Space-crafted ale
You might wonder, even given my tremendous enthusiasm for spaceflight, why I started this blog in particular. What makes a woman forage through archives, the internet, yard sales and the like, looking for space-themed things to share? What was that one thing that caught her eye and made her go, “hey, I should be blogging this!”
You’re looking at it. This bottle full of sweet-peas was hanging from the fence of a bed and breakfast in my hometown during the Fourth of July festival (along with other colorful bottles.) It being blue, it caught my eye; it having “Apollo” and a crescent moon on it made me want to sneak back and steal it under cover of darkness. (I didn’t. I bought my own on eBay.)
I was thrilled, because it encapsulated the exact sort of thing I was recently wanting to share and expand on; I bought the domain specifically to start this blog. It was a beer with an “artsy” name, but not Apollo the God or “hey, let’s do a space-age angle”; here was a company with a definite vision and purposeful motifs. Unfortunately for me/the world, the Big Bang Brewery (San Francisco, CA) no longer exists. Only vestiges of the company remain: a news article, the copywriter, the glassworks responsible for the lovely cobalt bottles, and images of their logos/cases. Bottlecap photo from here.
Along with the empty (and full!) bottles of Apollo Ale and Lager I purchased on eBay, I got a printed insert with promotional copy text:
Apollo — The Beer That Fell To Earth
Space has captivated great minds since the beginning of Time. A sense of its limitlessness and possibility has drawn mankind to the moon. And beyond. You will find this same spirit imbued, brewed in a bottle of Apollo Beer. You can almost taste the vast, starry reaches of space.
The best beers have always come from other worlds. In earlier centuries, the only way the British could ship beer to their compatriots in India was in oak barrels. It came all the way around the Cape, taking months to arrive, but when it finally did, it was not only drinkable — it tasted better than any in an English pub! Why? Some swore they could taste the toasty, nutty overtones of oak. Perhaps, it was simply that the beer had come from so far away, subtly improving in profound ways, day by day.
Why it’s taken so long for a beer this good to be made again is a mystery. Or is it? Perhaps all that was needed was another age of exploration. One that’s traveled to the moon and to the minutia of the atom could hardly miss the middle ground of a micro-brewed beer.
What’s it like to drink a glass of Apollo Beer? Some connoisseurs we know have likened the experience to walking on the moon. Indeed, it is a giant step.
September 2nd, 2008 at 12:25 pm
I don’t car a whit for brew, but those bottles are simply gorgeous! I’d love to have a peek at one of the bottlecaps.
“Next year [1997] he [Big Bang Brewery founder and president Jean Charles Boisset] hopes to introduce a line of cider called Sputnik. In a red bottle, of course.”
I’m supposing that event never transpired. But if it did, I’m betting you’ll have one of those bottles in your possession before the week is out!
September 2nd, 2008 at 12:32 pm
I’d love to have a peek at one of the bottlecaps.
I am remiss! I thought I put a pic in of the cap. Fixed now.
I’m supposing that event never transpired.
Not as far as I can tell. Sadly, I think the concept was too different, too expensive and too ambitious to catch on, and the company seems to have failed around then. :\ (And you’re right, I would LOVE a red Sputnik bottle.)
September 2nd, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Oh, oh! I collect cola caps, but I’d gladly make a brewskie exception in that case of that bottle topper. A search at eBay didn’t result in the bottlecap in question but it did result in this and this.
September 2nd, 2008 at 5:11 pm
…I thought I had a bottlecap as well but I’m not finding it. If I had one and threw it out by accident, I’m going to feel like a HEEL. :\