Toys, Drugs, and Beer

Beer #291 Hoptimus Prime / Ruckus Brewing Company, Wilkes-Barre, PA

Day two of Gary vs. The Cold, and I think I'm starting to move ahead on the scoreboard.  Cough is getting better, feeling like a human again, and I think I'm returning to the real world tomorrow.  Take that, stupid cold!  Helping out today was a healthy dose of psuedoephedrine, which as everyone who watches Breaking Bad knows is the stuff that can be used to produce methamphetamine.  Sadly, I need mine for good, so I won't be able to cook with the 0.72 grams of psuedo I bought today (daily limit allowed: 3.6 grams).  The guys at Vamonos Pest will have to hold down the meth lab fort without me today, I suppose.

Sorry guys,  can't work today.  I'm sick.

What better way to celebrate feeling better than with a beer?  On deck is the Hoptimus Prime, a cleverly named double IPA from Ruckus Brewing Company, hailing from good old Wilkes-Barre, PA.  It pours with a dull copper color and thin white head, and you pick up a big grapefruit aroma.  There's a big pine and citrus hop taste, but a good bit of malt in there as well to balance things out.  It has a bitter finish and a healthy 9% ABV, for those of you keeping score at home.  And remember: alcohol kills germs!

Not sure if this beer turns into a jet or a dump truck or what.

Ruckus Brewing officially started when Legacy Brewing Company went out of business not too long ago.  The company that was doing the marketing for Legacy, Ruckus Marketing, ended up stepping in and taking over operations.  And here we are.

Thing to Think About Today:
The name of this beer is a play on a name from the cartoon/toy/movie franchise, Transformers.  You see, Optimus Prime is the leader of the Autobots, and was a robot who transformed into an 18-wheeler to fight Megatron, chief bad guy in charge of the Decepticons.  I had some of these toys as a kid, but never got too far into them beyond watching on Saturday mornings.  I was more of a G.I. Joe kind of kid.

Instead of just showing a clip from the cartoon or the recent movies starring Shia LaBeouf, I'm going to pull a 180 and suggest we stop and think about another line of robots who turned into something else:  The Gobots.  Ah, yes the Gobots: the junior varsity version of 'toy robot that turn into a vehicle' that Tonka produced to compete with Hasbro's much cooler Transformer.  Yes, I had some Gobots as a kid, and I'm not ashamed to admit it.  They sucked when compared to Transformers, which is why the film Transformers 4 is in production and Gobots collect dust in people's basements.  I suppose the message for the day is that it's cool to be nice to everyone, even the Gobots of the world.  It's okay to root for the underdog every now again, even in the land of children's toys.  Stay healthy, people.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXB4wvqCPBU