To put these numbers in perspective, Revolution Brewing produced 24,000 barrels in 2013, and expects to hit 42,000 next year. It distributes in much of Illinois and part of Ohio (assuming its website is current). Maine ships a small fraction of that amount to a significantly larger area—the east coast from Maine down to Virginia, plus Chicago—so its beer ends up spread pretty thin.

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This is hardly cheap stuff—most craft beer costs less—but you might find the price easier to take in light of the fact that the Maine Beer Company participates in the 1% for the Planet campaign, donating 1 percent of its sales to local environmental nonprofits. It also gives away the tips from its tap room (in May that meant more than $500 to a cat shelter), recycles everything it can (diverting spent grain, yeast, and grain bags to farmers, for instance), and buys wind credits to offset its electricity use.

  • In this case “Do what’s right” clearly means “Remove this bottle cap at once.”

The taste is equally complex, with a bright, astringent bitterness up top and loads of malts underneath, contributing black raisin, baker’s chocolate, toasted wheat bread, and stewed plums with cardamom. The bitterness lingers, combining pine, grapefruit pith, and orange marmalade—the flavors complement one another as inextricably as the light and dark sides of the moon.

I didn’t plan to review Zoe and Red Wheelbarrow immediately after this year’s Bourbon County variants, but the juxtaposition presents an instructive contrast. On one hand, you’ve got beers that carry barrel-aging and the addition of adjuncts to ambitious extremes, and that claim to develop for years in the bottle; on the other, you’ve got beers that self-consciously aim to perfect a traditionalist malt-hops-and-yeast approach, and that demand to be consumed at once. Just don’t make me choose between them.

Au contraire, mon frere! Beloved Houston band Dead Horse, who started playing together in 1988, broke up in ’97, and reunited in 2011, released a cover of “Rock Lobster” on their 1991 album Peaceful Death and Pretty Flowers. I had the pleasure of seeing these degenerates perform it live while I was in college at Rice in the early 90s. I’d like to call your attention to their rendition of the “ooh-aah” backup vocals at 2:06, as well as to the “Down! Down!” break at 2:32.