Book-Beer Pair #9: WHITE FIRE and 90 Schilling Ale
June 7th, 2014
WHITE FIRE, by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, brings back eccentric FBI Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast with his protégé, John Jay Criminal Justice student, Corrie Swanson. Corrie heads out to Roaring Fork, Colorado – a fictitious town of the Roaring Fork Valley on Colorado’s Western slope – to research her thesis involving eleven miners killed by a man-eating bear in 1876. The action “heats up” as a serial arsonist/killer strikes and Corrie is threatened by what she discovers buried in this old silver mining town. Local legend has it that the man-eating bear story scared the bejesus out of Arthur Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde…but is that because there’s much more to it?
Pendergast, a man that wears an impeccable suit and silk scarf all of the time, is not a beer guy so we had to seek an alternative. Corrie shares a Maroon Bells Stout (a fictitious brew, probably referring to Aspen Brewing Company) with the local librarian, Ted. We, however, do not deal with fictitious beer here. The tasty 90 Schilling Ale by Odell Brewing Company, Fort Collins, Colorado defeated both Double Conundrum Imperial Red by Aspen Brewing Co, and Avalanche Ale by Breckenridge Brewery. Despite Avalanche having a nice plot link (whoops), I recommend 90 Schilling much more highly. Enjoy…
