February 08, 2024 | FEATURES | By Izzy Roe and Tia Peterson
Hello, everyone! Last week, you may have noticed we have a competitor within The Catalyst that seems oddly familiar. Three boys decided to start a wine review…without giving us credit. Were we surprised? No. We thought maybe in the wake of the Barbie movie there’d be some change, but alas, it looks like we have our very own Jo Koys to keep us on our toes. If you’re going to copy us, you should have at least come up with a better name for your article instead of “Three Bros Try Wine.” Since you’re already incapable of doing your own creative thinking, we’ve taken the liberty of coming up with some original names for you:
Vino for Virgins
Wine for Weenies
Dry Wines for Dry Guys
Beyond simply copying our idea, this article was also difficult to read. It sounded like you were in a class that grades based on participation: you’re talking way too much and saying nothing of substance. It might be time to take a journalism class. Now, crack open a can, and we’ll show you how to write a review.
This week’s beer hailed from New Hokkaido Brewing in Bozeman, MT. We tried their exceptionally hoppy, old school Daruma IPA. Daruma is a symbol of good luck and encouragement and boy did it live up to that. This beer is made featuring rice from Hokkaido, Japan, hops (a lot), and malted barley. The art on the can is very “Studio Ghibli-esque” and really caught our eye. Or did Daruma’s longing stare trick us into buying it? We can’t know for sure.
Daruma are meant to bring perseverance and good luck. So, let this article be a gift to all of you!
Let us paint you a picture of how this beer tasted: imagine your most typical IPA . . . now stop…just kidding…we actually know things about what we drink! Daruma had notes of citrus and pine that allowed for a delicious, smooth finish. If you look on Daruma’s website, it also says the beer has notes of “dankness,” but our trained palette did not agree.
This beer was absolutely not meant for chugging yet was paired exceptionally well with female rage. Our final comments state that we would absolutely drink this beer again, and we would love to try others from this brewery.
Finally, let this article be a gift of encouragement to the boys who stole our idea: put on your thinking caps and come up with something by yourselves. Anyway, we welcome them to The Catalyst as well as the world of alcohol reviews, we just had to give them a bit of a hard time.