Introducing Beer With Baby | First We Feast

I am a parent. And I drink beer for a living. Also: I write about it too. How does this all fit together? It’s complicated. To chronicle the challenges of being both a working beer journalist and author, as well as a parent, I wrote a fun column for First We Feast called Beer With Baby, which ran from 2014 to 2015.

For me, it was a fun return to my column-writing days. I spent more than seven years penning a booze-drenched, gluttony-driven column for the New York Press called Gut Instinct. The job helped me hone my writing voice, sending me on culinary (mis)adventures across New York City. Now I'm a dad. But I still eat and drink. Beer With Baby is my attempt to figure out parenthood. With alcohol. Have a read and let me know what you think about the first few columns.

Beer With Baby: Green Flash Road Warrior  

Like a werewolf bathed by a full moon, I’m a changed man once 4:59 becomes 5 p.m. I unlock my alcohol-restraint shackles and amble to my fridge, plucking a cold beer from the crowded the bottom shelf. Then I drink, a beer writer’s pleasure and work mixing with each greedy gulp.

At least, that used to be my routine. With our daughter in the mix, 5 p.m. is when I grab Violet from daycare and stroll her home, where we’ll spend the next 90 minutes riding a rollercoaster of joy and tears until the tracks terminate with sleep, blessed sleep. It’s enough to drive a man to drink.

But not before I pluck my daughter from daycare. As a profession, there’s little shocking about being a beer journalist. Hell, all writers drink. I’m just franker about my imbibing. My alcohol intake is justified! However, daycare is a DUI checkpoint for parents. No state-certified caregiver would gladly hand over a child to a parent who smelled like he made love to a longneck of imperial IPA. And can you image the headlines? drunk beer journalist tries to pick up his daughter from daycare, drops her.

I do believe the New York Post headline would be visible from 30 paces.

To short-circuit that scenario, I refrain from cracking a beer until we’re back home, where Violet and I can both enjoy our respective bottles. That was last week’s plan. I’d just received Green Flash’s latest round of beers, the first since they, like many recent breweries, received a brand facelift.

Green Flash’s new labels feature bold, oversize typographical treatments that clearly communicate each beer’s style and key flavor profile (“extravagantly hopped,” “big bold and complex”). It’s a modern look that will polarize some Green Flash fans, while drawing others into the fold. I never judge a beer by its cover. The juice inside matters most.

While West Coast IPA and Hop Head Red IPA have been reformulated to up their aromatics and ABV, squarely planting them in double IPA country, I was most curious about Road Warrior. It’s an imperial red IPA, with citrusy Amarillo, pungent and earthy Columbus and tropical Mosaic hops romping through a field of rye and crystal malt. A curious choice for a summer seasonal, but it’s one that reaffirms Green Flash as an IPA powerhouse. With Violet cradled in my arm’s crook, I tromped to the fridge.

“These beers pay for your diapers,” I told Violet, grabbing a Road Warrior and toting her to the bedroom. I placed her on the bed. She grinned, that pure and glorious toothless grin. I popped the bottle and took a sticky, resinous sip, relishing the IPA’s rumba of caramel candy and peppery spice, with a fruity bassline rumbling throughout. The booze was muted, drowned out by that appealingly saccharine call of crystal malt. Not be left out, Violet added a musical contribution: a cry, sharp and high-pitched, as if all the world’s sadness was escaping her lungs.

For me, 5 p.m. is happy hour. For Violet, it’s the end of a long day’s journey of new sights and sounds, of her growing brain connecting new synapses. It’s tiring, draining toil. She needs comfort, stability in her rapidly shifting world. I put down my beer, its bitterness trailing off into sweetness, and picked up Violet, calming her with soft kisses and reassuring murmurs.

Happy hour could wait another hour. 

Beer With Baby: Elysian Super Fuzz          

Much as it does in the depths of a psychedelic trip, time moves differently when an infant is screaming. Seconds become minutes, minutes become hours, and hours are the reason that beer was invented.

Screaming is an infant’s most important survival tool. Parents spring into action to do whatever it takes to quell crying. I quickly aid my daughter, Violet, but darn, don’t I also want to drink. It’s a desire amplified by my profession. I’m a beer writer. Drinking is my job. It’s not a question of whether I’ll be drinking a beer while tending to my daughter, but rather how I will safely make it work. See, my wife works in advertising. Good pay. Bad hours. Most eves, right in the heart of happy hour—my prime tasting time—I must snag Violet from daycare.

When I arrive, Violet is typically lost in dreamland, which I imagine to be a Wonka-like landscape of stuffed animals and snackable breasts. The lightest nudge wakes her. Screams erupt. Time turns sludgy. My nerves frazzle. To short-circuit tears, I strap her into a stroller and roll off, the movement acting as Ambien. She contentedly sucks on her pacifier while I seek my own.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” I soothed during a recent meltdown, quickly tucking her into the stroller. As I wheeled Violet down the block, her eyes fluttered shut, opening a slender window in which I could enter my local bottle shop. I scanned the coolers, skipping past double IPAs and imperial stouts, in search of a beer-drinking parent’s holy trinity: flavor, refreshment and low alcohol. That means pilsners and pale ales, kölsch and cream ales, session IPAs or saisons. The sweet spot slinks below 6 percent ABV, decreasing the risk for a most unforgivable sin: dropping your infant.

Today, salvation’s name was Elysian Super Fuzz. I bought several bottles, shoved them into my stroller’s coffee cup holder and rapidly rolled Violet to our Brooklyn apartment. Upstairs, she roused. I fed her a bottle, then reached for mine. I poured the Seattle-brewed pale ale into a glass, marveling at the hazy-orange hue. “Looks unfiltered,” I told Violet. She drooled. I took a sip and savored Super Fuzz’s bitter, citrusy tang, a palate-zap supplied by blood orange peel and purée. The fruity bouquet was amplified by citrus-forward Amarillo and tropical Citra hops, creating an aromatic swirl as appealing as fine perfume.

“That might become my summertime go-to,” I told my now-smiling daughter, relishing a beer that, like parenting, was full of bitterness mixed with moments as bright as sunshine.