Kirkland Signature — a name that conjures bulk toilet paper and thirty-pound bags of trail mix — also makes beer. Or rather, they commission beer. And not just any beer. These cans of budgeted bliss are contract brewed by Deschutes Brewery, which, as far as breweries go, is like finding out the gas station hot dog you just ate was actually made by Thomas Keller.
Their Helles — that’s “light” in German, though in beer it just means “not IPA” — is clear, golden, and practically screams, “Drink me while wearing cargo shorts.” At 4.5% ABV, it’s light enough to keep you from falling face-first into your lawn after three, yet satisfying enough to make you think, “Huh. Maybe Costco does know what they’re doing.”
It’s crisp, bready, ever-so-slightly bitter, and—perhaps most importantly—cheap. $14.60 for a twelve-pack (that’s 276 pesos if you’re playing the home game in Mexico). It even won a gold medal at the 2023 GABF, which makes it, technically, an award-winning beer you can pair with discount socks and an eight-pack of canned tuna.
Meanwhile, back in my kitchen, things were less award-winning and more—how shall I put it—frontier survival. I’d just finished mashing in a batch of my Black Butte Porter clone when the power cut out. Mid-sparge. That’s like getting halfway through brushing your teeth and realizing the water’s been shut off. With no pump to move water from the hot liquor I had to resort to the tried and true technique of scoop, pour and repeat. Like a one-man bucket brigade at a slow moving fire.
Wort collected, I faced another problem: boiling. Not the act, which is simple enough, but the timing. I couldn’t risk starting the boil without knowing I’d be able to chill it down and transfer to the fermenter. Because nothing says “tragedy” like a kettle of lovingly hopped wort gone tepid and sour in the dark.
So I waited. Sanitizing obsessively and checking the lights every ten minutes like a raccoon hoping for leftover pizza. Four hours later, the power blinked back on, and I fired up the burner like I was reviving Frankenstein.
In the end, the beer made it safely to the fermenter and seems, at this point, to be fermenting peacefully—unaware of the domestic drama that brought it into the world. This little mishap did get me wondering whether I should rebuild my old gravity-fed brew setup from California. A solid Plan B, sure, though still powerless against the whole "needing to chill the wort" issue unless I also invest in a hand-cranked glycol chiller powered by anxiety.
Anyway, I’ll keep you posted on how the porter turns out. If nothing else, it’ll pair beautifully with a bulk package of relief and a Kirkland hot dog.
Cheers.
