My Darling B and I went to a “beer tasting” at the Glass Nickel yesterday evening. I put that in quotes because it sounds like the beer’s tasting you, doesn’t it? But that’s what they call it when a guy from the brewery shows up and gives samples of beer away. Upland Brewing was giving it away at the Glass Nickel, a place we hadn’t visited before last night although we’ve ordered pizza for delivery from them many times. There’s a regular sit-down restaurant upstairs, and downstairs there’s a room about the size of a walk-in closet with a bar at the far end, sort of like something you’d find in almost any Area Man’s basement about thirty years ago. Do people still build bars in their basements? I haven’t seen that in a long time, but I haven’t infiltrated anybody else’s basement in a while, either. Dozens of people were crammed into this little room while reps from Upland wandered through the crowd pouring samples into cups they passed out and chatting with anybody who would listen to them talk about their beer. Most of it was pretty good: I sampled an IPA and a brown ale, B tried those two and all their lambic beers, a brew I stay away from because it’s too sour for me. And it smells funny. Kind of stinks, really. Even B thought so. “This one smells just like manure!” she exclaimed. Really, she did. I could see the exclamation point and everything. And when she waved the cup under my nose, the smell of a well-fermented barnyard was unmistakable. “Usually these kinds of beers smell like armpit, but this one is definitely manure,” she elaborated. She’s getting very good at describing beers.