Capitalizing on Mistakes

Two weekends ago, I went to the Durham World Beer Festival. I had the opportunity to taste lots of different brews from all over this great country. Some of my favorites were Founders Breakfast Stout (already mentioned here before....can you tell it's a favorite?), Moon River Honey Bock, Foothills Sexual Chocolate (yes, that's what it's really called), Kuhnhenn Braggot Mead, and Bud Light Lime (not really...just seeing if you're paying attention, although I've read this is Cindy McCain's favorite beer right now).

I am still a novice beer taster (expert beer-drinker) so I can barely say much more about a beer other than "yum, tastes like coffee" or "yuck, tastes like cat urine." I do like learning about the ingredients that a brewery has used to create a particular brew, as well as any special inspiration for the beer or its namesake.

One beer I tried recently has an interesting background which seems relevant to my current life theme of failing at something, yet somehow finding the silver lining or otherwise making lemonade (lots of failure related sayings out there). Lagunitas Brewing Company's Brown Shugga turned a potentially failed batch of beer into a pretty tasty brew. From the label:

"An aborted batch of their Old Gnarleywine ended up tasting nearly as good as that they were hoping for, so they bottled it. God bless capitalism."

What they had planned didn't turn out as planned. But, instead of crying over spilled milk (or failed barleywine), they figured it wasn't so bad after all and bottled it up (and are making more $$ off of it than they would have if they had ditched the batch of bad beer).

What I had planned on didn't quite turn out the way I had expected. I'm trying to make lemonade (preferably with cane sugar and a fresh mint leaf). But, if I get thirsty enough and there's no more lemonade left, I'll gladly take a Brown Shugga beer and feel proud that I am supporting Lagunitas' attempt to make lemonade out of a less than perfect batch of beer.