By Natasha Godard

Heya, guys! It’s beertender & Certified Cicerone® Natasha writing today. I might’ve hijacked the blog from Tim and Ben. OR I might’ve been invited to write a thing or two. The world shall never know.

However it happened, I’m writing today to tell you all about a recently tapped beer. The Brothers Cascadia and Imperfect Produce collaboration, “Imperfectly Perfect.”

This particular beer grabbed my attention because it sits at the intersection of a bunch of my interests. Local beer. Food waste. Pineapple. My workplace. A couple of businesses I happen to like a lot.

Let’s get the disclosure out of the way first: I subscribe to Imperfect Produce. I’m a fan of reducing food waste, so I wanted to give it a shot when I heard of it. I liked it enough that I’ve been subscribing for several months now. That said, neither Imperfect Produce nor Brothers Cascadia have any clue I’m writing this, so there’s no kickbacks or added compensation to me or Ben’s Bottle Shop for writing this post.

This beer is a solid pale ale. It’s crisp and has a lovely lingering hop finish. It’s 6.2% ABV, so it doesn’t qualify as “sessionable” (for me, at least), but it’s not going to screw up an evening to have a couple pints of it. It’s beautifully clear and golden, without a hint of the opacity that sometimes comes with adding fruit to beer. I love that, honestly. Haze can be good and all, but if a beer is hazy, I want to know it’s intentional.

“But what about the pineapple, Natasha?” I hear you all asking. Let’s be honest, if a beer claims to contain something, it damn well better come through in the flavor. And “Imperfectly Perfect” does succeed; a drinker won’t fail to notice the pineapple flavors throughout. However, the pineapple doesn’t punch one in the face, and it doesn’t overly sweeten the beer. This beer remains a pale ale through and through, ending on a nice mild bitterness.

When I was first learning about beer, one of the folks who taught me would always ask the class if we: 1) liked the beer, 2) would buy the beer, and 3) would buy the beer with our own money.

I bought this beer, folks. I bought an entire grumbler (half growler) of it to take home. I bought it with my own money. And you all know it’s true, because while there are Ben’s Bottle Shop logos all over these photos, not one of the backgrounds looks like Ben’s Bottle Shop.

Enjoy!