This Is My Blood: Railbender Ale

I probably do too many of these "here's what I did today" posts, and sometimes they might even be tangential to the drinking, which is ostensibly the whole point of This Is My Blood. So let's take agency here right at the beginning and talk about the beer I drank. Railbender Ale—what's its deal? Well, it's an American-made Scottish ale. It's a dark ale, but not as dark as a porter, and definitely thinner. There was a very light fruitiness to it, and some caramel. Definitely a sweet taste, overall, with not much bitterness to counteract it. What Railbender lacked in overall flavor profile, it made up for in drinkability—it wasn't overpowering, so you could probably drink more of them if you wanted to.

I wanted to, but I held back. Mostly because I only had one Railbender Ale in my fridge, but also a little bit because I know stress drinking is not healthy. I was stressed because our refrigerator broke today, 33 days before we sign the documents to sell our house. Can't sell a house without a functional refrigerator, so this is another 3/4ths of a grand that we have to drop for a product we will be using for a little more than a month. This during a time when already mostly every penny we have has gone toward deposits on the new home. I know, I know, first class problems—we have to live with no financial margin of error for just a little bit, until we cash out on the sale of our current home, while others have to live this close to the cliff their entire lives. I've never said that I don't empathize. I've pushed through dozens of packets of paperwork to get families free refrigerators because they could not afford them. I don't mean to make it seem like I'm complaining just to be an asshole; I'm just saying that I have never been more stressed in my life than I am this week, and this is the reason I quickly grabbed the heaviest beer I currently have at my disposal (even though it was lukewarm, ha).

I do want you to know that I didn't just spend my entire day complaining about being in the red. I also did some legwork to explore our city for you, humble reader, and to let you know where is and is not a good place to purchase craft beer. I had a bit of time this morning while on the road, and so I stopped at Old Nelson Food Company at 15th and Spring Garden, which advertised the fact that it sold beer with a neon Victory sign in the front window. I have never been here; I don't think it's been at this location very long. Admittedly, there was a very large selection of craft beer, at least as compared to other markets of a similar nature. All the old standards were there. The only think is that 98% of them were in four- or six-packs. This was not a build-you-own-six-pack sort of place. I did see a few singles, but they were mostly Bud Heavy pounders and 24 oz. White Claws, neither of which I was interested in pairing with my bagel and cream cheese. Official PoYB TIMB review of Old Nelson: a great place if you know what you like and you want to pay $12-15 for it; not a great place to discover something new.

As someone who does not know what they like and does not want to pay $15 for it, I just bought a Gatorade instead. I did, however, end up at a beer distributor later on that day—the one at Tioga and Aramingo—where I did drop $15 on beer (I bought a 30-bird of Milwaukee's Best for the first time in like a decade, consider this your preview for Friday's This Is My Blood). I was really there to buy ice, though. You can't beat $6 for 40 lbs. I used every single one of those ice cubes when I got back home, since the fridge was still on the fritz, and the K***s have a lot of cheese and frozen vegetables we need to keep cold.

Okay, that's enough writing for today. Hopefully tomorrow will be better, and I will not feel the intense desire to drink as many beers as possible.

NOTES

BEER: Railbender Ale

STYLE: Scottish Ale

ABV: 6.8%

BREWED BY: Erie Brewing Co.

LOCATION: Erie, PA

PURCHASED AT: IGA

PAIRED WITH: BBQ chicken on the grill (mostly so we didn't have to try to keep chicken cold in a cooler for another 24 hours)

GRADE: 3 pukes out of 5

 
BEER COUNT: 367