Still drinking Lagunitas! Yes indeed I am. Some people don’t like them anymore because Heineken bought them but hey, they are still brewing fantastic beers, and I for one am not going to miss out. Lagunitas has been brewing beers you can’t pronounce since the early nineties, and their latest such brew is CitruSinensis Pale Ale.

I am not even going there. No attempt to pronounce citruh-sinuses shall be made, because it really seems like a losing proposition to me. Indeed, I’m not even sure it’s a pale ale, for reasons we shall soon see. All the same, it was very tasty indeed and I enjoyed a 23-ounce mug at Taco Mac.

Here’s a long description that really isn’t a description from the brewery. Nope, wouldn’t want to miss those either.

The man bent over his guitar, a shearsman of sorts. The day was green. They said, 'You have a blue guitar, you do not play things as they are.' The man replied, 'Things as they are / Are changed upon the blue guitar.' And they said then, 'But play, you must, a tune beyond us, yet ourselves, a tune upon the blue guitar of things exactly as they are.' He sighs, I cannot bring a world quite round, although I patch it as I can. I sing a hero's head, large eye and bearded bronze, but not a man, although I patch him as I can and reach through him almost to man. If to serenade almost to man is to miss, by that, things as they are, say it is the serenade of a man that plays a blue guitar..." These, the words of the Conjurer-in-Chief; Wallace Stevens, describe in perfect detail the work of a brewer as he sits to write a new recipe. Perfection is the goal, to fill a desire for a perfect beer. Yet the instrument of his mind and that of the brewhouse and yeast are the fallible tools at hand. And so he patches it as he can. A little hop here, a little citrus there, a yeast to marry the two, the worty substrate of reality calling the key and time signature. The beer that comes will be the beer we drink, the beer whose story we will tell here. The brewer does what he can and imagines a world quite round. Conjurer-in-Chief Stevens concludes; "Exceeding music must take the place of empty heaven and its hymns." What does it all have to do with beer?

Hey. I warned you. OK, since you’ve been good, here’s where they do tell you something about the beer:

A refreshingly hopped Pale-ish Ale with a huge citrus blast!

We took some fresh Sanguinello Blood oranges, juiced 'em, concentrated that juice (without heat) and threw it into a wheatier version of our DogTown Pale Ale. The end result? A refreshingly hopped pale-ish ale with a huge citrus burst!

Lagunitas CitruSinensis Pale Ale has an alcohol content of 7.5% by volume with 49 IBUs. I paid $5.75 for my mug at Taco Mac, and it runs $11.99 a six-pack at Taco Mac. The former is quite reasonable, if the latter a buck or so more than I think it should be. Still and all, I had a glass of Highland Hawaiin lounge Juice the same night, about the same strength (8% ABV), and also a fruited IPA (mangos and passion fruit). The Highland beer ran me $1.75 more for 12 ounces less, and commands $4 more a six-pack. Still love ya Highland, but Lagunitas has you beat here.

My mug of CitruSinensis Pale Ale arrived a hazy golden orange color with a thick creamy head that left a thick film of Brussels lace and just oozed juicy oranges in the nose. Taking a sip I got a medium malty palate, orange zest, tangerine and blood orange citrus and minty herbal bitter hop finish at the last.

They call it a Pale Ale (told you we’d get to this part) but at 7.7% it’s more of a hazy IPA to me. Your mileage may vary, but why wouldn’t you wanna drink a beauty like this? I know I want to.

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