A Wolf Among Scrubs

A scrub is a guy that thinks he’s fly and is
also known as a buster
always talkin’ about what he wants
and just sits on his broke ass
so (no)
I don’t want your number
no I don’t wanna give you mine
and no I don’t wanna meet you nowhere
no I don’t want none of your time and no
– TLC, “No Scrubs”
Pliny (the elder) is famous among brainiacs for being the first renaissance man — a naturalist, a historian, a lawyer, an outdoorsman and intellectual, an officer and a gentleman — but, of course, he’s much better known around the beer aisles of Southern California for being the dude who purportedly named hops.
Except the word for “hops” in Latin is, apparently, “lupias salictarius.” Which translates roughly into “wolf among scrubs.” Or so we’re told by the men at Russian River Brewing Co., who have dedicated one of their fresh-hop concoctions to Pliny. The ultimate shout-out! Like the man, Pliny succeeds at making a lot of West Coast brewing crazies look a little like a buster, a broke-ass, or a scrub.
And Pliny the Elder is a wise brew. Take the most badass California varietal of pineconey brew, your fave West Coast IPA, and then strip it of all that inevitable (sometimes tasty) cane sugar afterburn or the in-your-face cactusy aloe vera water. Refine it, and spoon beatific, yeasty baked bread foam on top and you have a close approximation of Pliny. With its tangerine pale hue, it looks a lot like a dreamy ale you might find in nature, perched on a rock by a stream considering its own virginal purity. Its nose hits a bunch of forest notes: damp oak, twigs, mossy stones. But its tongue is mostly squeaky clean sunshine. One of the few beers you can find (around L.A. at least) for under $5 that fits the bill of idyllic brew, even beer-style perfection, by making a now-common hop flavor into an authentic and imitable natural art.
Soundtrack: Leonard Cohen’s “I’m Your Man”
Dairy Pairy: Haystack Mountain’s Sunlight: a raw washed rind goat tomme.