Hair of the Dog x The Sweet Potato

Back in Berkeley now, and everyone seems so stressed. But wait--there is a cure! It's called Hair of the Dog, Ruth American Pale Ale. Named after granny Ruth, the grandmother of Alan Sprints of Portland, Oregon's Hair of the Dog Brewing Company, Ruth knows how to make things better. Couple that with this seriously yummy sweet potato soup that Chef Dre on a Tray makes, and things are back on track. A bright orange soup that releases aromas of ginger and garlicky sweetness through the house is pretty much impossible to pout around for too long. Chef Dre says, "ORANGE, a powerful healing color, is said to increase the craving for food, stimulate enthusiasm and creativity, aid in decision making, enhance cheer, confidence and assurance."  Bring it on! (Click on the link to see the fantastic soup that she made for me back in January. Do it. It could change your life). There's something magical about potatoes that brings people together and warms hearts. (Last time it was sweet potato fries.)

Now, grandmas in the American public imagination have been branded with an image of being warm, matronly, homebodies, funny (or just wacky), keepers of strange rituals, and secret recipes. Perhaps Ruth conforms to that idea, but I imagine that she's also a very powerful woman too, from the amazing taste of this beer. First of all, although it's called an American Pale Ale, you should forget about any sort of over processed, poorly stored, mishandled and misguided kinds of American Pale Ales. That is not the Ruth.

Ruth is an unfiltered ale that pours a murky dried apricot color. With a light beer that still has a lot going on like this beer, One Woman thinks that it's best served not too cold. I think this is key. For a pale ale, it has a very nicely shaped head, with big dreamy custard froth. I like to think of it as a "crumpet" head, with uneven, large and small sized bubbles forming a textured cloud. It smells very gently of summer fruits, lightly of apricot and rhubarb. Sweet dried fruit, and soft citrus malt explode with the first sip into something like a Crème bavaroise. A bit later on, it's nutty, a bit sweet and bready like hot crossed buns. In short, super tasty, and what amazement that all this is contained in a mere 4.5ABV light bodied beer. It's like the Yoko Ono of beers.

Musical Pairing: I'm going to pair it with Yoko Ono's song "Hi ga noboru" (Click on the link to listen) off of her new Plastic Ono Band album that just came out last year. It means, "the sun rises." How is it, that when Yoko Ono does something, it just seems so profound? After all she's been through, she still seems to insist on hope and believing in things like love and beauty, without a drop of irony. 

BONUS TIME:
Ruth really made me think of artist Miwa Yanagi's photography series, My Grandmothers, where she interviews women in their 30s and 40s and asks them to imagine themselves as grandmothers, half a century or so later. What you get is not "grandmother" as an immobile condition of continual decline, but as a future full of potential, dreams, and adventure. For Yanagi's grandmas, resting is a choice (for some), but not a fate. (Click on the link to see Yanagi's work)