Duke Cannon Supply Co. – Big Ass Beer Soap – Fresh Squeezed IPA

“Hopsie Pike”

I like this soap, because it cracks me up—their image and marketing—but also just because sometimes I like a hefty, rectangular, bar of brown soap that doesn’t smell like too much but smells like something. The fragrance is so subtle, I couldn’t say what it is, but it’s pleasant. The box claims: “Fresh citrus and neroli with base notes of sandalwood and oakmoss.” I guess I can buy that. The color is more precisely “beige”—a fairly light shade of beige—a color that really appeals to me, for some reason. (The same color in pants is just so-so, but as soap it evokes something—not sure what it is.) My favorite part of this soap, though, is trying to make sense out of what their image is trying to achieve—judging by the soap itself, and also, the box, in bold red and white, with light blue highlights. They went the extra mile to render the made with: “Fresh Squeezed IPA” in metallic gold—so they must mean it. But what does it mean? They squeezed the beer like you’d squeeze a lemon, and added it to the soap vat? I guess you’ve got to be up on your beer lingo—a world which has sadly passed me by. The beer is allegedly from the Deschutes Brewery, which is a relatively old microbrewery in Bend, Oregon. The soap is then “crafted in Memphis”—and it’s distributed out of Minneapolis—so that covers a lot of hipster ground, I guess. The box also contains an odd bit of prose, too long to include here, that espouses cold showers, drinking beer, and long workdays—while oddly criticizing anyone working parttime, for their uncle, or at automobile dealerships—which includes most of us. To which I say, that’s some sassy talk coming from someone who composes dumb shit writing on soap boxes for a living.

Soap Review No. 155