Let’s just start with the can. Flawless. Majestic green against the burnt orange and amber banner? Ambitious, yet understated. Minimalist, yet ornate. It almost glows, entrancing you, inviting you to the cozy brook that ambles through the soft rolling hills, calmed and refreshed, the water still icy cold from the mountain torrents and the cascading, frothy decent from its source in the snow-capped peaks that tower above.

This vignette is flanked by bouquets of hops and barley, announcing the demarcation between nature and agriculture, reminding us why we’re really here, wherever we are. The boundary between wilderness and ploughed fields is where we find our true nature, and beer is an embodiment of our domestication but also an homage to the wild.

And God help you if you pour your beer into a pint glass or some other clunky goblet. The aluminum can is a perfect vessel for this ale — the metallic feel and taste are a subtle suggestion of indulgence and vice, but not without the mechanical hint of industrious virtue and elbow grease.

Then the clink-thump-crack… the unmistakable sound that lets us know it has begun. Followed by the dull murmer of froth, this starter pistol cannot be undone — the shiny silver seal forever broken.

Upon the first sip, the palate is met with waves of spice, citrus, and stonefruit. Apple, nutmeg, cardamom, apricot… perhaps a hint of vanilla, a reminder of the great oaks that gnarl and twist along the foothills that adjoin the great mountains to the safety of the valley below.