Beer Cocktails and Other Hackery.

I'm a big fan of Imbibe magazine. While beer and wine magazines tend to look at things through the eyes of quasi-geeky enthusiasts, reading Imbibe is like getting inside the head of an obsessive-compulsive bartender. It's a holistic, mischievous, mad-scientist way to view the drinks world. I'm hooked.

So, beer cocktails. What do you think? Isn't there a part of you that bristles at taking the work of a brewer--who ideally meant that beer to turn out just the way it did--and throwing in bitters and rum and orange peels and shit? I admit: I bristle, just a little.

Then there's the hedonist inside me. You know, the one usually in charge. There is a certain freedom and power in doing whatever the hell you want with what you own, or, better yet, paying someone with expertise to do it for you. What would happen if if I cut this Guinness Foreign Extra Stout with a dollop of white port? Well, nothing good, as it turns out. But it was fun to try.

The July/August issue of Imbibe offers, among many other things, a list of five places "brewing up a new school of beer cocktails." One of them, JoeDoe in New York, makes one called Honey Beer. Bartender Jill Schuster's recipe is online. Gin, lemon juice, lemon zest, pale ale--the print edition states that it's Dale's Pale Ale from Oskar Blues. Honey and salt line the rim of the glass. Of course there is a lemon twist.

I'll be honest: It sounds terrible. But would it be fun to try? Yeah.