SHARKS?! DOUBLE?! What a great way to start!

Okay dudes, guess I'll hit up the review craze. It just so happens the ole 'rents took a voyage out to the land of gold, surf, fiery earthquakes, and the Running Man/Commando to visit my bro, Ben.

They came back with the most thoughtful gift a Jeff-Knowin'-Man could: BREWS with words like "double," numbers like "15," and packaging like "gold foil."

First on the tasting adventure is Port Brewing's Shark Attack Double Red. Dang, that bro of mine sure knows me well... Sharks and double all on one bottle! How could it go wrong? Well it obviously can't. Nuh uh, no way, no how.

I poor it in an uncharacteristically flaccid manner, resulting in a lack of head. Anyway, the color is a mixture of fertility, blood, and violence while the smell maintains the malty scent of an Oktoberfest-themed harbor and boarder shorts soaked in maltsmaltsmalts. I take a sip and, wham-o ding dong boom, flavor happens: fertility, blood, and violence. NO, just kidding. Sweet, sweeter, sweet, some malt flavor (just barely), then hop bitter. Good balance, Kerri Strug type of balance, between the upfront sweetness and malts with the bitter aftertaste. Boy oh boy does that alcohol come through in the lingering, tingling sensation in the back of my mouth, but dang I really don't mind; it's an 9%'r after all!

Overall a sharky and totally gnarly brew. I give it an 8 out of 10. I wish the red grain flavor was more prevalent, but this beer is just ATTACKED by the hops, double-ness, and obviously the aquatic man-eating mammals it aptly represents.

Stay tuned for the Hop-15, coming in May!

(P.S. I challenge you, community, to a best background-for-the-beers-you're-drinking/reviewing contest. I wish my good camera was up and running to better exhibit evil Conquistador of Mexico, Hernan Cortez, and the representative schooner of exploration.)

Patience and deliciousness

Many moons ago - or maybe it was one, I'm not sure - I decided that a return to slightly cooler than normal weather had warranted the purchase of a return to cold weather beers. On the advice of a former roommate, I went with Samuel Smith's Oatmeal Stout, which I would only later learn was also the first beer of Mr. Jeff.

Sadly, I wound up feeling quite ill that day, so this brew was forced to sit and wait for another cold day to come. Rochester being the trusty city that she is, that day finally came last night, and I took full advantage.

I'm going to be blunt about one thing: this is a sexy, sexy drink. Deep, deep brown like the eyes of the girl I keep having strange dreams about, with a head like...well, that's none of your business.

The aroma was very similar to...chocolate milk? I don't know how that works, but I couldn't stop thinking about that tasty dairy drink as I sniffed this beer. But enough about that, let's talk about taste.

This stout, simply put, is yummy. Its body hinges just below the thickness I had expected, but calling this medium-bodied would be wrong. There was also a little more carbonation than I'd anticipated, but not so much that it detracted from the taste. Cold, this tasted a little like it smelled - like a big, frothy glass of skim chocolate milk. But as it warmed up, the sweetness started to come through and provide that warmth I was hoping for. This is one of the first times that I actually took the time to sip more than guzzle, and the bottle ended up lasting a little over 45 minutes. Down to the last ounces, there was still a pretty solid one finger head, which came as a welcome surprise.

And since this is available (somewhat) cheaply at Hegedorns, I have a feeling this isn't the last time we'll cross paths. And yes, I know this wasn't meant to be served in a Weizen glass...but come on, it just looks so hot!

Carrots! In beer!?

I eat 2 whole carrots every day. This is a true story. They are sweet and have a nice refreshing flavor with a touch of bitterness in the skin to balance it out. Do you see the parallels here!?

So, I pose this question to you... Carrots in beer: A good idea or a stupid idea for no-brain billybumblers?

Great Summer Beer #1

Sierra Nevada Summerfest 2008!

Tastes like a nice lager with extra hop kick-a-roo! Refreshing, light, and easy drinking. Please, enjoy while grilling and/or hanging out in the sunshine.

More malt!

Beer creators and appreciators, I need some quick advice:
For the sake of my continuing education, could everyone please post a comment recommending a very malty brew? I feel inadequately equipped to convey my observations of a beer's taste due to my lack of knowing what exactly the malt taste is, so I suppose a malt-dominated beer would help figure it out.

Same request goes for alcohol - I'm pretty sure I can separate that from other tastes, but if anyone knows of a beer where that stands far away from the other flavors, I'd like to give it a try. I'm sure this will probably mean trying a really bad tasting beer, but if it helps me learn, it's worth it! Thanks!

West Coast Storm King?

Alesmith Decadence Imperial Porter, 26 April 08

Beautiful beer! Midnight black but not cloudy. Blood-ruby when held directly in front of sun and used as a prism. Tan head with larger bubbles than I’m used to seeing (what causes that?) This beer would be somewhat flat if not for an intentional hard pour near the end. Huge amount of sugar retention on the side of the glass might portend excessive sweetness… I hope not.

Huge chocolate coffee smell, almost like that coke/coffee drink that failed miserably.

First sip smacks you in the face with a giant hop hammer. I’m bleeding hops through my eyes ears and throat! Hopdeath!

Second flavor is the coffee, chocolate malty sweetness. Not excessive, and definitely controlled. I’m glad humanity has figured out that burning things make them taste better.

Third flavor is a biting acidity in the back of the throat. JUST like the ONLY flavor present in a young storm king.

Finally, you can feel the 10% abv warming all the way down your esophagus. Glory. Some beers are overpowered by their own abv and difficult to drink (for me at least), this one does a great job of maintaining the distinctive beerbooze flavor but balances it with enough other tastes to make it invigorating rather than painful. The overall effect of the harsh finish is to beg the lucky drinker for another sip, cleaning the lovehate away with another blast of hops and sweet coffee/coca-cola.

This beer is an improved storm king, and definitely not a lighter Speedway Stout as some have claimed. Relative to Storm King, there is a slight better use of hops, a larger ABV, and a much more complex malt character including a dominant coffee/chocolate flavor reminiscent of Speedway Stout. I highly recommend it if you can manage to find a bottle…

Be well,

Ben
P.S. I sent a bottle of this to Jeff. Also, in case you were wondering, this beer is billed as an Imperial Porter.

I'd pay 63 cents for another one of these

As I understand it, Sam Patch was a simple man. A man who wanted only one thing, and that was for his neighbors to stay out of his river. So in 1829, he raised a portion of the Genesee River and created the least creatively aquatic attraction in New York: the High Falls.

A week later, he died.

But the falls, they just kept on rushing. So the Flat Line of Moving Water Brewing Company, which had been founded 10 years earlier, changed their name to the High Falls Brewing Company. (The name change actually took 171 years; they operated as the Genesee Brewing Company in the meantime as a tax dodge).

And just recently, they took a break from their regularly scheduled brewing to whip up Genesee Bock, and were even so kind as to tuck it away in one of the coolest cans I've ever seen. But how does it taste? Well, I'm happy to report that it tastes respectable. Not exactly an award winner, but it's not as bland as one would expect for a $6.49/12 kind of brew. In fact, leaving aside the slight metallic taste (which could possibly be mental), this beer isn't half bad. Maybe I'm just biased because of the locale, but I would probably drink this over a Labatt or Molson any day.

At the price point, this is actually a pretty good deal, and with the economy being broken or something like that, I may just be drinking more of this. And if I do, I'll be sure to take a picture of the actual beer next time.

Never...

...have I dumped a beer without even sipping it. Until tonight.

After a spectacularly bad day (during which, among other things, I lost more money than I'd spend in a year on beer), I thought I'd try the beer in my fridge. What beer? Why, the Stone Pale Ale that I bought like a fool from Beers of the World. You know, the one that I bought two weeks ago that said "best if enjoyed by 7/27/07" on it, and has probably been sitting in its top shelf, light-filled spot for months before that.

Well, I took the trusty bottle opener to it, pried off the cap, and the first thing that I noticed was severe discoloration of the inside of the cap. Odd, but whatever...that's probably not relevant. So I poured the beer, which came out looking incredibly cloudy. Far cloudier than a Pale Ale should. Maybe that's just the nature of that brew, I don't know.

But what finally did it for me was the smell. This beer, friends, smelled like feet. I don't mean "oh, it smelled a little funny". I'm talking very literal odor of feet. So, being the retarded OCD food safety germophobe that I am, I just dumped it in the sink.

Lesson learned: although the majority of beers don't bother with an expiration/freshness date, always check anyway. Even though this one was *probably* safe to drink, the fact that it still smelled like feet would have ended up forcing me to dump it sooner or later anyway, just like the dirty glass incident from a few months ago.

Back to the Cape of Good Hops!

Here's an update of that beer I made that's sitting on so nicely inside of my keg. Since I last posted about it, the taste has mellowed and the beer has become a very nice, smooth drinking IPA with a good balance of hop bite and sweet honey taste. This qualifies as a delicious springtime beer in my book! Anyways, here's the recipe:

The Cape of Good Hops (4 gallon batch)

.5 gallons cool water in the brew pot
add .5 lbs cracked vienna grains
add .33 lbs flaked rye
turn the heat on high and let it slowly come to a boil
Right before rapid boil, skim out the chunks
Boil 60 minutes
At the beginning of the boil, add:
-~6 lbs Thomas Cooper Light Liquid Malt Extract
-1 oz phoenix hops
-1 oz challenger hops
-.5 oz cascade hops
-2 tsp. gypsum
At 45 minutes, add:
-1 tsp. irish moss
At 50 minutes, add:
-.5 oz cascade hops
-.5 oz. chinook hops
At 58 minutes, add:
-.5 oz chinook hops, THEN
-1 cup honey
Yeast- American Ale (Activator... This was the 1st time i didn't use propagator and I like it a lot better; it's way easier)

Any thoughts/suggestions from you homebrewers?
And to the rest of the community... What would your ultimate summer brew taste like/be?

Wednesday blues.

Today i drank a victory prima pils. It contained neither victory, prima, nor pils. Then I went to fold my laundry, but i couldn't because someone was smoking pot outside the door. How inconsiderate! The point is, friends, that if you're going to smoke pot in public, or lie about how aweseom your beer is, you should probably be working for ABMILCOOR and not ruining my life on a wednesday evening. Time for a pitty poem:

My heart is black.
Trees rustling, one leaf falls do the ground.
Wet, but the ground is dry.
Victory.
Prima.
Pils.
LOST

I Met a Representative!

So today was a very long day, the beginning of a culmination of a lot of things job and masters related, and afterward my friend Kristy and I decided to get a beer at our favorite local drinking establishment, the Idle Hour, and call it a night.

Now, i visit the Idle two or three times a week for a beer, simply because they are "the purveyor of fine brews" and I often get a pint of Hop Rod or a bottle of Storm King for free. But this night was special and let me tell you why!

After sharing conversation and enjoying half of my Rogue Mocha Porter (which was pretty okay), a collared-shirt-khaki-wearing man approached Kristy and I, proclaiming, "Hi, I'm really sorry to interrupt, but I'm a representative from the Anheuser-Busch corporation and I would like to buy you both a beer."

Here are excerpts from the dialog that followed (based on my recollection, by the way):
(...= skip to the future, and italics=my thoughts during the conversation)
Me: Are you only offering Anheuser beers?
Anhesuer Busch: WELL, AB beers include bud, bud light, the michelobs, as well as the red hooks and shock top. The red hooks include an ESB and Longhammer IPA.
(Shock top is good, i've had it a couple times. Like a Blue Moon but a little better. Really really easy drinking)
M:I'd love to have a Longhammer.
AB: You got it! (Buys me a beer) (Sweet.)
...
M: So Budweiser is trying to get into the microbrew market?
AB: No, we're just affiliated with these companies like Red Hook. We don't want to be like the microbrews- we want to take their styles, like a porter, and make them "between the dotted-lines." You know, make more palatable beer (I can tell by your face that you knew you just said the wrong thing)
M: I hear you have a new beer called the Wild Blue. (This is for the blog and the kevster)
AB: Oh yeah, it's a great new beer. Higher ABV. Honestly it really appeals to the wine drinkers out there... that's really the type of beer it is. (I hope someone makes a good comment about that)
...
M:You mentioned you're promoting both an ESB and an IPA from Red Hook... Which one do you like better and why? (For the sake of my earlier blog post. I'm really putting this guy on the spot. I kinda of feel bad... He bought me a beer. But WHATEVER.)
AB: I like the IPA better because, dude, I'm an IPA guy! (Hey, ironically that's what I'm drinking!) In terms of the difference, well, I have a friend in New Hampshire who drinks ESBs (Cool, totally relevant, dude). ESBs are just grittier, you know?
M: Oh yeah, definitely. (NOT! Oooooooooooh.)
...
M: I just really like IPAs.
AB: Yeah, well we had like 12 microbreweries in the the Northeast making recipes for us, and there was this one called "Devil's Hand." It had tons of hops, you know? And it was great. Totally great. But it wasn't an IPA you know? It had, like ale character, but it it wasn't an IPA. It had a lot of hops.
M: Sounds really good (What are you talking about?)
AB: Yeah the best part was the tap handle though, it was like the devil's hand.

The end! There's a lot to comment about here, so please, go nuts!

Review: Theakston Old Peculier

After eying this one on the shelf every time I visited the store, I finally decided to try out this mysterious looking brew. 12 oz. bottle with no freshness date (that I could find).

A: Poured a deep ruby brown, but with a thin head that dissipated to a ring around the glass within a few minutes.

S: A little bland, but everything smells that way to me right now. What I could make out smelled pretty good, though.

T: It's hard for me to really classify this; probably because I could really tell you the difference between malts and a bag of Cheerios. What I can say is that it's only mildly sweet, definitely not to a point where it becomes syrupy and undrinkable. No real hops presence, but that's not to be expected in an Old Ale.

M: Somewhere just shy of medium, but more than thin. Mild carbonation; not the overbite that cheap beers have, but more than most stouts or other heavier brews.

D: This one goes down easy, and the low ABV makes it an ideal candidate for enjoying it with other drinks throughout an evening instead of being limited to one or two stronger drinks.

This is something that I would definitely seek out in a six pack, and not just buy a bottle every once in a while. It seems best suited for spring or autumn nights - nothing so thick that it'd warm you up while it's snowing out, but not quite the refresher you'd want while grilling on a hot sunny day.

If everyone is doing it I might as well too!

First beer experience!

The era- My freshman year. It was a cold November evening. The wind howling in the trees, swaying in motion with my dying heart. Leaves falling... Falling.

Oh wait, wrong blog! Start over...

The era- My freshman year. It was a cold, uh, evening. Maybe? Well, whatever. Some of my closest friends and I decided it would be super sweet to have a movie night, the focus of which to experiment with alcohol consumption while mixing a little excitement of the underage, in-dorm ragamuffin nature! We all put in our orders with our local fake-ID wielding friend, handed over the dough and held our breath. Our man came through and, heck, we dressed up for the occasion (and why not?) . The goal was to dress up as our drink would want us to. The trees were swaying in motion with my dying heart. Falling. NO, the movie was rollin and we looked fine and felt just fine. First beer, a big bottle of Samuel Smith's Oatmeal Stout. For a first beer, IT was delicious! Here's what the night looked like.

Notice our dear friends Andrew Paulsen and Neil McLaughlin and how cool they are.

The Bison Speaks

Hello All. I am the 33rd Degree Bison. The most secretive and gamey of all Bison. I am pure of bloodline and spirit. My shaggy coat holds deeper secrets than most will ever know.

Also, I like beer.

Someone near and dear to me has posted the invitation to discuss my first encounter with this usually tasty beverage, though my first encounter was anything but.

I was something like 19 and at university in scenic Boston, MA. It was fall 2002 and my good friend Nate had just been informed that, due to his kind membership in the national guard, he had won an all-expenses paid trip to Iraq! Needless to say, we were all ecstatic for his amazing luck in being sent off to be shot at in foreign desert. His parents were going to be out of town for weekend so we decided to drive out to their house in central MA for a weekend of debauchery.

Our group of nine or so arrived at Nate's house as it began to snow on a cold friday night. It was a remarkable house, if only for the fact that accessing the "front" door required climbing some very akward steps and entering via a deck. It was not so much a split level structure as the product of some seismic upheaval which vomited a normal house out of the ground and caused all but 10" of the house to settle back above the Earth's loving embrace.

We all decided to hang out in Nate's basement which doubled as an entertainment room, ball python habitat and mud room (this is central Mass. after all). Everyone was getting blitzed on the usual godawful college drinks. This included, but was not limited too, anything made with vodka from a plastic bottle or Bacardi 151. Eventually all the "good" stuff ran out and we switched to beer. I was not a beer person and I protested until someone forced one upon me. I just had to shut up and do it. I was the big money winner with a shiny, cold bottle of Heineken!!!

I opened it, took a few sips, and promptly formed a lifelong aversion to this skunky, asstastic impostor of a beer. What flavor it did have was vile and tart and the aftertaste lingered longer than any awful flavor ought to. I took one for the team and kept on going.

Halfway through some kind Samaritan informed me that my then-girlfriend had been drinking like a fish and was now properly destroyed. A* was a small Taiwanese gal who had a genetic predisposition to being a lightweight and had consumed six mixed drinks in an hour and a half.

I would spend the next eight hours watching over her as she alternately got sick and passed out, making sure that she didn't end up dead, or at least poisoned. Seemingly everyone else was off getting laid, smoking up or turning the hot tub water a weird shade of light brown. The last bit works something like this: nude hippie-esque folk, plus hot tub, equals hippie tea. I saw only bits of the process, but the aftermath was both awe-inspiring and terrifying.

I finally passed out around 6 AM, my half-empty beer still next to my head as I crashed on someone's bedroom floor. We all woke up, had some steak and eggs, nursed varying degrees of hangovers and drove back to Boston. The girlfriend I, and my half-empty shitty beer, had watched over for eight hours would soon hook up with my good friend at a rave and start dating him. This lead to my exclusion from my social group and effectively the worst year of my adult life.

Heineiken was there for one of the worst nights of my life and I will never forgive it.

I didn't drink beer again for nearly two years.

Next installment: Techno Debauchery: Or, How I learned to stop worrying and love the malts.

Price drop: Beer Advocate magazine

I have spent many hours drooling over Jeff's issues of Beer Advocate's monthly magazine. Finally, I can ruin my own copies, and you can too!

A full year subscription is now $20 - as of mid February it was $30, and I'm pretty sure it was $25 before that! I don't know if this is a new price or a temporary thing, but I finally sucked it up and ordered myself twelve shiny issues. Let the furthering of my education commence!

Awards for High Falls!

JW Dunddee's Dopplebock took home the bronze medal against 38 other brews in the German-style strong bock category in the 2008 World Beer Cup competition, aka the Olympics of Beer.

Some other NY breweries won awards as well, but this is really about one thing: Sam Patch.

More info on the D&C's website here. For a complete list of winners, check here.

Hit the comments page

Or start your own post, and share your experience about your first beer. I've already touched on mine in my inaugural post, but I'll briefly expand.

My first drink was a bottle of Harp Lager supplied by a coworker at the time, who I'd just found out was living just down the road from my apartment. It was decided (by him) that it was time to get me on the bottle, so he brought some over to accompany the delicious upside-down pizza from Two Paisans (RIP). I opened a bottle, sniffed, hesitated, sniffed again, and took a cautious sip.

It was horrible.

Let me explain. To me and my untrained palate, it tasted like someone had simply dumped flour in a bottle of water, let it spoil and go bitter, and put a label on it. I couldn't have drank more than about two ounces of it; I hardly got past the neck of the bottle.

Now, my first full beer - Molson. Canadian? Export? I don't know. It was Ryan's birthday; I was at the cottage for the first time. There were lots of people, it was warm and sunny, and everyone was feeling great. Everyone else was drinking, so I decided to give it another shot. This time, I finished the bottle. It took a while - probably half an hour - but I finished it. And while it still wasn't the greatest tasting thing in the world, it helped convince me that these beverages weren't that bad after all. I'm sure that I would have come around eventually anyway, but I'm glad I started when I did.

So, friends, would you care to share how you fared with your first brew?

BEN VS THE LAST BOTTLE OF THE ANTELOPE

61 mile bikeride + german food + THE ANTELOPE + sunset = photo journalism

The set up:The pour:

The Sniff

The Taste

German Starch Eggs

The Work

The Wait

The GLORY!

The Sunset

That completes the story. I did not have the privilege of drinking a young antelope, but the old version reminded me a lot of a toned-down Hop Rod Rye. Delicious. BTW, has anyone ever drunk a young antelope? I bet it would look a lot like Wild Blue.

be well,

Ben

P.S. View the post on its own page and click on the pictures for hires.

Propaganda

Sorry to keep on posting but it's the weekend and it's pretty darned fun and I'm listening to YES.

ANYWAYS, I was just perusing the Beer Advocate website, taking a look at the Wild Blue Blueberry Lager which has found its way to Wegmans' shelves, as well as Kevin's home. Upon research of said brew, I found that it is another attempt from Annheiser-Busch to get a foot in the door into the microbrew market, calling itself an 8% abv blueberry lager.

But I'm not here to discuss this beer specifically, but a person who reviewed the beer on the Beer Advocate website by the name of "rehabis4quitters." This person gave this beer the highest rating out of all 77 reviews; they gave it a B+ while the average is a D. I went to their profile to check their tastes/credentials and noticed that other than the Wild Blue, this person reviewed fifteen beers in the same day. Now that's understandable, maybe this person got excited by the chance of being a reviewer of brews and felt obligated to describe/rate every beer they had had over the last year. BUT, the fishy thing is that of those fifteen beers, every one affiliated with Annheiser-Busch has a rating of B+ or A-, while the only beer reviewed over A- is the Samuel Smith porter. Furthermore, every other macrobrew mentioned in the this person's list doesn't go any higher than B- while the few mentioned American microbrews (that are widely considered delicious, i.e. flying dog, redhook) have a high score of F.

Interesting, don't you think?

My mouth hurts

And it's not because I got hit square in the mouth by Sean while playing basketball this morning. Okay, that's part of it.

But really, the reason that my mouth is relaying bad vibes to my brain right now is because I just drank a bottle of Wild Blue. What is Wild Blue, you ask?

Let me tell you what "they" claim it is: an 8% ABV blueberry lager brewed by Anheuser-Busch, although the label indicates no such affiliation.

Let me tell you what it really is: grape soda. Upon twisting off the cap, I could immediate smell an overpowering aroma of fake blueberries, despite the mouth of the bottle still being a good 18 inches from me. The second thing that you notice while pouring this is the lack of any decent head. But the first, my friends, is the color.

This is no feat of digital trickery. This is truly a beverage that could be poured on Prince by the firkin and not a stain would appear on his purple velvet jacket. Quickly, any resemblance to being a beer is fading.

But what really matters is taste. So how does it taste? Not like beer, that's for sure. Hops? Apparently not used in this recipe. The mysteriously vanishing boysenberry syrup from IHOP? More likely. Simply put, this beer does not taste like a beer. It's very sweet, almost soda like in nature but with less carbonation than your average can of grape soda. Far more like a fruity malt beverage (think Mike's Hard Lemonade, Smirnoff Ice, etc) than a beer. I'm not sure if "sticky" is an appropriate way to describe mouthfeel, but I feel compelled to call it that. Sticky, and thin. I can't stress this enough: there was nothing about the taste of this that indicated it was a beer.

The supposed 8% ABV is so well masked that not only is the taste of alcohol absent, but the appropriate buzz that one would expect is also missing. Yes, I consumed this in about ten minutes after having not eaten for over four hours, and never felt even the slightest bit buzzed. This, for me anyway, is not normal. I'm not saying I should have been staggeringly drunk, but this just didn't do anything to me. But that's not the reason I drink beer, so I digress.

Jeff called me earlier to ask if I would recommend this. Surprisingly, I'd have to say yes - but certainly not by the six pack. This is the type of thing that you buy a single bottle of and split it with a few friends, just so you can see and taste it for yourself. And if you do enjoy the taste, save some money and pick up a cheap twelve pack of Fanta or Welches instead.

THE ULTIMATE SUMMER BEER

SO, it's that time of year; the leaves are budding, flowers are blooming, grills are grilling, and college girls in bikinis are sitting around in hordes in well-populated areas for no apparent reason. The recent streak of 80+ degree weather here in Geneseo has me thinking, "Hey! I just GOTS to start formulating my next beer! And, well dammit, it's just GOTS to be a summery (not to be confused with 'summary') one!"

The fact of the matter is that the friendly homebrewer is cursed, and may be too generous with his gifting of delicious homemade beer to his friends/family and therefore ALWAYS needs to be thinking of what's going to be brewed next.

So, I pose this QUESTION to you, COMMUNITY:
What would your ULTIMATE SUMMER BREW be and/or taste like?!?!

Keep in mind that these opinions will be considered in the formation of my next delicious (and oh-so-kegged) brew!

P.S. Props to Andrew for sighting "impressive aeration techniques" as a specific and relevant way to increase ABV.

What about Honey?

My newest endeavor when it comes to the fermentation of beverages has been the use of Honey. I realize that Jeff has been using honey for quite some time for the priming sugar. Which seems like a really good idea to me. As far as retaining a lot of the honey aroma and flavor that are apparently lost in a long boil. I was thinking of making a heather Mead with, while not boiling but just bringing the must to a sanitizing temperature at around 170 F. and adding another pound or two in with the secondary to maybe push the fermentation as far as it can go. Also I was considering experimenting with the different kinds of honey, more specifically using buckwheat honey for a darker more flavorful end product. Also I'm making a saison soon so I was thinking that as an additional sugar adding honey and maybe brown sugar with kent goldings and fuggles.

I haven't really started any of these, but the saison starter is going to be made tonight and the actual beer maybe on Tuesday or Wednesday. Sounds like fun to me! Let me know what you think about ideas for changing mead or mead and beer combinations... Braggot as it were.

When good isn't good enough

I was inspired by Jeff's post to share another direct comparison that we held last year. Two families met and pitted several brews against each other, the first being Avery's (Colorado) The Kaiser, an Imperial Oktoberfest. The second was Hacker-Pschorr Oktoberfest-Märzen, brewed in Germany.

If I recall correctly, I started with the German brew. After a few sips, I was sold. Sadly, I don't recall all that much about the flavor - my note sheet simply says "it tastes like Jeff's apt. on a cool autumn afternoon. It also tastes like tears for the Bills." Next up was The Kaiser, which was even more delicious. Sadly, my notes on that consisted of a single word - Heil! Being of the Imperial designation, I suppose this increased level of tastiness shouldn't come as a surprise. But the difference between the two didn't immediately register.

But Ben, in his infinite wisdom, suggested that we all take another sip of The Kaiser, followed up immediately by the Hacker. The result? The Hacker, previously a delicious drink, now felt extraordinarily bland and watered down.

So what does this teach us? Maybe it teaches us that it's hard to tell just how good one beer is until you've tasted lesser. Maybe it just teaches us that Oktoberfests in general aren't half bad. I'm not entirely sure, but I think maybe "USA 1, Germany 0" is part of it.

Bitter!

Now I haven't had many ESBs in my beer career, but I frankly just don't see the point in starting to. Andrew and I were discussing this the other day while drinking my delicious and full-flavored honey IPA, The Cape of Good Hops, and the topic has been fresh on my mind.

One time, I had a Middle Ages Impaled Ale and ESB right next to another in order to examine the differences/similarities. Their flavors, looks, and smells were exactly the same; the ESB was pretty much just a bland and crappier version of the IPA.

So, for those of us who appreciate the many facets of strong-flavored beer and are intrigued by acronymous representations for real words, I ask the question: Why drink an ESB and not an IPA?

Educate me!

We missed it!

As was previously stated, Coors light has developed a radical new can design to forever change the face of drinking. The new "vented" can, which features a wide mouth for a smoother pour of this fine quality beer, is making its way into homes (and my heart) as we speak. But we missed an important date: April 15.

"National Venting Day" was proclaimed by Molson Coors. What does one do on National Venting Day? Air their grievances with others? Fix the painting chamber in the auto shop to avoid inhaling dangerous toxic fumes? Or simply relax with a cool, refreshing, and most importantly, SMOOTH Coors Light or Coors Banquet?

Whatever one is supposed to do on National Venting Day, there's only one thing this author knows for sure: he didn't do it. Ashamed? Absolutely. But there's a 2009 desk calendar, a PDA, a cell phone, Outlook Express, and a phone call from a hotel in Boulder that are all ready to alert this drinker to the arrival of the second annual National Venting Day on April 15, 2009.

Coors Light: Science

Just saw a commercial for Coors Light... And thank God for science, because each can now comes fully equipped with a (um, cough) vent. I mean, the blue color changing label thing, that was godlike in its usefulness and relevance to say the least. But a VENT?! Well that's the best thing to happen since, well I don't know, the ancient Chinese practice of footbinding!

What's better than footbinding? It's clear now, the answer is VENTS!

Hop Porn

So hey, sometimes when I'm lonely I look at the nudy pictures of nudes. But hey, sometimes the hops have more powers than the horny. So hey, this is the beer i drank tonight to commemorate my substitution of hoppy beer for porn (Jeff will also have one to drink soon, so maybe he can castrate himself too, with a hop scythe) . What a life change! I feel so empowered! Liberated! Defiled!?! Used!?? Empty and worthless????? Damn this beer. Damn this beer for it's orange tang color and 1 finger head. Damn this beer for it's perfect balance of mild sweetness and over-powering hops. Damn this beer for it's 10% abv buried under a whirlwind of taste bud shattering acidic pain. Hopgasm! HOPGASM!!!

be well,
Ben

HEY! It's the Wykydtron!

in the year four thousand fifty five, wykydtron came to life

born of scientific design to serve all human kind
artificial intelligence bred for future war
when galaxies will crumble and fall to their knees
it breaks free from its hold taking military control
a fate seen all across the wordl
it takes hold of the earth, breeding legions to his control
soon to seize all power in the sky
programmed to crush
programmed to destroy
its brainwaves only wired for death
its wired to kill
all on the earth
nuclear bound - you'll fear his name
hey its the wykydtron
its the wykydtron
hey its the wykydtron
whoa-oh!
an army's formed to crush the earth
our creation, the master of our demise
humanity is doomer
fifteen years since creations time, the war has turned to space
human kind has once chance left to turn the tides of fate
warheads are the only way to stop The Wykydtron
millions die, radiation blast from hell
flesh, it peels away as all the people die
this is the end of the human race
our creation becomes the master of our own demise
we are drones
we fooled ourselves
we finally sealed our fate
hey its the wykydtron
its the wykydtron
hey its the wykydtron
whoa-oh!

Decisions, decisions.

Every day, I am thankful. Thankful that I didn't give up. Thankful that the day, many months before my birthday, that Eli brought a six pack of Harp lager to my apartment, I did not let my experience dictate my future beer preferences. You see, this drink that he gave me tasted foul to me - I finished no more than two ounces before finally declaring "I can't drink this".

Fast-forward to July 2006: it's my 21st birthday, and I'm on a remote island in Cananda with many of my relatives. I'm drinking Moosehead lager by the water, and it's okay. Not great, but okay. But days later, my older brother shows up with a large bottle of La Fin Du Monde (The End of the World), and shares it with me and some cousins as a belated birthday gift. Now, THIS is a beer. It's delicious. I finish one glass, and I'm looking for more. After the trip, but before my new beer advisor has to fly back home, we stop at Beers of the World. With help, but not much knowledge, I pick out a few more six packs of different brews to try. I still didn't really know the difference between an IPA and a stout. Looking back, this is laughable.

Fast forward to today: obviously, I know the difference between beer styles. However, without spending hours compiling lists and researching like the nerdy scholars that my peers are, how does one decide between beers? Obviously, there are some factors that are easy to decide. Right now, the weather has very quickly changed from 20 degrees and cloudy to 80 and sunny. Time to put the stouts and porters aside and grab a few pilsners and IPAs. But...WHICH ONES?

The answer, my friend, is simple: judge a beer by the cover. Look at the label. Is the name hilarious? Does it have an awesome design that screams manliness, hilarity, or anything else that makes it look desirable? Is there an entire story challenging your worthiness printed on the back? If any of these can be answered with "yes", then you've found a winner. Stone Brewing Company commands that I'm not worthy, so of course I'll try their brews. Moo Thunder is a stout in a can, but it's got a happy looking animated cow and a blue lightning bolt, so it's obviously a winner.

So remember this advice: when the only thing separating multiple beers of the same style is the name or label, then let those be your guiding factor. But don't be afraid to be daring: sometimes the shittiest sounding one may surprise you.

Can You Drink This Beer Whilst Watching Foot-Ball?

In my travels, which have been extensive, I have encountered many beer creations of the world to-day. I often inspect them with my traveling monocle. As you may have surmised, when looking at stuff with your eyes, the most important characteristic to the observer is the LOOK. Let me just tell you, nothing looks finer than this smooth Budweiser beer I've seen in Jeff's fridge. Even on the outside, in its smooth white can promising the "superior flavor, crispness, and drinkability," you'd expect, one can imagine the clarity of the liquid inside. As we all know, you can't hide imperfections in a clear American lager like a Budweiser, no matter how "inferior and sad" the can may look in Jeff's fridge. Take that, Belgium - you and your flowery nancy-boy beers can frolic through a forest of AMERICAN STRENGTH.

The Cape of Good Hops (In Poseidon's Ass?)

The name courtesy of Neil P McLaughlin, by the way. Regardless, I just tapped that keg, goddammit! I have never seen such a brightly orange colored beer before! No complaints though. Smells good- full of hops and rye. Took a sip and BAM, hops in my face with a good balance of honey sweetness! Adding the cup of honey into the boil with only 2 minutes left really kept the honey character in this beer well. Good honey flavor and dry finish! My hoppiest beer yet! I think it could use another couple weeks of sitting, also maybe less rye next time (though I made sure I only added in a little bit). Sexy though, reeeeeal sexy. Not as complex as my previous Buttstorms but definitely just as delicious if not MORE.

Guess I'd call this one a honey IPA gona awRYE! GET IT?! HA! I'll give it an 8 out f 10. I'll upload the recipe later.

This is the future!

This is the corny keg my bro bought me for my b-day. It is primed and started to chill last night; it is full of a delicious honey IPA called "The Cape of Good Hops." Tonight I will have my very first pint and let you know how it goes! I'll be sure to upload the label (and my past ones) at a later date.

(Notice the inferior and sad looking can of Bud)

LET'S SHARE BEER KNOWLEDGE

Hello friends,

This page is for the closeknit beer community known as Wizpaulskisen and will (does) include Andrew Paulsen, Ed Paulsen, Ben Wisniewski, and myself, Paul Reubens.

We will come together and share our past, present, and future beer explorations, including triumphs and blunders.

Questions and brainstorming sessions are sure to occur. Hilarious beer-related anecdotes are strongly encouraged as well.

I hope you're into this idea, because I think it's mega turbo sweet.

Love,
Peewee Herman