Much Ado About Nothing and Aslin's Much Ado

May 1

May 1 Much Ado About Nothing and Aslin's Much Ado

The Beer

Much Ado is a helles from a local(ish) brewery, Aslin Beer Company. I’ve stopped by their secondary brewery in Herndon, VA to pick up some beer fresh from the canning line, but I hadn’t yet made the trek to Alexandria to visit their primary brewery, also the site of their original taproom and new beer garden - not until I started drafting this post and decided that I should finally go.

They’ve set up a nice beer garden in the parking lot next to their brewery, which is in an industrial park, so there’s plenty of space. There are tents with picnic tables and rugs, barrels to use as standing tables, cornhole, and masked, speedy service. They have just two beers on tap from a little kegerator beer bar in the warehouse (when we visited, Anthemic (pilsner) and Power Moves (hazy IPA)), but they’ll also grab you a can of anything you like from the towers of cans that stretch from behind that little two-tap bar to the end of the vast warehouse.

This shot doesn’t do much justice to the beer garden, but it does show you Aslin’s specialty: super hazy beer.

Alas, there were no cans of Much Ado among those towers of cans, so we had to make a brief visit the taproom up front, where they were serving Much Ado on draft. (Among the joys of being vaccinated: being able to grab a quick drink inside!)

Months ago, my boyfriend brought me a can of Much Ado, since it’s perfect for this blog. However, the difficulties of teaching during a pandemic, and the anxiety of returning to school in-person last November, meant that I ignored this blog for the winter - and with it, that can of Much Ado in my fridge. By the time I cracked that can a few weeks ago, its contents had seen better days.

So I’m glad I got to taste Aslin’s Much Ado straight from the source, on draft. As you can see, it’s a lovely straw gold, with a light head that dissipated a little more quickly than I’d have liked it to. I wonder if I tasted the tiniest whiff of corn (DMS?), but mostly you get pale malt, front and center, along with a mild bitterness and clean yeast, all backed up by medium carbonation. Perfect for summer: eminently quaffable.

The Play

Check out this explanation from my “About the Title” page to see why Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing suits this blog so well. (And for more on the million puns in that title and play, also check out Megan Garber’s 2016 incredible Atlantic article “Such Ado: The Fight for Shakespeare’s Puns.”)

A Helles is the right idea for this play. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a live version of it, but it’s one of my favorites. (Bummer: we were scheduled to take the entire sophomore class to see a performance last April at the American Shakespeare Company (a version in which a woman plays Benedick, so cool!). Alas, COVID shut the play down. I hope they revive it post-pandemic, since this version of Much Ado sounded very fun.)

Any version of Much Ado About Nothing should be very fun. Even the deception by the wicked Don John that creates the central conflict of the play can’t keep this one down. (Don John is one of those deliciously evil villains, so debased that he’s fun to watch, unlike Iago, who genuinely creeps me out.) Hero and Claudio’s naive love has wings, as does its counterpoint: Benedick and Beatrice’s biting wit, which soars even higher. Both relationships are bright and bubbly, as a Helles should be, bolstered by the solid backbone of Shakespeare’s puns and verse, as malt supports a Helles.

Cheers to Much Ado, Much Ado, and Much Abrew. Or as Shakespeare might toast, as he writes in A Winter’s Tale: “[A] quart of ale is a dish for a king.”