Two Brothers Laughing Panda

It's going to be review night, we decided awhile ago. Like, woke up this morning and discussed reviewing beer immediately after I awoke from the most amazing beer dream. See, Dad decided he wanted to go to my hometown in Illinois this weekend. For some reason, it had to be this weekend. That decision was a double-edged sword: we missed Afternoon With The Brewers (please tell me this will be an annual event!), but we did pick up a lot of beer not available in Ohio to share with you. It's also been a rather frustrating day, where all of us are in edge. Craft beer is on the agenda tonight, indeed. So, without further ado, onto the beer.

Two Brothers is a very popular brewery in Illinois. It's pretty popular here, too, but I think even more so in their home state. They are based out of the Chicago area; Warrenville, to be precise. Two Brothers beers were prominently displayed in every establishment selling beer we visited (sans the bar in our hotel, where the bartender misheard us ask for draft, not craft, beer, and proceeded to offer us Bud Light. At least she had New Belgium's Fat Tire on hand). This is a beer that has intrigued Nathan and me for awhile. It's a green tea IPA. And you can't go wrong with the label: who could hate on a cute panda bear getting a fun buzz on?

This pours a medium straw color with some chill haze and moderate white head. Taking a whiff, I'm impressed with the smooth aroma. It's lightly citrusy, there is a freshly mowed grass note, and maybe a hint of that earthy-yet-bright green tea. When you take a sip, there's a heavy caramel and malty note, which fades out to bright citrus, maybe some cantaloupe, then there's a hint of green tea, and a fairly decent mouth-puckering tannic bite. It's a little sticky on the back of the tongue, but nothing that is overly resinous. It's a rather well-structured IPA.

This is well done. I thoroughly enjoy green tea, and we all know about my love affair with hops. I wasn't sure how the two would go together, or if the generally mild flavors in green tea would get lost in the hop profile. They decidedly do not. They each complement the other quite nicely, and I'm left regretting that this beer is almost gone.

4.8/5 caps

-Jennie

So, more details of this life changing weekend will come about as we progress in our reviews. I have so much to say, but want to drink this (as I've been working on finishing up a painting). I wanted to work on this painting and review beers today, as a break before I head back to work tomorrow... But, no, had to go out to storage in search for this mythical sleeping bag (the reason for going to Illinois this weekend). Note- the fucking sleeping bag does not exist anymore, and if I have to hear one more damn thing about it, I'm going to pack up the 30-some odd beers we picked up this weekend, and head to South Dakota, with no way of contacting me. No loud fucking baseball game on the TV that's progressively getting louder and louder as the blood pressure sky rockets. The chattering of the kid trying to compete with the volume of the TV... Building and building.... Adding bricks to this wall of insanity that's swaying and about to collapse, releasing all the pent up shit from this weekend. What will relieve this? Oh, yes, beer. Beer will relieve this to where I can put this back and regress it until another day.

But onto the beer. After warming up some (while Jennie did lead on this and I worked on The Epic Painting), the white head is still lingering on the straw-like color. The aroma to me is citrus, melon, grass, and some earthy tones, all faint. The first sip is... I can already tell I'll be disappointing when this is gone. As she-who-has-a-dad-who-should-not-be-allowed-to-drive described, there's the caramel tone up front, but it's not heavy to me. It blends with some biscuity tones before leading into some melon (cantaloupe?), green tea and some citrus. Nice and balanced with some lingering citrus and tea flavors on the back end. Little bit of stickiness. Surprising it's only 6.75% ABV, feels heavier (or it could be the Flying Dog Citra that I was drinking while painting).

Interesting is the bottle, to add to the stigma of the Laughing Panda to leave it lasting in my mind.
"A panda enters a restaurant, sits down and orders a sandwich. After he finishes the sandwich, the panda pulls out a gun and shoots the waiter, and then stands up to go. "Hey!" shouts the manager. "Where are you going? You just shot my waiter and you didn’t pay for your sandwich!"

The panda yells back at the manager, "Hey man, I am a PANDA! Look it up!"

The manager looks up the definition for panda: "A free-dwelling mamal of Asian origin, characterized by distinct black and white coloring. Eats shoots and leaves." "

HA! Enjoy that my beer swigging friends, while we hunker down and review another one!

4.8/5 caps

-Nathan-