Beer and Death
Exploring the he outer limits of life and lager. WRITTEN and ILLUSTRATED by PETER MOORE
I’VE BEEN BUSY ON THE FREELANCE FRONT RECENTLY. And because I write for a lot of publications, I explore a lot of different topics.
The bad news first: I’m going to die.
Not anytime soon, I hope, but still, it always helps to have a plan, as I told the readers of BACKPACKER.COM last week.
Scatter My Ashes in the Rocky Mountains
It's the ultimate Leave No Trace dilemma for a backpacker: What will become of your mortal remains, once you reach trail’s end?
SEPTEMBER 14, 2023 PETER MOORE
We were on a family hike in Rocky Mountain National Park: me, my wife, our son Jake and his partner Lisa, and our younger son Tyler. It was a bluebird day, and we headed up the Colorado River Trail on the west side of the park. It threaded through a tranquil valley shaded by pine and aspen, but flowering meadows provided sunny breaks. Best of all, I was surrounded by my beloveds. That’s when I suddenly started thinking about death. Particularly, my own.
When my dad died, I found a beautiful final resting place for him in the Conway, New Hampsire cemetery, with Mt. Chocorua looming above. My dad was my original hike leader, and instilled in me a profound love of the mountains. It was an appropriate spot for his final rest stop.
That wasn’t the original plan. My brothers and I had wanted to scatter his ashes on Mt. Washington, but my mom preferred a more traditional final resting place. Now her ashes are interred beside his in Chocorua’s shadow.
As these things go, I’m next in line, and I have an idea in mind for my final hike, and rest stop.
I’m not a morbid person, but sometimes death forces the issue. A few months after the Colorado River hike, I was standing in a circle of relatives, all ages, after the funeral service for my mother-in-law. We were discussing our emotions and the degree to which we have access to them.
A few minutes earlier, I had been wiping away the tears that spontaneously spouted as I watched Jake and Lisa lay hands on the burial urn that carried the remains of his grandmother.
Until that moment in the service, I was able to focus on my mother-in-law’s long life (98 years and change) and many accomplishments, but when these beautiful young people stepped to the front of the church, it brought to my mind a queuing metaphor of mortality: We’re all waiting along a trail that snakes back from the graveside, like doomed climbers on Everest, roped together and shuffling to our final destination.
As life advances, so does your place on the rope line. And as you watch older generations stumble onto that ultimate summit, you anticipate the time when you’ll make your last boot print on the way to oblivion.
Now that my mother-in-law is gone, there’s one less person blocking my view of the inevitable. I thought ahead to the day my son and his partner will take my place in that pew, and I’ll be in the urn, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
That’s when I started crying.
My personal rainstorm hadn’t yet passed by the time we reached the funeral reception. I tearily commented that there had been a 40-year period—including my own father’s death—when I hadn’t cried at all. My niece asked me how I’d found the ability to cry again. I could tell her the exact moment: On the summit of Mt. Ida, on the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park.
The rest of it is here. Pull out a box of tissues while you’re at it.
At the same time I was sniffling through that assignment, my editor at THE COLORADO SUN asked me to track the progress of the Great American Beer Fest, which was about to foam over in the Colorado Convention Center.
So I guess I was crying in my beer at that point.
At the country’s largest suds fest in Denver, beer goggles make everything new again
Can there possibly be anything innovative in the 5,000-year-old craft of brewing? Don’t worry, be hoppy at the Great American Beer Festival.
If the Dylan Mulroney/Bud Light fiasco has taught us anything, it’s that there’s a lot of foolishness bubbling up the world of beer. Apropos of that, a recent article on HopCulture.com identified a few of the suds trends that are foaming over the rim right now. And they’ll all be on tap at the Great American Beer Festival, Sept 21-23 in Denver.
I don’t even like beer that much, so am an objective commentator who can clarify the hazy IPAs in advance of GABF. Just remember: Friends don’t let friends pee in the bushes outside the Colorado Convention Center.
Here’s what to watch out for at the suds fest this weekend:
The more beers change, the more beers stay the same.
Speaking of Dylan Mulroney…
Care for another beer? Click here! Hic!
Appreciate the perspective of wanting to connect with nature as a final destination. I've no idea where I would want to be in the end.
The article about ashes (scattering of them, that is) is quite moving, Peter.