The Lost Abbey Lost & Found Abbey Ale

7.5% ABV from a bomber

In the 1960s, Stanford University psychologist Walter Mischel conducted a famous experiment. He gave a group of four-year-olds a single marshmallow, telling them they could have it to eat that very moment. However, were they to wait for just twenty minutes, he would then give each child two marshmallows. Tracking over the next fourteen years the one-third of children that chose to delay gratification and the two-thirds that chose to immediately consume the sole marshmallow, Mischel came to find that the group that deferred excelled over the other larger group in just about every facet. In fact, by the time they took the SATs, the one-third group had blown away their peers to the average tune of over 200 points better on the standardized test.

Statistics are damned statistics but I never loved this experiment. Perhaps that is because I would have, without question, immediately consumed the single marshmallow. Yet a lifetime of personal statistics show me to have scored in the 99th percentile on just about every standardized test I’ve ever taken. So what gives?

I think my paradoxical statistical outlier status in this scenario would come down to the fact that I’ve always felt it’s better to enjoy the guaranteed present over the hazy future. You know, a bird in the hand being better than two in the bush? Who knows what could have happened in those twenty minutes of delayed experimental gratification? I could have died. Mischel could have died and never brought back the second marshmallow. I could have become allergic to marshmallows. Or the marshmallow could have gone bad, if that’s even possible. You say those thoughts are silly and of course they are, but that’s cause the marshmallow experiment was just a meager microcosm. In the real world, those twenty minutes could be days…or more likely, years.

I’ve always thought about these things and always concluded that waiting for a better future is just silly. The present needs to be enjoyed at all costs lest you needlessly squander it. 401Ks? Savings? I’d rather have the money now to enjoy than maybe have it at 65 when there’s a decent statistical chance that I’ll be dead and overwhelming odds that I’ll be a bitter old Jew with a cock that barely works and a dank odor coming from body that I’m unable to extinguish.

The great Dostoevsky felt similarly. A success even in his day, the second he got his book money, he spent it, fueling his gambling compulsions with week-long binges. Giving him an immediate joy and a craziness of life that forced him to always hunger to be better, write more, and earn more money.  And it probably made him the legendary author still not read by AP English students today.

I’ve always realized that living in the present makes me happier. People more concerned about the future are people that are unhappy. People that are never able to enjoy life. To enjoy what they have this very second. Did Scarlett seem ebullient when she exclaimed, “Tomorrow is another day!”? Did Annie seem to be having fun when she said, “Tomorrow…you’re only a day away!”? No?  You know why? Because they were fucking miserable! Annie a little orphan and Scarlett alone at a worthless plantation with her beloved not giving a damn about her.  They would have been better off trying to improve their presents that wishing for a better future.

That is why I try to concern myself about a future I have no control over and instead focus on the day in front of me which I can control. So cellaring beers? Uh uh. If I got good shit, it’s time to enjoy it post-haste, surrounded by hopefully a collection of bonhomonious men and women.  Thus, when a friend was able to score a bottle of Lost & Found, I wanted to consume it as soon as possible, never having had a beer from the legendary Lost Abbey before. Delayed satisfaction is for the birds.

I’m not sure if this was the most signature one to start with, but it was still solid. I drank it the same night I drank a St. Bernardus Abt 12 bomber and it made for an interesting comparison.  Lost & Found has much more muted flavors.  I expect a dubbel to overwhelm me a little more than this.  Didn’t feel that complex either.  It has a slight chocolaty sweetness and the raisins shine through quite a bit but other than that it somewhat bored me.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s good and quite well-crafted, but my expectations were incredibly high and they simply weren’t met.  And drinking this 7.5% beer on the heels of St. Bernardus just made it seem overly weak, like I was throwing back Coors Light.

I’m still excited to try further Lost Abbeys though, but I won’t concern myself with that future.  I got better things to do now.

B+

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