what's a kvass? ... *MAY 4th 2019* is a kvass.
i don't know. what's a russian? what's russia? what sense are borders at all? just a way to organize teams. to create thems. to create reason for protection. ... i mean, lots of folks will tell you that borders give a country integrity. what's a country without a certain kind of cultural integrity? but really, though. what is a *country*? why is it valuable? why must borders be erected around people with shared language and history and cuisine and art?
it seems to me that the only answer is: for fighting. humans are the same. humans are different. simultaneously, it's true. our differences, though, scare the shit out of us. the ugly side of our human nature wants everyone in the world to be just like us, or else they're some kind of asshole. see dat 4-week old letter of mine re *why aren't you me?*. and we tend not to have too much hesitation fighting assholes. ... so countries help us get our fighting rocks off. fighting neighbor assholes is hard cuz what happens when the paper comes the next morning? but fighting far away assholes ain't so hard. and we get to fight!!
and i suppose that's why i don't care much for borders. or *russia* or *slavic* as concepts. they're certainly fun and neat to think about. i love history. but i'm definitely one of those border-hating liberals your aunt talks about. i think humans have more sames than they do differences. i think free trade and the internet have shown that. we love each others cuisines. rene redzepi brings japanese cooking techniques to copenhagen, posts an instagram story about it, and a brewery in chicago is fermenting something special. russia manipulates american democracy via twitter. the us manipulates venezuelan democracy via money. we're all the same!!
so let's keep stealing each other's beers. kvass! how do you say that word? kə'vaas. emphasis on the bold. but say it however you want! really! we'll get it. ... and why should you order it? well, to start, it's a beer made with bread! better still: it's a beer made with *our house-made bread*. if you haven't heard, we make delicious bread in house. we have a sort of micro-bakery. buzzing and alive and well at 6a daily. well, we'd been trying to make a kvass with publican for years. but the timing never worked out. and then we rolled out of bed one day and we owned a bakery in addition to our brewery! whoa! we can make kvass any time we want! ... and so now we do. we're collecting stale and day-old bread all the time for them. we've got the next one in the hopper now, in fact. cuz the first one was so delicious.
back to this one, though: it's called *MAY 4TH 2019*. it's tart. sour, even. but lightly so. it tastes like bread, sure. but only tertiarily. primarily, you get brightness from the acidity. secondarily, whoa! stewed berries and apricot marmalade and all sorts of jam all over this sucker! and yes indeed: you do get some bread on the palate. mostly, for us, on the back end. after a handful of sips.
we tend not to be surprised by beers anymore. we search and search and search for a new brewery to love. (mostly, it's just hype-y nonsense.) or for a new style, or a new take on an old style. but excitement is hard to drum up when you surround yourself with a think everyday for 8 years. not so with kvass. this style is wild! so stokin'! super sharp and flip worthy! the complexity is special. to lightness. the tartness. the fruit. the whoa.
come in and have a hundred. less 98. or whatever number gets you down to a total that leaves you simply warm and happy and not slow-blinkin'.
get your kvass at bungalow by middle brow. and nowhere else in chicago. at least for now.
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