Beer & Book #2

Yesterday’s beer: The Lost Abbey (Lost and Found Ale).
Yesterday’s book: Abandon the Old in Tokyo by Yoshihiro Tatsumi

Notes: I’m on a Tatsumi kick, having zoomed through two collections of his gekiga stories and an early thriller (Black Blizzard) in two days. (Thank you, University of Georgia Libraries!) Tatsumi’s comics—sordid, sleazy, and depressing—are conveyed with a line and shading that’s equally grimy and frayed. Everything’s overcrowded in his world; everything carries a filmy layer of dirt, even in bright daylight; everyone’s a pervert and struggling to hide those perversions from plain sight. So, Tatsumi’s is a sinner’s world. No surprise that I’ve been turning to beers made by, or named after, monks and their monasteries—the cleanest livers and saintly places on Earth. But beer can lead to drunkenness, which leads to murder in Black Blizzard and all manner of trouble in Tatsumi’s manga, and we’re right back where we started. Oh, the beer: The Lost Abbey is a buttery, velvety brown concoction with a slight hint of dates in the aroma, which befits a beer brewed partially with raisins. Is it worth the $10.79 I paid for the 24-oz. bottle? Well, I’d drink it again, if someone else bought it.