The September issue of Portfolio magazine (the same folks behind the website Lew Bryson writes an every-other week column for) has a very disturbing photo.

Please do not show it to a beer geek friend until you make sure that a) he or she is on the first floor of the building and b) no sharp objects are at hand.

The photo that decorates the article and some of the words (by Ken Wells) are available online (photo to the right), but you have to see it full size on paper to experience the pain.

So use your imagination. Heaven forbid this were a video at YouTube. Or an episode of Wine Library with that crazy guy Gary Vaynerchuk opening a bottle of Russian River Salvation.

The cork pops.

He knocks over the bottle.

And you’re diving toward your computer screen, right? You can hear your voice in slow motion — deeper than it’s ever been, anguish distorting it — o-o-o-h-h-h   n-o-o-O-O-O.

As you can see, the photo is a little funky otherwise. You’ve got two San Diego beers in the background, Lost Abbey Cuvee de Tomme in the bottle and Stone Old Guardian in the glass, just kind of hanging out and looking and at what’s going on with a certain John from Cincinnati distain.

Little wonder.

It appears that beer (120 Minute IPA according to the caption) is being poured from parts unknown in to the Dogfish Fish Craft Brewery snifter, but what is going on above the bottle (a mini mash tun if you’ve never seen how this rarity is sold) of Samuel Adams Utopias?

Is the beer being poured in to or erupting (ala a volcano) from the bottle?

I can’t focus on that. I’m doing the math in my head, thinking about the length of the average Russian River bottling run (short) and trying to figure out what percentage of Salvation has being lost.

It’s a more than Cuvee de Tomme (480 bottles), quite a bit less than Bud Light.

Whatever the numbers, a single bottle of a small-batch beer . . . that’s too much to pour out for a photo shoot.

Posted: August 25th, 2007 under Drinking notes.