The beergeeks are in town for their annual convention. Last night some of them gathered with their king, Michael Jackson (not that one—sorry, Mr. Schmader) at Union. I scored a copy of Mr. Jackson’s weirdly fascinating book Great Beers of Belgium (5th ed., if you please; in it, he describes beer with phrases like “dense malt grist” and “hard-muscled body, slimmed by sugar”), and I got to try a Golden Shower. It’s a beer, people. One speaker (the brewer, perhaps? It’s all a bit of a blur) described it as “very provocatively named and conceptually very provocative as well.” Rumor among the beergeeks was that the name Dogfish Head Brewing initially came up with for this classic pilsner got shot down by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, raising the question of the evening: What could be a dirtier name for a beer than Golden Shower? Union chef Ethan Stowell was kind enough to do my investigative work whilst I slipped into a food/beer stupor; the anticlimactic answer—Prescription Pils. At one point, the A.T.F. also wouldn’t allow a Flemish beer to be sold under the name Delirium Tremens in our great nation. I reckon they don’t know what a golden shower is. Burn on them.

The Golden Shower itself is indeed golden and very enjoyable.