Kyle Nabilcy
A world that didn’t have Twin Peaks in it would be a dimmer, lesser world, that much I will give you. There have been many, many inches of thinkpiece published on the cultural impact of Twin Peaks, fields that I don’t need to re-till, but they all lead to one conclusion for me. I don’t think I love Twin Peaks as much as I love that Twin Peaks exists.
Sure do love Twin Peaks-themed beers, though.
Fortunately, with the return to television this year of David Lynch’s brainchild (the final two hours air this coming Sunday, September 3), there’s a new flourishing of beers with all the greatest winky, deep-cut references to the original run of the show. The beers I’m focusing on today are being produced by Evil Twin, because of course they would be.
If you watched the show back in the early 1990’s, and especially if you’re watching the new season on Showtime, you know how the show embraces mirroring and twin theory, far beyond the fact that the show is called Twin Peaks. Evil Twin’s love of long beer names and goofy passion projects sits perfectly at the Venn diagram intersection of beer nerdery and Twin Peaks fandom.
And when I say the names are long, I mean long. Try “I Have No Idea Where This Will Lead Us, But I have a Definite Feeling It Will Be An IPA Both Wonderful And Strange,” or “I Plan On Writing An Epic Poem About This Gorgeous IPA.”
You should be noticing a theme, which is that Evil Twin is replacing one word* in a quotation from Twin Peaks with “IPA.” All of these beers are hazy, turbid, aggressively-hopped beers in the unrelentingly popular New England IPA style. So far, only one has been distributed to Wisconsin, and it is “One Day My IPA Will Have Something to Say About This.”
One Day My IPA, as we’ll call it hereafter, is wrapped in what beer drinkers should recognize as the Evil Twin house style of label artwork. It’s geometric, eye-catching, and evocative. On the bottom of the can, where brewers have taken to printing amusing messages along with the canning date, Evil Twin offers the following advice: “#ICEMANPOUR THIS BEER.”
Now, the Iceman Pour has to be one of the dumber, more gimmicky things I’ve seen in my beer-drinking days, but it does produce a dramatic look. Basically, you pour slowly so the beer goes all the way to the top of the glass, without any head. If you can get the meniscus of the liquid to rise above the lip of the glass, all the better. Hashtag it, post to Instagram, watch the likes roll in.
It’s just that while this is a great way to pour a beer for Instagramming, it is a terrible way to pour a beer for drinking. I managed — for the photo, dear readers, for the photo — but I was rolling my eyes the whole time.
As for the beer itself, it’s pretty good. Damn fine, even. I haven’t seen any reference from Evil Twin as to the hops in this beer, but it’s got a distinct tropical and citrus character. Lots of pineapple, some tangerine, a little grapefruit. With the owl on the label, I could see Falconer’s Flight being in there for the pun of it, but Azacca really fits the bill.
“I Always Felt Closer to IPAs Than to People” is a mix of hops, with a lot of Citra and Galaxy and a little Amarillo and Simcoe. You can probably guess which hop variety will feature prominently in “I Consumed 15 Today, Diane. All Galaxy.”
I wouldn’t be shocked if some or all of these beers eventually made their way in some small quantity to Madison, since One Day My IPA was brewed “way back” in mid-July and only arrived here a week or so ago. As of last night, I was only aware of four-packs still available to purchase at Trixie’s. For a similarly-hopped beer, I saw Evil Twin’s Lost Souls on the shelves at Riley’s Wines of the World.
But if you’re looking for a thematically appropriate beer for your Twin Peaks finale party — and you don’t have access to Funk Factory’s White Lodge Reserve — this owl is exactly what it seems.
*Those words, respectively, are “place,” “pie,” “log,” nature,” and “jelly,” which is about as complete and meaningful a codex to Twin Peaks as you’re likely to find, absent “garmonbozia,” but no one wants a beer based on that. Google it.