A snake on a trash wheel inspired one of Peabody Heights’ bestselling beers
The year was 2015. The garbage-gathering machine Mr. Trash Wheel, then just 1 year old, had turned up a 5-foot python after a storm. And every news outlet in Baltimore was on the story. “It was really our first viral moment,” recalled Adam Lindquist, vice president of the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore, which brought the trash interceptor and its later brethren to the city. Unlike the dead 14-foot python found this week on a trash wheel on the Gwynns Falls, this python was alive and searching for a home. Months later, the animal went on to inspire the name of a local beer created by Peabody Heights Brewery to benefit the Waterfront Partnership’s Healthy Harbor Initiative. Lindquist said he landed on the phrase “lost python” for the beverage’s name after rejecting some other ideas. “‘Get trashed’ was not appropriate,” he said. While some special edition beers are here one day, gone the next, Peabody’s Lost Python Ale has had surprising staying power. Around a decade later, it remains in the top four or five beers that Peabody Heights sells, said owner Eddie O’Keefe. And over that time, Lindquist estimates it’s raised around $75,000 for the Healthy Harbor Initiative. The beer is a session IPA, which means it has a lower alcohol content than a traditional India pale ale. But where many session IPAs taste watery, the Lost Python is well-balanced, citrusy and crisp, said Jed Jenny, who manages the beer department of The Wine Source in Hampden. Read More The beer even inspired the name of a band Lindquist formed with other staff members of the Waterfront Partnership: The Lost Pythons. Lindquist likes to say, “We’re the band named after the beer named after the python that got eaten by Mr. Trash Wheel.” They released their first music video last summer. Sample lyric: “He’s collected logs and tires, even snagged an old guitar, but a python snake really takes the cake for the strangest find by far.” It’s been 11 years since one of the city’s trash wheels last turned up a python, Lindquist said. But it’s actually not that uncommon for snakes to escape their enclosures. The animals, he said, are “Houdinis.” In 2015, after he appeared on the news to talk about the python that had been found in the Inner Harbor, he said, “I had people emailing and calling me saying that they had lost their snake.” He asked them to send pictures. Each python has a unique spot pattern. “None of them matched,” he said. He concluded: “There are actually quite a few lost pythons out there in Baltimore City, which is a little concerning.” While that python was later adopted, the massive snake found this week doesn’t seem likely to reach the infamy of its predecessor. After all, it was deceased. “We’ve been kind of sad in the office about it all week,” Lindquist said.