Homeward Bound

July 28, 2022 steveboilard1 Comment

By way of background for this latest trip I’m about to relate, allow me to quote the back cover blurb from a recently-published memoir:

“Ruth Gibson (née Burley) lived through almost all of the twentieth century. A prolific writer with much to say, she spent her later years typing out her memoir on an old Remington typewriter. Sadly, she died before she could have it published. … Ruth’s memoir describes her childhood in prewar, small-town America, coming of age during the Depression, her contributions to the American war effort during World War II, and finding and losing love. She offers timeless insights about perseverance, human relationships, and the importance of family. Told with heartfelt candor and gentle humor, it is a moving story about life in twentieth century America.”

Ruth Gibson was my paternal grandmother, and her memoir has finally been published, posthumously. If this kind of story intrigues you, copies are available on Amazon. (The Kindle version is practically free!)

Coming up with innovative titles is not my strong suit.

I spent much of the past year editing Grandma’s memoir, and in the process became increasingly curious about her life. The first third of her memoir focuses on her childhood in Weiser, Idaho (pop: 5,600). Weiser was (and remains) a farming community along the Snake River, which marks Idaho’s boundary with Oregon.

Now, alert readers may recall that I’d visited the childhood home of my paternal grandfather (i.e. Grandma’s one-time husband) when I was in upstate New York a couple of months ago, on my storied US Route 2 trip. I never met him, since he’d left Grandma before Dad was even born. But it was good to see his old stomping grounds. Wouldn’t it make a nice bookend to also visit Grandma’s childhood home? Helpfully, my Uncle Edward provided me with a 1915 city directory that lists the address of Grandma’s house in Weiser, as well as the bank where her father worked. I also discovered that Weiser has a good historical museum, and a research library with many historic archives.

So I decided to make the short 559-mile drive from my home near Placerville to Weiser. On a motorcycle. In 100-degree heat. What could go wrong?

This morning found me crossing the Sierra on Interstate 80. As you may know, I-80 largely follows the old Lincoln Highway, which was the first transcontinental automobile route in the US. The Lincoln Highway opened in 1913, and its alignments changed repeatedly over the years. Today very little of the original Lincoln Highway remains. But I did manage to find this isolated segment this morning, in the shadow of I-80 west of Donner Pass.

Once over the Sierra, I dropped into the so-called “Great Basin” of Nevada. Now, I hate to be a naysayer, but the Great Basin really ain’t that great. It’s hot, dusty, and desolate. Mile after mile and mile I traveled, with very little in the way of roadside diversions to break up the monotony. Eventually I came to the town of Winnemucca (pop: 7,800), where I procured my Beer of the Day. (See details below.) Once suitably refreshed, I got back on the Triumph and headed north of US 95. I’d only completed about half the trip.

I took the blue-colored route. Will likely take the longer, western route for my return.

I didn’t quite make it to Weiser today. I’ve stopped for the night in Ontario, Oregon (pop: 12,000). Tomorrow I’ll make the 25-minute drive back over the border to Weiser, Idaho. Until then.

BREW OF THE DAY

In Winnemucca I found a promising establishment called Brew 95. When I entered it looked like a typical hipster coffee shop. Once I caught the attention of the barista who was carefully studying her iphone, I told her I was looking for an alcoholic brew, not a caffeinated one. Did I come to the wrong place? “We also have beer,” said she, not looking up. “But we’re out of it today.” I thanked her and left, still not certain whether she was pulling my leg or not.
Next I tried a place on the main drag with the propitious (if obvious) name of Cheers. Unlike Ted Danson’s place, this Cheers was dark and smoky. Six people sat at the long, worn bar. Their average age looked to be about 78 (it would have been higher, but for the young, tattooed gal of 47 that the other patrons were flirting with). For some reason this woman had three opened, family-size bags of chips in front of her: Fritos, Munchies, Tostitos. The placed smelled of stale smoke, and years of nicotine had taken its toll on the yellowed wallpaper. But all was not lost; I spied a couple of taps from Great Basin Brewing Co in Reno.

I opted for the Outlaw milk Stout. The color was a rich, dark brown that reminded me of espresso. And in fact it had a strong coffee flavor.

The secret code on the green paper is the wifi password.

The mouthfeel was exceptionally smooth. Despite the color, this was not a heavy stout. It’s not boozy either, with just 5 percent ABV. The coffee taste was malty and sweet, with hints of vanilla extract and chocolate shavings. It’s lightly hopped, with very little bitterness. My only complaint is that there wasn’t enough foam on the head. But this beer went down very easy indeed. If I weren’t getting back on the road, I would have had a second one. Four and half stars.

Bonus Features

June 9, 2022 steveboilardLeave a comment

There were a number of photos from my Route 2 trip that didn’t make it into the blog. I’m including some of them here, as a bonus feature. Enjoy!

Epping, ND (pop: 100). Practically a ghost town, the only businesses showing any signs of life were the post office and the bar…which are in the same building.

Speaking of bars: here’s one that’s getting a little long in the tooth, in Dodson, MT (pop: 125).

Barn near Waterville, WA, built in 1906. Dr. Pierce’s concoctions were well-known quack medicines.

Cool, cut-metal sign at cemetery in Leavenworth, WA (the Bavarian town). This is one of the few signs that wasn’t all tarted up in faux-German script.

Similar idea, a thousand miles to the east. If I only had a heart…

Concrete teepee that houses espresso shop, originally built in Browning, MT, on the Blackfeet reservation. It originally opened as a gas station in 1934.

Supposedly a legit livestock feed store. But what’s up with the name??

In front of a dentist’s office in Bonners Ferry, ID. I wonder if they use old-timey foot-operated drills?

I just love the old UP steam locomotives. This one, from 1904, is in Reardan, WA

The one-room school house that NBC news anchor Chet Huntley attended in Saco, MT. Remember him?

Old Carnegie library in Malta, MT. It was originally built in 1917.

Mysterious metal sculptures in Glasgow, MT.

More sculptures. It’s not obvious, but the “I saw it” sign is on an old saw blade. Get it?

Eight-legged calf at a classy museum in Glasgow, MT

Meyer Township School in Rugby, ND. Originally built in 1897, and closed in 1959. And still standing!

Big Fish Supper Club in Bena, Minnesota. I’m told it appears in the opening credits of National Lampoon’s Vacation. Built in 1957…back when this kind of thing was de rigueur. Now it’s a little–er–long in the tooth.

1952-(ish) Studebaker Commander. If you can better identify the year/model, let me know!

“Fabulous Kegs” drive-in in Grand Forks, ND, built in 1935. I’m told it was part of a chain.

This “psycograph” requires a little explanation. The contraption, which to me looks like one of those hair dryers my mom sat under at the beauty shop, is supposed to automatically measure your intellect and other brain-related capacity–including “faults and virtues”– using the (now-discredited) principles of phrenology. It was patented in 1905 by Henry Lavery in Superior, Wis. I saw it in a museum in that same city. More info here.

Road trips

The Final Frontier

June 2, 2022 steveboilard6 Comments

Alert readers will recall that in my May 25 blogpost, I wrote:

In the town of Mason, Wisconsin a gas station attendant encouraged me to check out an old, abandoned, Wild West theme park that was homemade by a man (recently passed) named Ed Sandor on his farmland. This I did, and it was one of the most enjoyable hours I’ve spent. It deserves its own blog post, which I hope to write in the next day or two.

I’m now finally able to share the whole story. It was a cold, drizzly spring day in rural Wisconsin. The somewhat rustic attendant at the nondescript gas station noticed my rental car’s Florida plates and made the observation that I was a long way from home. I told him about this road trip, and he said, “Well, then I reckon you oughtta check out the old Sandor place. He built an Old West town to entertain the kids while families camped on his farm. It’s abandoned and pretty run down, but it’s still worth a gander.” I told him I was game, and he provided me with moderately vague directions, using terms like “Bill Rabbs farm” and “the place where the school bus stops” as landmarks. Undeterred, I drove about a mile off of Route 2, and spotted the old, weathered sign the attendant had mentioned.

The sign stood next to a narrow dirt road which had been dampened by the morning drizzle. I put the Jeep into 4WD mode and turned onto the dirt side road. Wooden fences ran along both sides of the road, presumably marking private property. After about half a mile the road split into two, narrower dirt driveways. This sign was posted at one of the driveways:

Needless to say, I took the other driveway.

Just as I thought I’d been led on a wild goose chase I spotted a fake, cartoonish saguaro cactus which would be de rigueur at a 1950s Old West theme park. I had to be close.

Then, around the next curve, I arrived at what must be Ranch Park….though I still didn’t really know what to expect.

A rustic log cabin with a doorless open front stood in front of me, with a sign indicating that it was “Line Shack No. 1.” It was largely empty, except for a couple of picnic tables and a large, carved serpent (?) hanging from the rafters.

Based on a few notices stapled to a bulletin board, I determined that this had been a communal gathering place for people who camped on Ed Sandor’s land. But if that saguaro cactus was all that makes this an “Old West theme park,” I’m sure the visiting kiddies were disappointed.

The rain was coming down harder, so I told myself I’d just make a quick search of the grounds for something more interesting before I left. A sign pointed to the “History Story Trail,” and when I walked 100 feet in that direction I encountered a carved, life-size viking.

OK, this didn’t exactly evoke the Old West, but it was definitely getting interesting. The Viking stood near the beginning of an overgrown trail. I got onto the trail, thinking perhaps I’d find a carved Visigoth.

Here and there along the trail someone had staked small paper signs, obviously not suited for outdoor use. They seemed intended to educate visitors about various aspects of pioneer life.

I studied each of these little placards as I passed them, and before long I stumbled upon a rabbit hole. Literally.

I continued to push forward, encountering these small gifts as though they’d been left by Boo Radley in a tree’s knothole. Finally I reached a clearing and I discovered what all the fuss was about.

It was remarkable. Ed Sandor had built a small cluster of buildings, resembling a frontier town of the Old West, and filled them with various artifacts, most of which are authentic. There were carriages, tools, furniture, saddles, bridles, books, cookware, and numerous other antiques. What’s more, they weren’t behind glass or protected with cameras or alarms. Everything was just sitting out there to be touched, examined, and appreciated. (There were a few displays behind chicken wire, but it would be easy to circumvent and I think it was just there to keep the youngest kids from getting themselves in trouble.)

It wasn’t a carefully-curated collection by any stretch of the imagination; the displays didn’t have much rhyme or reason. But there were some explanatory labels and newspaper clippings tacked up here and there.

The photos included here barely scratch the surface of the collections hidden away here in the woods. And I later learned that Ranch Park used to be even more extensive, back in its day. Ed Sandor (1924-2019) began to accommodate camping on his farmlands in the 1950s, and in the early 1960s he began creating this western theme town pretty much single-handedly. It grew to become a popular stop for families, much like some of the tourist attractions along Route 66 in its heyday. Ed Sandor and his family kept the place running, making small repairs as needed and occasionally adding some new displays. Sadly, Ed’s declining health forced him to stop working on the Ranch in 2015. He died in 2019, and the Ranch is now for all intents and purposes abandoned, left to decay in the elements.

Here’s a video that shows the Ranch a few years before I visited:

I have a hard time putting into words my feelings as I walked among these decaying displays. The dark skies and drizzling rain, coupled with my being isolated in the forest far from home, lent a distinct melancholy feeling. I felt sad that Ed Sandor’s life work was being left to disintegrate; surely the place would be unrecognizable in a few more years. It also seemed like a waste that no one was working to preserve those genuine and rare artifacts. And I had a nostalgic longing for those simpler times of my childhood, where entertainment was found outdoors and we played in a tangible (rather than digital) world.

And yet there are some positive and hopeful aspects to this story. For starters, Ed Sandor spent over 50 years running this “ranch” and entertaining kids and families. In a guest book next to Line Shack No. 1 are hundreds of heartfelt testimonials from grownups who have fond memories of the place from their childhood, and from people like me who just now discovered it.

Another thought that struck me was that there wasn’t a single jot of graffiti anywhere at the ranch. This place is completely open and has been abandoned for about 8 years now, and yet no one has felt an urge to deface it. I can’t say for sure whether anyone has walked off with any of the artifacts, but I can say that there is a treasure trove of artifacts that no one has disturbed. And I wonder if one of the reasons why comes from this little sign that Ed posted on the bulletin board by Line Shack No. 1:

The world needs more Ed Sandors.

bridges · Golden Bear signs · Road trips · trains

3,773 Miles Later…

June 1, 2022 steveboilard2 Comments

You’ll recall that I began this journey in Vermont and upstate New York, where I met with relatives and visited places where my grandfather grew up. After driving 3,773 miles, I’m ending the trip by visiting places where my grandmother grew up. There’s a certain symmetry in all that, which I find strangely satisfying.

I set out this morning from Wenatchee, and soon the environment was changing again. This time it felt like I was in Germany….and that’s because I passed through the town of Leavenworth (pop: 2,500), which for some reason has decided to dress up as a Bavarian village. Like so many towns along Route 2, Leavenworth was founded over 100 years ago as a Great Northern railroad town. It even housed the regional office of the GN. But the office was relocated to Wenatchee in 1925, and then the remaining major industry (timber) steadily declined into the 1950s. The town needed a new source of income, and by the 1960s it settled on a strategy: It would seek tourism dollars by recreating itself as a Bavarian village. No doubt you’re familiar with the town of Solvang on the Central California coast; it’s the same idea. Indeed, Leavenworth officials actually visited Solvang as they were developing their strategy.

I knew I should have packed my Lederhosen!

Are there no German tropes Leavenworth is unwilling to exploit?

Leavenworth has a live webcam trained on its town square. I’m sure it would be fun to watch during Oktoberfest. But right now, not so much.

They even made Starbucks alter its logo.

Immediately beyond the town the North Cascade Range looms, as you can see in the picture below. I was about to experience yet another change in scenery….

Route 2 through the Cascades is a truly beautiful drive. The road follows the Wenatchee River, which is impressive and scenic.

Flowing toward the Wenatchee Valley Brewing Company. Seriously.

You’ll recall that a few days ago US Route 2 took me over the Rockies at Marias Pass in Montana, and I noted that the Great Northern Railway ran its transcontinental route over that pass in 1889. The last segment of Great Northern’s transcontinental tracks to be completed was the section over Stevens Pass, right here in the Cascade Range.

So this morning I stopped on the Pass near the point where the final railroad spike was driven on January 6, 1893. There’s a placard commemorating the event.

A creek runs by this same spot. It’s called Deception Creek, and I’ve been unable to find out the story behind the name. (Please enlighten me, if you have info.) I did manage to take this short video of the creek running under Route 2.

On the other side of the pass I came to the town of Skykomish (pop: 190). Like Leavenworth and many other towns along Route 2, Skykomish was established as part of the Great Northern Railway’s surveying efforts. For about 80 years it provided maintenance and fueling services for the Great Northern. Today, however, the GN doesn’t even stop at Skykomish’s historic depot.

The tiny tracks in front of the depot are for a kiddie-size train ride.

Still, Skykomish continues to link its identity to the Great Northern. Indeed, the town seal incorporates a version of GN’s logo, and it calls itself “A Great Northern Town.”

Look familiar? GN’s goat (named Rocky) is everywhere in Skykomish.

Like Leavenworth, Skykomish seems to have found a niche with tourists. In Skykomish’s case, it’s railfans that they’re courting. They have a restored depot that’s now a museum, they offer train rides, they’ve plotted a walking tour of historic GN-era buildings. And while passenger trains no longer stop in Skykomish, plenty of freight trains pass through the town, making it a good location for train spotting. In addition to all this, the town has several upscale cafes, coffee shops, and outdoor equipment purveyors that are popular with a wide variety of tourists.

1905 Skykomish Hotel, restored and with viable tenants.

After an enjoyable walk among Skykomish’s streets (which, among the older historic structures, include this WPA-era school building that’s still in use), I eased back onto US 2. I was getting dangerously close to the western terminus at Everett.

Now, recall that a few days ago, when I was in Glasgow, Montana, I met a guy named Chris at the Loaded Frog who explained the “Middle of Nowhere” slogan to me. Well, Chris also told me that there’s a good taproom near the western end of Route 2. I’ve been looking forward to checking it out ever since I learned of it. With a little research I discovered that the place–the Route2 Taproom–is in Monroe, WA, which is about a dozen miles before the end of Route 2.

Serving beer to thirsty Route 2 travelers since 2015.

I stopped in and ordered the Triplehorn Nemesis Milk Stout on Nitro. So let’s get the BOTD out of the way:

Maggie at Route2 Taproom serves up a perfect stout.

What a great choice for my final BOTD! It’s got a complex range of flavors, and somehow they work together nicely: There are hints of coffee grounds, vanilla, tobacco leaves, and those miniature Hershey’s bittersweet chocolate bars I used to get at Halloween. The hops are reined in a bit, which is appropriate for a milk stout. The mouthfeel is creamy (that’s partly due to the nitro), and it’s pretty boozy at 10% ABV. It would be really hard to improve on this. I give it 5 stars.

Refreshed and rejuvenated by a good stout, I got back in the car and set out on the last few miles of the trip. And just when I didn’t think my luck could get any better, I spied a Golden/Laughing Bear sign! And what’s more, unlike some of the other such signs I’ve encountered, this one was affixed to a still-operating wheel alignment business. Surely the gods are smiling on me today.

If you zoom in on the window, you can see a second Laughing Bear on the other side of the glass.

And then, after all this, I was driving the final mile of Route 2. I had arrived in Everett (pop: 111,000, which might be about equal to the combined population of all the other towns I visited along Route 2!) The western terminus of Route 2 in Everett is where Maple Street and Interstate 5 meet. Disappointingly, I was unable to find a sign marking the end of the westbound highway. (I couldn’t find a sign marking the beginning of US 2 East, either.) So all I can show you by way of evidence is this photo of where, in theory, the route ends:

There was no brass band, no one to hand me a key to the city, no banner strung across the roadway for me to snap with my car. My journey simply ended.

Having dispensed with Route 2, I next headed down to Tacoma (pop: 216,000) to visit some places where my grandmother–and, later, my dad–grew up. This blog isn’t the place to go into any detail about the sites I saw, but I will offer this photo of Grandma’s high school, which is still educating students after 107 years.

Grandma walked these halls almost 100 years ago.

Finally, I will be making a final post tomorrow about a memorable visit I made to an abandoned Old West theme park in Wisconsin. I mentioned it in passing in my May 25 blog, but I didn’t have enough time to do it justice. This I will do tomorrow while I’m waiting for my plane.

Until then.

churches · Hydrology · Road trips

Dam Detour

May 31, 2022 steveboilardLeave a comment

So, here we are in the final state of this two-week odyssey. Not only have we traveled through 11 states (VT, NY, PA, OH, MI, WI, MN, ND, MT, ID, WA), but along the way we’ve seemingly experienced most of the types of terrain this country has to offer. For example, today I left behind the green mountains of western Montana and Idaho, and entered the flat, arid, scrub brush-covered badlands of eastern Washington.

The parched landscape of eastern Washington.

There’s not a lot of settlements out in this part of the country. One of the isolated towns I drove through this morning was Wilbur (pop: 900). It’s worth quoting Wikipedia about how the town got its name:

Just prior to the construction of the Central Washington Railroad line in 1889, no towns existed west of Davenport in Lincoln County. One place along the line, “Wild Goose Bill’s Ranch,” run by Samuel Wilbur Condit, was assigned a post office by the Federal government. Condit was 62 years old and known throughout the region as Wild Goose Bill when he and another man shot each other to death on Jan. 21, 1895. Condit platted the town that bears his middle name “Wilbur,” though he didn’t have anything to do with the naming. Goosetown was a consideration, until the blacksmith’s wife complained that she would never live in a place with such a silly name. Instead, the name Wilbur was chosen by town surveyors.

OK, so knowing that, check out this mascot next to the visitor’s center:

I won”t comment on the unusual shape of the anorexic pig, but I will note that a wire spiderweb (barely visible in the below photo) bears the name Wilbur. Clearly the Chamber (or whoever is responsible for this pig) doesn’t know the true origin of the town’s name. But E. B. White must be smiling.

A little past Wilbur on Route 2 is the town of Coulee City (pop: 550). With all due respect, it’s not much of a town…but it is home to “the world’s largest waterfall.” The only catch is there’s no water. Let me explain.

Scientists have determined that at the end of the last ice age, an ice dam blocked a river in Idaho, which gradually created an enormous lake that reached into Montana. Eventually the ice dam failed, and the stored water rushed westward toward the Pacific, scouring the landscape along the way. This evidently happened a number of times, and the hydraulic activity created these “coulees” (deep ravines), which in turn produced enormous falls when the next flood occurred. The falls at Coulee City were over 400 feet high and 3.5 miles across.

All this reminded me of a cul-de-sac near my childhood home named Grand Coulee Court. It’s where Phillip Waters lived. (I’m not making up that serendipous surname.) Did this ravine I was now taking photos of–called a “coulee”–relate in some way to “Grand Coulee”? Then, somewhere in the back of my mind, I remembered there’s a “Grand Coulee Dam,” though I didn’t know any details about it. A quick consultation of my trusty road atlas (that I’ve been carrying around since 2010) informed me that the Grand Coulee Dam was a short 20-minute detour from Coulee City. So off I went.

I won’t bore you with the details, but the basic points are these: The US Bureau of Reclamation built the Grand Coulee Dam in the decade leading up to World War II. The dam is on the Columbia River, creating a reservoir (Lake Roosevelt) from which water is pumped to irrigate farms in central Washington. In addition, water passing through the dam powers generators which produce the largest amount of hydroelectric power in the US (about 21 billion kilowatt hours each year.) I learned all this on a guided tour, which took me into the pump stations and onto the top of the dam.

The Grand Coulee Dam, viewed from downstream on the Columbia River.

And if you’re interested, here’s a short video showing my view looking over the edge of the dam, on the downstream side.

Around noon I wound up this educational detour and reconnected with that familiar friend, Route 2. Along the way I drove through “Electric City” (pop: 1,000), whose name relates to the nearby Grand Coulee Dam’s generating capacity. But what struck me about Electric City was not its proximity to someone else’s generators, but rather a large collection of homemade windmill sculptures in a “windmill garden” next to a park.

Positively mesmerizing in person.

The sculptures were created by a hobbyist metalworker named Emil Gehrke, and they’ve supposedly been featured in National Geographic magazine. Gehrke created the sculptures from scrap that he collected from all over the world. He displayed the sculptures in his yard for years, but after his death in 1979 (at age 95) most of them were moved to this park.

Soon I reconnected with Route 2 and returned to my westward trek. I came to the town of Waterville, where I encountered the daily, obligatory former church building. Today’s ex-church started out as St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in 1915. It closed in 1968, when the congregation built a new church along with another Lutheran congregation. The old building was purchased by the local historical society in 2006, and it’s now used as a community center and wedding venue. The historical society did an impressive job of restoring the structure.

I am spending the night in Wenatchee (pop: 35,000, which is one of the largest towns on this trip). Wenatchee is a comfortable, seemingly prosperous town at the confluence of the Wenatchee and Columbia Rivers, with lots of outdoor venues for enjoying the great weather. It calls itself “the apple capital of the world,” in reference to its many apple orchards.

I’ll end my description of today’s travels with these two semi-creepy floating faces that evidently had been employed for advertising purposes in the middle of the last century.

Atop an Office Depot in Wenatchee. (The sign was grandfathered in from the prior business on this site.)

Tomorrow I’m planning to reach the end of Route 2, in Everett.

Brew(s) of the Day

Today’s BOTD comes courtesy of the good folks at Wenatchee Valley Brewing Company in Wenatchee, Washington. It’s the usual modern, western brew pub, with the brewery and service counter in a warehouse-like space, lots of outdoor seating with views of the busy street, and the ubiquitous corn hole game set up on the lawn. Wenatchee Valley Brewing is located on the bank of the Columbia River, which makes for a pleasant environment.

I ordered the Trout Stout on nitro. (“Nitro” is a dispensing process for some draft beers–particularly stouts–which uses nitrogen rather than carbon dioxide, lending a creamier mouthfeel.) I have to say that it was a good presentation, and a tasty brew. The beer is a dark-chocolate brown, with a thick, creamy, tan head. The taste is remarkably smooth and balanced. It manages to avoid the bitterness that plagued the last few stouts that I’ve drunk. The main flavors that come through are roasty ones: espresso, burnt toast, maybe a little bit of roasted chestnut. And at only 6% ABV, this is a very drinkable beer. Recommended. I give it four stars.

Now, recall that I couldn’t find a BOTD yesterday, so I’m making up for that by having a second BOTD today. Loyal reader Ron P. sugested I have a hazy IPA, but there are none to be found at this place. So instead I had a “Hopcicle Double IPA.”

This is a good summer brew, made all the more enjoyable because I’m sitting outside in the warm sunshine with it. It’s pretty sweet for an IPA, with hints of honey and marmelade. Hops balance out that sweetness, but it doesn’t taste bitter. It’s got a light body, which makes it go down pretty easy. But it’s 9.2 percent ABV, so they serve it in a smaller (12-oz) glass. Which is a good thing, I’m sure. I give it 4.5 stars, but that might be alcohol talking…