As a parent, you come across instances when your kid demonstrates he’s smarter than you.  This past summer was my youngest’s turn.

This is my review of Tombstone Brewing Hop Wrangler Triple Hopped Amber Ale:

It began shortly after the little league season ended and we all were briefly delighted in the unseasonably cool May and June, but all knew July was staring over our shoulders like the Undertaker meme.  Which meant our kids would have to figure out what to do with their day since going outside wasn’t going to be pleasant.

Enter the classic Rubik’s Cube.

Originally called, The Magic Cube, the classic puzzle of a cube consisting of nine individual squares to be matched up by color on each face has confused the hell out of nearly everyone that’s tried to solve it.  Including the inventor:

Sitting on the patio of his home in the hills of Budapest, Rubik, now 76, fiddled with a cube as he recalled its “discovery” and accidental success. (He prefers to use “discovered,” rather than “invented” — as if the existence of the object was somehow pre-ordained).

After creating the cube, he explained, he was faced with a second challenge: how to solve it. At the time, he had no idea if his cube could even be put back into place, let alone how fast — and it took him a full month to solve his own puzzle. It was fiendishly difficult “to find your way back, or to find your target — just to solve it as a combinatorical problem,” he said. “And I was without any background for that, because I was the first who tried.”

This is the perfect time suck device for a work from home parent and children around the house inevitably complaining they are bored.  Screw you, kid do you like eating?  Let me work damnit.

In his left hand is the Illuminati membership prism hidden inside the cube when you solve it.

This worked beautifully until he decided to ask me for help on the cube.  Fun fact:  I can’t solve these things.  Another fun fact:  there are thousands of places online that can teach you how to solve the Rubik’s Cube, assuming you have the disposition to learn the “algorithms” needed to solve it.  So he did.

Now he’s trying to do it for time. Requesting absurdities called a, “speed cube” that has magnets internally that allow the Cuber to simply flick the side and not have to worry about overturning, thus improving speed to solve.  He’s looking up locations for Speed Cuber conventions to see if his <:45 solve time is at all competitive.  Yes, they call themselves, “Cubers”.

Need an indicator of the level of autism endemic in this community?  For giggles I looked up “steel Rubik’s Cube” because why not?  Turns out there are indeed people that will machine these out, but it still hasn’t occurred to them to try selling one.

 

For the life of me I can’t recall if I reviewed this one, but I was able to find it again so I can actually give you a decent review.  If you like amber ales, reminiscing of a time when craft beer was supposed to about a more flavorful drink of higher quality, that suggested a sense of open mindedness in that you weren’t just going to have what everyone else is.  If this is supposed to be a reminder of age before every craft brewer on Earth decided to make most bitter IPA to the point there was a genuine worldwide shortage of hops—this is not for you.  This is what happens when brewers play god.  Hey let’s take something normal and good, and then troll everyone by throwing in the one ingredient that has more of a Marmite Effect, than actual Marmite.  I’m glad they did because this is actually really good.  If your beef with amber ale is that its boring and malty, you won’t have this problem.  Its fragrant, balanced, and perfect for backyard bbq.  Its a combination that doesn’t seem that difficult to solve but for some reason must leave so many confused because you don’t see it often. Tombstone Brewing Hop Wrangler Triple Hopped Amber Ale:  3.9/5