Defy Summer With 4 Hands Brewing S Contact High

• A six-pack of Contact High looks like a power-up in a video game about drinking beer.

Saint Louis brewery 4 Hands (not to be confused with Tired Hands, which is based in Pennsylvania) has been distributing in Chicago for months now. Unless you leave the autopilot on when you do your beer shopping, you’ve seen their stuff—including Cast Iron Oatmeal Brown, Divided Sky Rye IPA, Reprise Centennial Red, and Smoked Pigasus porter. But I hadn’t spotted any 4 Hands cans till a couple weeks ago, when I noticed a gold-and-orange six-pack of Contact High at Andersonville Wine & Spirits.

Fortunately, I like Creamsicles better than Twizzlers, especially when it’s hot out. And Contact High smells like other things too—sugar cookie, a bit of caramel, and a ball of rising bread dough that’s been hanging out in a big glass bowl under a dish towel. I get something faintly grassy in the tail end of the aroma, like sweet green hay or blossoming clover.

Philip Montoro writes about beer and metal, singly or in combination, every Monday.