients. Just as we use only the freshest, organically grown ingredients in small, finely honed batches, so Daniel’s son and daughter were made with the best genetic material available, and not born into some synthetic, watery, factory-made childhood. Sandra, you should be so proud: you both together have made well-balanced, quaffable children that would stand strongly against any of the fine independent offerings available at any tasting or festival.
My friends, Daniel may be dead, but his essence, and very small amounts of his toenails, can still be found in BaTshIt INsaNE’s new Daniel Burling Memorial Hoptastrophe IPA, available for $13.95 for a pack of four, wherever fine beers are sold.
