Review: Shiner Kosmos Reserve + Early Brautigan

The good folks at the Spoetzl brewery describe this as a dark lager with some extra hops. That it is. Shiner Bock is one of my favorites, and I aim to try all the Shiner variations. I first encountered Shiner back in the 70's when traveling to Texas periodically for work. We went to Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, and Hunstville. Never made it to Austin or San Antonio or Galveston or Corpus Christi. Shiner was, I'm pretty sure, a regional beer. I, for one, am glad it has gone national.

Kosmos Reserve is named for Kosmos Spoetzl, founder of the brewery in Shiner, TX. I'm partial to dark, hoppy beers, so this one's right in my wheelhouse. Nicht schlecht, Herr Spoetzl!

Here's one of Brautigan's earliest published poems:

The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth's Beer Bottles

When we were children after the war
we lived for a year in a house next
to a large highway. There were many
sawmills and log ponds on the other side
of the highway. The sound of the saws could
be heard most of the time and when there
was darkness trash burners glowed red
against the sky. We did not have a father
and our mother had to work very hard.
My sister and I got our spending money
by gathering beer bottles that had been
thrown along the highway or left around
the sawmills. At first we carried the
bottles in gunny sacks and cardboard boxes
but later we found an old baby buggy
and we used that to carry our bottles in.
We took the bottles to a grocery store
and were paid a penny for small beer bottles
and two cents for large ones. On almost
any day we could be seen pushing our baby
buggy along the highway looking
for beer bottles.