Soft Parade--Local 30

I ended up at HopCat for the first time after Friday's Pride Night at Necto Nightclub to watch the celebrations for the Supreme Court ruling in favor of national marriage equality. HopCat was offering free Crack Fries to mark the occasion; so my girlfriend and I decided that it was worth a look. The club scene turned out to be less wild and jubilant than I'd have expected for the occasion. There was still a feeling of excitement that even the doldrums of Ann Arbor's smaller summer population couldn't quash. At any rate, we were there as observers, allies, friendly faces, and I, due to my heterosexual relationship, had no stake in the events of the day, outside the way that everyone did--being members of a more open, inclusive society. After closing our tab at Necto--Jack Daniels and Buffalo Trace for me, tequila and rum mixed drinks for the lady--we wandered over to HopCat.

We were promptly seated at the bar, given the daunting two-sided beer menu, and ignored by bartenders for over ten minutes. The wait is an experience we haven't repeated on subsequent visits and was solved by asking a hostess to move to a table. There was only time for one drink before last call, so I had to make it a good one. Several drinks stuck out to me, but Soft Parade seemed the most interesting for its notes of rye and fruit. Since whiskeys can be made with rye, I assumed that this beer would pair well with what I'd already imbibed that evening.

The fruity aromas of Soft Parade immediately greet my nose when smelling the wide opening of the tulip glass. The first sip has none of the burning fizzle that most beers cause toward the back of your palate.What impresses me most about Soft Parade is how smooth this beer is. Subsequent drinks brought the blueberry and barley flavors most strongly, which pair amazingly!  Short's Brewing says this beer was created to appeal to wine drinkers, and as a minor wine snob, I will agree and will say perhaps some of it's appeal lands there. Alcohol content is relatively high at 7.5%, so with how smooth this drink is you can easily get very sauced on Soft Parade if you're in for more than a single round. I think this is a great beer to have casually, though, because there's so much flavor that will be lost if you're drinking too much.

Drinking Soft Parade reminded me that going to a bar is not only about drinking a great beer, but also about the way a great beer can enhance a day. This beer is objectively excellent, but aside from that, this beer will always carry a subjective nostalgia for me. I will remember the excitement of knowing that friends and family are free to marry who they love. Of course, the struggle doesn't end there: LGBT suicide, homelessness, employment and housing discrimination, and violence (especially against queer and trans people of color) all remain struggles. But the ruling does show that sometimes struggle results in tangible change. I don't want to reduce the struggle of the LGBT community to a consumer relationship, nor politicize a beer. However, there is something special about the relationship people can have to beer, because for me Soft Parade will always have a secret ingredient that only I can taste--hope. Beer is ultimately about memory, we can drink to forget, and in instances like this, beer can recall a history, a moment, and a feeling. Soft Parade is a fantastic beer with which to make some memories.

Soft Parade: 9/10