Uinta Brewing Company – Detour Double IPA

ABV: 9.5%

As I celebrate my 30th birthday in a rented trailer on the banks of Utah’s Weber River, drinking a Detour Double IPA from Salt Lake City’s Uinta Brewing Company, I find it hard to believe that nine years have passed since my 21st. I’m glad tonight that I’m not drinking countless car bombs and tequila/tabasco shots at the Bayview and then barfing them out the window of my own Jeep as my friends drive me home, though beers at the Bay on Michigan’s Gull Lake do sound pretty nice.

I stopped at the nonsensically-regulated state of Utah-owned liquor store on my lunch break for some celebratory beer and chose a four pack of the 9.5% Detour Double IPA. Why? Because I like hops? Maybe. Because the label features a sweet, stylized Airstream trailer, and I live in a less-sweet, but still kind of cool trailer? Probably.

After work and an hour spent with my beautiful girlfriend before her night shift as a nurse (letting the beer chill, as Utah’s legislature does not believe in selling cold beer), I cracked a Detour and realized that this beast of a brew is not for the faint of heart. Lucky for me, I am not faint of heart, and the so-much-hops tasted so mmm mmm good. Still though I thought, man, is this beer good, I also thought that one was enough.

After fly-fishing (fishing doesn’t mean catching) until dark, and enjoying a lesser canned beer on the river (this might be a plea for more craft breweries to can their goods), what do you think I craved when I got home? I soon realized that Detour is the kind of beer that tastes great with cold, leftover Michigan whitetail venison meat sauce spaghetti.

Now my dog Daisy (Dookie) is begging for spaghetti, or double IPA, I don’t know which. Our other pup, Olive, knows better. Daisy will get none; well, maybe just a little.