KY: The Land of Castles & Coincidence

No matter how many times it happens to me, I can never quite get used to the idea that, in the state of Kentucky, everyone you ever meet and every experience you ever have will always (always always) find a way to resurface. In KY land everyone is connected to everyone and everything else by shockingly few degrees of association, like the Kevin Bacon game but with fewer levels of separation (like, usually 3 or 4 rather than 7). It's the place where, upon meeting a new person, the all-important question of where you went to high school will come up, and from there it's pretty easy to figure out how much you already really know that person (like you probably already know several of their friends, their 10th grade algebra teacher, their dentist, their mom and you frequent the same dive bar). Not that it's Mayberry, necessarily, but it has that same brand of everybody-knows-everybody-else-via-vicarious-relations kind of air--but it can be spookier than that sometimes:

Like the thing that set me off writing about this in the first place: I was browsing a recent Around the States in 90 Days post regarding an anonymous reader who had suggested he check out "the highway in Lexington through Kentucky." This unknown person mentions the scenic beauty of the area (I assume they are talking about the Bert T. Combs Mountain Parkway that begins near Lexington on I-64; because seriously? I-64 is pretty heinous), but they also say this:

"There is also a castle there I saw in the night that looked like something I would want to check out"

!! A castle? Near Lexington?? That is visible from the highway??? Say what, Willis???? Seriously, that sounds like something I would want to check out, anonymous poster!

So a quick Googling found the culprit (see above picture), and wow, there it is: an actual castle just off the mainline into Lexington. Crazy. But what really freaked me out was that the first website that I happened to find that mentions the mysterious castle in question, a Blogspot called Unusual Kentucky, is authored by JSH, a long-ago cohort of mine from Louisville! We rented studio space from the same 100-year-old woman who lived (and perhaps still lives) behind a former meat-packing plant (turned art space) near downtown (which is a whole 'nother wacky story in itself). So yet another crazy KY associate I never thought to hear about/from again pops up when least expected, a coincidence that connects us (in one level of separation, Bacon fans!) to a mysterious and hitherto-unknown Lexington Land castle. You could argue the internet does this for everyone now, sure, but would it have been related to ghostly former art cohort relationships and mysterious nighttime highway castles in the middle of thoroughbred country? Probably not.

Skunky Local Beer Available at Schreck's

Readers, I had high hopes for this stuff when I first spied it in the beer case at Schreck's. I liked the idea of a good local-ish beer (it's brewed in Lexington--should've probably been a warning sign, I guess), and I've been aware of it for a while but never tried it. Kentucky Ale seems like just the product to bring back a little regional pride to the local beer consuming public, and afterall: Ky bourbon is the best whiskey in the world, we should have no trouble creating a tasty beer, right? So I sold myself completely on the idea of this stuff, but how does Ky Ale actually taste? Boy howdy, is it nasty! The box gives information that, again, should have been a warning klaxon:

"Our Master Brewers describe Kentucky Ale as a marriage between two classic beer styles, Irish Red Ale and English Pale Ale."

Uh-oh, both of those things in one beer, Lexington? In my experience I've come to realize that it's usually better to just enjoy one thing at a time--unholy mash-ups, for all their promises of bringing you "the best of both worlds," are inevitably just vehicles of disappointment. No exception here with Kentucky Ale--it has a skunky, metallic, been-sitting-out-awhile taste right out of the bottle. I'm not happy to report that, as I was really rooting for this stuff to be good--afterall, KY Ale is the official beer of the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games, which will be held in Lexington this year. Sadly, I cannot lend my support to this product. As a snooty Louisvillian, I will chalk this disappointing brew up to the ineptly lame brewing endeavors of Lexingtonians, and ask myself, in perpetuity: "what did I expect? Something good out of Lexington?" Pshaw!