What a year! The year started with some concerns about an invisible virus detected somewhere in the faraway China. Not too much to worry, we are still protected by institutions that watch over our safety 24/7. We returned from Alta, UT from a place where we once promised that, in case the end of the world will be announced, we will wait for. Well, disappointingly, we broke our promise. We came back to New Jersey with an injured shoulder but with sweet, fresh memories. While the entire word was spinning in a whirlpool of unknown and uncertainty, we were flying back home, over the magnificent country. Coming back from Wasatch Mountains of the Great State of Utah to Newark might sound redundant. But amidst the noise and craziness of the northeastern country, Fort Lee remains our home, sweet home, even though not the only home. And because of the peacefulness and coziness of our home, New Jersey is one of the most beautiful places on earth. It doesn’t have the greatest snow on earth, but it has our beautiful home.
The pandemic hits like a bullet, the world shuts down, the powerful institutions are useless. We are coming down with illness and we suffer with the desperation of abandonment. Life takes unexpected turns. We learn more from sufferance and disappointments.
But it’s the summer of 2020, swinging in our chairs on a porch of a beautiful cabin, ashore of a beautiful lake. We enjoy the breeze of evening, waiting for the night of the loon. Sweet, beautiful rest after hiking the amazing land in a merciless heat. The cabin, watching the solitaire pond, is one of the greatest palaces we ever seen. We are somewhere in the woods of Maine, a magical land of interminable forests and exceptional coasts. Even the snakes are friendly in this country.
The unusual lockdowns, quarantines and public safety measures of the pandemic times, turned the service of the AMC cabin into the most luxurious stay one can ever have. Coffee is brought on the porch, right when the beasts of the night go to sleep and the first touch of the sunshine touches the mirror of the lake. Breakfast is served a little later with a genuine smile. Dinner means a lazy wait on the porch, the wind touching us carefully. It’s the peaceful wait for the call of the loon.
We decide to choose from the menu a local beer. Tonight, it’s time for something that sounds very unusual. It’s called Peak Blueberry Ale, and we choose it just for its uncommonness. But in the night’s silence, falling silently over the land, we taste its savour, its hidden bitterness and sweetness, the touch of refreshing sourness. It’s like it was born from the beauty of the surroundings. One of the most beautiful encounters for taste buds, the localness and the uniqueness of a land that has no equal.
That is when we discovered Peak, a various assortment of the finest ales and pilsners from the entire world. Born, probably from the clash of the white waters of the Atlantic Ocean hugging the rigged, but lovely shore of North America, any Peak Beer is an adventure. Try its seasonal varieties, dance with the beautiful sweet sourness of the fruity ales and become philosophical with the Dry Hoped Pilsner. The guys in Portland revealed it all, by some magical means.
Out on the porch, in the most luxurious settlement in the entire world, we’re waiting for the ultimate concert, the most exclusive and exquisite show ever experienced, one for which there are never tickets for sale, no managers to set the price, no media to set the stakes – the incredibly beautiful wail of the loon.
In Maine, where even the snakes are friendly and the ocean gave birth to the golden ale.
The loon, the queen of the land, the night of the most beautiful music on earth…
words-of-mine 