Sixpoint Global Warmer So Controversial It Could Be Censored

This week’s Beer in the Headlights is a highly sensitive brew fit for an equally thin-skinned leader. If, in fact, you get to read this review before it is memory-hole’d from the Village Voice website, you should know that the new Global Warmer by Sixpoint Brewing is a decently reviewed red ale. It’s not going to knock your socks off or anything. But that’s not the point. The point is that you have the right to drink and taste it for yourself. And certain rogue forces want to make sure that never happens.

Sometimes a beer is just a beer, you see. Other times a specific blend of barley, hops, yeast, and water forms a message far greater than its constituent parts. So it is with 2014’s Global Warmer — an annual release from Red Hook’s favorite microbrewery — dedicated to calling attention to the incontrovertible, inconvenient truth known as climate change. “There’s no denying it,” Sixpoint asserts in its slogan.

This controversial can carries within it a toffee-laced tandem of toasted malts and brightened hops, to form a seasonally appropriate, slightly bitter beverage. Packing a respectable ABV of 7 percent, it certainly isn’t offensive enough to warrant censorship. But consider the beer’s stylistic classification: Imperial Red. Uh-oh.

Any American product evoking the all-knowing, unstoppable force that is Kim Jong Un must be purged, no matter the cost. And after this week, we know too well that Pyongyang has the power to make that happen. There’s nary a need for me to propose a toast to lil’ Kim. He has already hacked into the craft community, orchestrating a massive bottle trade. The details remain sketchy, but apparently he has expatriated every last pallet of the 2014 Global Warmer to North Korea. In exchange, the American people are allowed to see any Jong Un-approved film of their liking throughout the holiday season. So add that to the Supreme Family’s proud list of accomplishments, right up there with inventing the hamburger, landing a man on the sun, and crippling free speech in Hollywood.

If you’re brave enough to seek out a taste of Global Warmer before it’s permanently scrubbed from our collective databanks (at the end of January), look for canned six-packs at your local bodega. There have also been reported underground sightings on draft at bars throughout the five boroughs. Drink at your own risk.