Scrumtrulescent Saison

Scrumtrulescent Saison
Growler for $10, 5.6% ABV

Purchased at Brewery, Woodbridge

ssI had this idea where I would down the entire growler of this stuff, fire up old videos of Match Game and just type wildly and see what came out.

Then I remembered I’m 40 and haven’t gotten drunk for years and years and explaining my artistic and humorous and relevant reasons for that project would be lost on my wife and children. And frankly, it would be lost on everyone in the world but me – sort of how it goes with these beer review pages. I do know that the few people who read them seem to enjoy them, and I enjoy writing them, so … let’s go.

Why Match Game? Do you really need a reason to watch that insanity? I spent an evening (last night) watching tons of clips from the mid-70’s. Everybody was drunk, half of them were smoking, half were surely coked up – and it was campy and funny and stupid. As any student of American culture knows, one of the long-running stars of the Match Game was… the greatest performer ever to have graced this Earth, Charles Nelson Reilly.

And when one thinks of Charles Nelson Reilly, one’s mind goes right to Match Game. That show was delightful. No. No. It was brilliant. No, no, no, no. There is no word to describe its perfection, so I am forced to make one up. And I’m going to do so right now. Scrumtrulescent.

Yes it is. Match Game was absolutely scrumtrulescent.

(Those of you who understand this page so far, you win an ascot. If not, click on the link just above.)

I have often lamented that Connecticut’s breweries don’t really do many Belgian styles. I say this usually with farmhouse ales, dubbels and trippels in mind… and really, although saisons are more or less Belgian farm ales at heart, we didn’t even have too many of them around until 2012 with the Two Roads effort and Hooker’s Saison barrel series. (There IS a new brewery slated to open in 2013 or 2014 that will concentrate solely on the hardcore Belgian stuff… So chapeau Overshores Brewing of East Haven, chapeau!.)

NEBCO Says:

Scrumtrulescent is a dry, crisp, saison with notes of black pepper, lemon rind, with delicate hop bitterness.

549686_10151539424429456_2110370911_nAnyway, I’ve come to enjoy good saisons, and the Scrumtrulescent is as good as it is impossible to spell. It’s light and sessionable. It has a pretty intense aroma – grassy and bitter in a good way. Because this is NEBCO, there are detectable hops which is sort of weird for the style, but not off-putting. It has a nice sweet and spicy tang to it that sort of forces you to keep drinking it, if only to eliminate that sour tang that hangs around on your tongue after the burst of sweet is gone.

In short, this is a solid saison. Some clown on Beer Advocate celebrates this beer’s “barnyard aroma.” So thanks, douche, for reminding me why I’ll never be a “real” beer reviewer.

For I like to use these pages to note things like how “scrumtrulescent” is a neologism and not a real word. Of course, a neologism is a newly coined term, word, or phrase, that may be in the process of entering common use, but has not yet been accepted into mainstream language. And, apparently, some neologisms are “stunt words” created for a specific effect and/or to draw attention. Scrumtrulescent would be definitely be a stunt word neologism. Colbert’s “truthiness” is another excellent example.

In this case, “scrumtrulescent” was the invention of one (we assume), Will Ferrell playing James Lipton while interviewing Alec Baldwin playing Charles Nelson Reilly.

And Charles Nelson Reilly is, of course, indescribably wonderful – or “scrumtrulescent.”

Charles Nelson Reilly is also a Hartford Circus Fire survivor. (My visit to the memorial here). It is claimed that he could never sit in an audience again during his entire life after suffering the trauma of that day – a day when 169 people died in front of him.

Anyway, I urge you to go grab a beer (preferably some Scrumtrulescent Saison although I admit, that’s probably pretty difficult if not impossible for 99% of the people who read this) and spend some time Googling Match Game and marveling that this was on TV for so long. Here’s a random one where everyone is drunk and Charles Nelson Reilly is acting like a manly man – to get you started.

Overall Rating: A
Rating vs. Similar style: A

Beer Advocate’s Reviews of Scrumtrulescent
New England Brewing Company
CTMQ Reviews of NEB Beers
Back to CTMQ’s Connecticut Beer Page
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