This Is My Blood: Koźlak

Regular ol' bock beer is not on that style list, even though it's a pretty standard style of beer (starting to think I did a shitty job compiling that thing), and I don't really have too much to say about Koźlak otherwise, so I thought today would be a good day to check out someone else's review of the beer. Yes, there are people who review beers online, and do so quite seriously (i.e. they don't dick around on some nothing blog, getting distracted by whatever emo bullshit pops into my head). Here's the first one that shows up on google for Koźlak.



My immediate reaction is a desire to ridicule. It's a knee-jerk reaction for me, to point to someone who is taking something seriously and making fun of them for it. I acknowledge this flaw about myself. I understand that this is my first reaction because I subconsciously know that I will never be as good at this particular thing as this other person is, and so I am overwhelmed with this really shitty inclination to take this person down a peg. That's not right.

So let's skip right to the secondary reaction, which is one of admiration. This Brit knows his shit. He runs through everything we've been talking about over the past five months, lovingly describing color, aroma, front-end and finishing flavors—even finding a spare minute to ponder and analyze the idea of slightly burnt bread and how that relates to this flavor here—and then finishing the video by giving it a rating.

This is just a total beer geek, talking excitedly about something that he knows well and loves. I don't want to say that I'm envious of his ability to put this together, necessarily—I've made it pretty clear that I do not want to be in front of a camera by my insistence on instead writing mercilessly at any given subject. So maybe I am envious at the total shamelessness of the whole thing. How he can stand in front of a camera for almost seven minutes and not feel self-conscious. How he can be so knowledgeable about a subject that I am still woefully ignorant about, and how he can do so in a manner pretty close to eloquence.

Here's a new promise, in blog column absolutely littered with them: I will make a video like this by the end of the year. I just need to feel like I'll know what the fuck I'm even talking about first, and even now, I'm not quite there. Would I have known that this beer tastes like slightly burnt bread? Probably not without watching this video. But I'll get there, and at that point, I'll try to emulate this dude.

In the meantime, I'll be here, enjoying these great fucking bocks in the back of the classroom, trying not to scoff at the kids upfront who are taking this shit seriously.

NOTES

BEER: Koźlak

STYLE: German Bock

ABV: 6.5%

BREWED BY: Browar Amber

LOCATION: Kolbudy, Poland

PURCHASED AT: The Foodery in Northern Liberties

PAIRED WITH: a Joe's cheesesteak (very frightened to see that Fishtown is not social distancing anymore, apparently)

GRADE: 3.5 pukes out of 5 (a bit lower than that guy's score, but the sentiment remains the same)

BEER COUNT: 191.5 (Pam was going to split this with me, but I ended up drinking both halves because she does not agree with me or with the YouTube guy that this is a good beer)