Skull Splitter - 1 George Washington - 0

I’ll tackle a couple quick topics with this post. I tried a beer that’s listed in Michael Jackson’s beer book and I attempted something of an internet parlor trick. One worked out well, the other, eh, not so much.

I have a personal rule to never bet against someone who claims to be able to do something outrageous. (“How much you wanna bet I can swallow this watermelon?”) Odds are, they’ve already proven to themselves that they can either accomplish the trick or somehow turn the tables such that they’ll take your money without actually doing what they claimed they could do. A couple of beer hall tricks or gimmicks that come to mind are: “Betcha’ can’t find the hitchhiker on the back of this dime,” and the “What would you do if you were stranded in the desert with nothing but this camel?” using a pack of Camel cigarettes. I’m just not enough of a bon vivant that I pull these sorts of tricks off very well, perhaps because I don’t hang out in bars enough to become practiced in the art of the clever beer-drinking parlor trick.

Nevertheless, these sorts of things intrigue me when I see them or hear about them and recently I stumbled on a method that purports to uncap a beer bottle using a regular dollar bill. Following the video instructions – seemingly to the letter – I must confess that all I managed to do was release a bit of the pressure from this bottle of Skull Splitter Scottish Ale. In the end, after two or three tries with the dollar bill, I resorted to using the old tried-and-true method of simply breaking off the neck of the bottle on the bumper of my truck.

As for the beer, it’s a dandy…well not in the dandy sort of sissy way that the term “dandy” conjures up an image of a fellow whose tastes lean more toward the sartorial than the pugilistic. You follow? I mean this is a great beer.

At a tad over 8% abv, this isn’t a session brew, but it’s alcohol bite isn’t off-putting like some of the current slate of hopped up IPAs on the market. It produced a pronounced warming effect and will probably be something I’ll seek out come wintertime.So, while I’ve managed to check off another beer from the late Mr. Jackson’s great book, I’m still struggling with how to uncap a beer bottle using a dollar bill. I think the trick is to take the dollar bill, go to the store and purchase a cheap church key.

(Mr. Beer Brewing Update: We're at week one with the Mr. Beer Red Ale experiment. The keg has been kept at a fairly constant 76 to 78 degree temperature but shows little sign of brewing activity that I can detect. A thin layer of foam about 1/8 inch thick did form on the top and has now begun to float to the bottom. I'll admit to being a bit disappointed, but with another week in the keg, perhaps things will begin to look up.)