You're Sippin' On: Maine Beer Company's Mean Old Tom

The oxford shirt is ironed, flowing at the hem, and worn-out loafers are tripping heavy on splintered wood. It's nearing fall, leaves beginning to crisp yellow at their edges and brown their stems as you stand on the porch. This porch—integral to what you're doing, whatever you're doing. You lean over the wooden railing and somewhere, someone's turned music on. You look down, the toes of your shoes caught between the chipped pastel railings—you pull a bit and nothing gives, so you stand, admiring the sunset paints the clouds crimson and yellow and that dull pink in between. A swift breeze comes from under the wooden slats, rubbing gooseflesh onto your ankles; you clutch your glass tighter. In the glass? Maine Beer Company's Mean Old Tom: a nice, sessionable, smooth stout that is chock-full of vanilla and chocolate and is as smooth as the late summer breeze on your legs. So you stand there, on the porch, swirling this beautiful, stunning beer around in a tulip glass. You watch as the dark, deep chestnut brown gives way to tan bubbles and foam on the edges of the swirls, waxing concentric around the well of the glass. What's that, you hear? Did someone put on one of your records?

It's Mingus, of course. Charles Mingus. More specifically, it's the album where Mingus delves into piano compositions, and someone's put on the b-side: a manic, polarizing glimpse into the mind of the composer himself. The b-side of Mingus Plays Piano is a swaying, swelling journey into the depths of human nature and interpersonal connection or, more importantly, the lack thereof. Simple meditations that grow and crumple with single notes that capture attention and desire—that, seconds later, repel and shoo away. The balance is unmistakable and characteristically Mingus. And that's where Mean Old Tom comes back into the act.

As Mingus can with one note imply smoothness, so Mean Old Tom can match it. With every note

of vanilla bean and chocolate, there is the implication of more, there is the force of desire. What we may not have known we wanted, we now cannot live without receiving more and more of that particular thing: whether it's a two- or three-key melody from Mingus, or that subtle mouth of chocolate from Mean Old Tom, we need it. We need it now. And, interestingly enough, one of the most stunningly similar attributes of both is their discordance: their divisiveness within themselves. Mingus plays charming, sweeping melodies accented by harsh, dissonant runs. But for every beautiful thing punctuated by inelegance, the desire for that beautiful thing grows and grows. And so when Mean Old Tom drops tannic, acidic light-roast coffee flavors into the back-end of their smooth, sweet chocolate assault, we instantly take another sip: we instantly want so badly to remember that sweetness with the bitterness in mind. Drink deeply, sip sweetly as you look up at the clouds and catch a glimpse of cotton-candy pink before closing your eyes and letting the ivory of piano keys and smiling teeth carry you over grass and field—high, high into that pink.