Good people drink good beer.

So sayeth Hunter S. Thompson on the label, and for what it’s worth I concur.¹ I bloody loves this beer. I loves it for its intrinsic goodness and for the circumstances in which I’ve had it — and I’m a mad keen Hunter S. fan,² so I’m sure his appearance(s) on its livery should be included among those, too.

It’s just utterly delicious; black, boozy and bitter. Full of flavour, but in no way overblown or stunt-ish. Just rich and warming and delicious. And inspiring — with the name, the quote, the artwork that has always gone so well with HST’s stuff — how could you not just sit down and get some writing done, if you had your handy-dandy little laptop with you? I couldn’t not, because I did, if you follow. I plonked myself down in the bar and hacked happily away at my keyboard for quite a while, churning out quite a few Diary entries and generally enjoying my Evening Off.

Turning back to more strictly-Beer-Nerdy topics, I couldn’t help but notice that they label this as an Imperial Porter but also proudly trumpet that it’s an award-winning (American Style) Imperial Stout. Which nicely brings up the question of the porter versus stout difference — and my favourite answer: that, basically, there isn’t one. And as nerdy as I ever get about style names and the boundaries inbetween, this is one of those rare and delightful beers that just shut me right the fuck up and slap a stupid grin on my face. And set me to writing.

Verbatim: Flying Dog ‘Gonzo’ Imperial Porter 11/3/11 $12@HZ 12floz 7.8% 85 IBU I can’t remember if I ever diarised this, or if I just piggybacked on Toby’s one. I bloody loves it. For itself, and for its awesome HST referencing. And I’ve just noticed that they firmly deny a stout / porter difference, calling this both, on the label. Such an awesomely huge flavour, big + warm at the front, then smooth + rich to follow. Can’t resist doing some actual writing, with this in front of me.

1: I’m sure that any empirical case I’d try to make here would be drenched in confirmation bias — but still, it seems pretty solid. Certainly if someone sketchy-looking wanders into the bar late at night and starts to wobble the needle on my Muppet Detector, them asking “what’s your cheapest beer?” right out of the gate will start up some horrid-sounding mental alarms.
2: If you are similarly enamoured of HST but the word ‘Transmetropolitan’ means nothing to you, go now to your nearest bookstore / library / internet-shopping-thing. Now. You have your homework; report back. The rest of you — you unfortunate normals — you should check it out too. But let the proper people at it, first.