This post is pretty anticlimactic after my last post which covered the 1,000th entry in the Brew List. As usual, I have a backlog of brews to add to the list. I was updating list today and reached the end of last year. My list currently stands at a total of 1,006 entries. At the end of 2013 per my post covering the end of that year, the list stood at 756 entries. That number divided up to 148 entries for 2010, 151 for 2011, 150 for 2012, and 307 for 2013. The total for 2014 was 250 brews.
The last beer I consumed last year was a bottle of Blood Ov [sic] The Kings from Local Option. That brewery is located in Chicago, Illinois.
Thursday, January 15, 2015
Saturday, December 27, 2014
Round Numbers and Letters, Part II
This post is a continuous of yesterday's post that covered the first part of my run-up to the 1,000th entry in my Brew List as well as my trip with my mother to Colorado to visit my sister and her family. As a reminder, number 996 was a single-hop pale ale from Left Hand Brewing Company located in Longmont, Colorado.
Following the visit to Left Hand's tap room by my sister April, her husband Christian and myself, we hit a local Indian restaurant for dinner. With dinner, I enjoyed a big bottle of Kingfisher Premium Lager which was the 997th entry on the list. Christian called it the Budweiser of India, and I think that is about right. Kingfisher is a product of United Breweries Limited or the UB Group. I added another Indian beer from UB Group, Flying Horse Royal Lager, to the Brew List last year.
Number 998 was a can out of my sister's refrigerator. The can was Craft Lager from Upslope Brewing Company located in Boulder, Colorado. I spent the whole day playing with my nephew and niece, so I think I rightly deserved that beer.
The runner-up to number one thousand was a bottle from April's fridge. I assume it was from a Rocky Mountain Sampler pack from Breckenridge Brewery. Number 999 was a bottle of Fresh Hop Pale Ale from Breckenridge's Mountain Series. I have had several brews from Breckenridge on previous visits to Colorado.
Now a drum roll, please. Number 1,000 was a bottle of Wolf Picker out of a sampler pack from Odell Brewing. Quoting from the bottle, the beer is an "Experimental Pale Ale," and it is part of their Roots Release series. I enjoyed it on Christmas Eve during a family gathering at my sister's house. Last year, I had two drafts from Odell at the Denver airport while heading back from visiting my sister. I had their IPA and 90 Shilling Ale.
Following the visit to Left Hand's tap room by my sister April, her husband Christian and myself, we hit a local Indian restaurant for dinner. With dinner, I enjoyed a big bottle of Kingfisher Premium Lager which was the 997th entry on the list. Christian called it the Budweiser of India, and I think that is about right. Kingfisher is a product of United Breweries Limited or the UB Group. I added another Indian beer from UB Group, Flying Horse Royal Lager, to the Brew List last year.
Number 998 was a can out of my sister's refrigerator. The can was Craft Lager from Upslope Brewing Company located in Boulder, Colorado. I spent the whole day playing with my nephew and niece, so I think I rightly deserved that beer.
The runner-up to number one thousand was a bottle from April's fridge. I assume it was from a Rocky Mountain Sampler pack from Breckenridge Brewery. Number 999 was a bottle of Fresh Hop Pale Ale from Breckenridge's Mountain Series. I have had several brews from Breckenridge on previous visits to Colorado.
Now a drum roll, please. Number 1,000 was a bottle of Wolf Picker out of a sampler pack from Odell Brewing. Quoting from the bottle, the beer is an "Experimental Pale Ale," and it is part of their Roots Release series. I enjoyed it on Christmas Eve during a family gathering at my sister's house. Last year, I had two drafts from Odell at the Denver airport while heading back from visiting my sister. I had their IPA and 90 Shilling Ale.
Friday, December 26, 2014
Round Numbers and Letters, Part I
This year is nearing its end, and so far, I have managed to publish a measly five posts. I have been cheating you dear imaginary reader. I hope to make it up to you at least a bit by the end of the year. This post will be first of two post that will combine two possibly independent topics. The first possibly separate post would have covered the run-up to the one-thousandth entry in my Brew List. (By the way, I changed the name of the list from "Beer List" to "Brew List" because it contains ciders and meads which are not beers along with the normal ales and lagers. I do not plan to add other fermented beverages to the list although I do enjoy wine, some sake, and the hard liquors.)
However, that particular milestone just happened to occur while I was on a trip with my mother to Colorado to visit my sister and her family. In the past, I have published a post (or several posts) about my now-annual visit to that great beer-loving state. While I did manage to add several new Colorado brews to the list and visit another brewery, this Colorado trip was definitely more about family.
I will start my updates back in North Carolina prior to my trip to Colorado. The last time I updated my list, it stood at 988 entries. Therefore, I knew the big four-digit milestone was quickly approaching. That is why I will start with number 989 which was a draft of Christmas Eve At A New York City Hotel Room (I did not know it was foreshadowing at the time) from Evil Twin Brewing. That brewery made appearances in the posts about both brews #500 and #900. I have discussed quirky Evil Twin in the past, and I just noticed on the "About" page, that they use ten different contract breweries.
Moving on, the 990th entry in the list was Old Chub Nitro from Oskar Blues. Old Chub is a Scotch ale, and the nitrogen gives it a smoother, creamier mouth feel. I had it on draft and not in a can which contains a widget for infusing nitrogen into the beer.
The 991th and 992th entries were both from Short's Brewing Company. Their brews are produced in an industrial park in Elk Rapids, Michigan. A friend of my girlfriend Sara returned from a trip to Michigan with a six-pack of different beers from Short's for her and I to try. The first four bottles were previously consumed and duly cataloged. Number 991 was Wowee Zowee which is (and I quote from the bottle) a "Golden Ale brewed with fresh mint and mango." I remember it being a generally fruity-tasting beer but not tasting overly like mango or mint. Number 992 was Alter Spalter which is (again quoting from the bottle) "A True Old World German Ale."
Now we fast forward a few days. My mom volunteered to babysit my nephew and niece while my sister, brother-in-law and I went out for drinks and dinner. We stopped by the tasting room of Left Hand Brewing Company in Longmont, Colorado. The city of Longmont was greatly affected by the floods that hit Colorado last year. According to my brother-in-law, some roads have only recently been reopened after being closed for repair for over a year. Getting back to less sobering news (pun intended), I enjoyed a four-beer flight of single-hopped pale ales from their Safety Rounds. Therefore, beers numbers 993 through 996 were single-hopped Safety Round beers with Chinook, Comet, Centennial, and Apollo hops, respectively.
I will cover the 997th through 1000th entries to the list in the next post.
However, that particular milestone just happened to occur while I was on a trip with my mother to Colorado to visit my sister and her family. In the past, I have published a post (or several posts) about my now-annual visit to that great beer-loving state. While I did manage to add several new Colorado brews to the list and visit another brewery, this Colorado trip was definitely more about family.
I will start my updates back in North Carolina prior to my trip to Colorado. The last time I updated my list, it stood at 988 entries. Therefore, I knew the big four-digit milestone was quickly approaching. That is why I will start with number 989 which was a draft of Christmas Eve At A New York City Hotel Room (I did not know it was foreshadowing at the time) from Evil Twin Brewing. That brewery made appearances in the posts about both brews #500 and #900. I have discussed quirky Evil Twin in the past, and I just noticed on the "About" page, that they use ten different contract breweries.
Moving on, the 990th entry in the list was Old Chub Nitro from Oskar Blues. Old Chub is a Scotch ale, and the nitrogen gives it a smoother, creamier mouth feel. I had it on draft and not in a can which contains a widget for infusing nitrogen into the beer.
The 991th and 992th entries were both from Short's Brewing Company. Their brews are produced in an industrial park in Elk Rapids, Michigan. A friend of my girlfriend Sara returned from a trip to Michigan with a six-pack of different beers from Short's for her and I to try. The first four bottles were previously consumed and duly cataloged. Number 991 was Wowee Zowee which is (and I quote from the bottle) a "Golden Ale brewed with fresh mint and mango." I remember it being a generally fruity-tasting beer but not tasting overly like mango or mint. Number 992 was Alter Spalter which is (again quoting from the bottle) "A True Old World German Ale."
Now we fast forward a few days. My mom volunteered to babysit my nephew and niece while my sister, brother-in-law and I went out for drinks and dinner. We stopped by the tasting room of Left Hand Brewing Company in Longmont, Colorado. The city of Longmont was greatly affected by the floods that hit Colorado last year. According to my brother-in-law, some roads have only recently been reopened after being closed for repair for over a year. Getting back to less sobering news (pun intended), I enjoyed a four-beer flight of single-hopped pale ales from their Safety Rounds. Therefore, beers numbers 993 through 996 were single-hopped Safety Round beers with Chinook, Comet, Centennial, and Apollo hops, respectively.
I will cover the 997th through 1000th entries to the list in the next post.
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Number 900
This is a quick post to chronicle my approach to the 900th beer on my Beer List. Number 898 is Of Love & Regret which is a saison-style ale from Stillwater Artisanal Ales. Stillwater is a located Baltimore, Maryland. I consumed this beer at the Wine Merchant in Cary, North Carolina.
Number 899 on the beer list is Pickup Line Porter from Bombshell Beer Company. Bombshell is a relatively new brewery located in the Raleigh suburb of Holly Springs, North Carolina. Interestingly enough, Bombshell made an appearance in my post on entry number 800. Their Polished Pilsner was number 801.
Cuing the drum roll, the 900th addition to my beer list is from Brouwerij Van Honsebrouck but is not a variety of their more well-known Kasteel line. Number 900 is instead St. Louis Gueuze Fond Tradition which is a lambic, specifically a geuze. It is a very sour beer. By the way, Van Honsebrouck is located in the city of Ingelmunster, Belgium. This beer was also consumed at the Wine Merchant as were the next two brews on the list.
Number 901 on the beer list is another brew from Stillwater. This one was Why Can't IBU. For my imaginary readers who are not up on their beer jargon, IBU is an abbreviation for International Bitterness Unit. It is a measure of bitterness. Not surprisingly, this beer is quite hoppy.
Finally, number 902 on the beer list is I Love You With My Stout from Evil Twin Brewing. I have previously commented on the vagabond nature of Evil Twin.
Number 899 on the beer list is Pickup Line Porter from Bombshell Beer Company. Bombshell is a relatively new brewery located in the Raleigh suburb of Holly Springs, North Carolina. Interestingly enough, Bombshell made an appearance in my post on entry number 800. Their Polished Pilsner was number 801.
Cuing the drum roll, the 900th addition to my beer list is from Brouwerij Van Honsebrouck but is not a variety of their more well-known Kasteel line. Number 900 is instead St. Louis Gueuze Fond Tradition which is a lambic, specifically a geuze. It is a very sour beer. By the way, Van Honsebrouck is located in the city of Ingelmunster, Belgium. This beer was also consumed at the Wine Merchant as were the next two brews on the list.
Number 901 on the beer list is another brew from Stillwater. This one was Why Can't IBU. For my imaginary readers who are not up on their beer jargon, IBU is an abbreviation for International Bitterness Unit. It is a measure of bitterness. Not surprisingly, this beer is quite hoppy.
Finally, number 902 on the beer list is I Love You With My Stout from Evil Twin Brewing. I have previously commented on the vagabond nature of Evil Twin.
Monday, March 3, 2014
Deleted Drafts
I just deleted three old draft posts that I never got around to finishing and posting. After I deleted them, I thought I could do a little summery of what each of those posts would have been. Of course, that would have been a much better idea before I deleted the draft.
One of the draft posts was to be the promised follow-up to this post from back in 2011. That post covered a couple of radical realignment proposals for Major League Baseball. The title for the post was to be "Bottom-Heavy Baseball" since it focused on the proposal that put 18 of the 30 teams in three six-team lower-tier divisions. Based on a related spreadsheet, I was going to focus on maintaining traditional rivalries (New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals, Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants). I accomplished this by averaging the player salaries of the two rival teams when assigning the teams to either the upper or lower tier.
Another now-deleted draft dealt with the Ten Commandments from the Bible. Basically, a book I was reading at the time had an example that involved how many of the commandants people remembered. I think the example showed that people who were asked a question involving a moral question were more likely to chose the high road if they were first asked to recite the Ten Commandments. However, the number of commandments they could recite (which perhaps reflected how religious they were) did not have any affect on their choices. Basically, it was thinking about the Commandments that made people more moral and not actually knowing the Commandments. I wondered if the Commandments that I remembered said anything about my personality and my moral values. I believe "Ten Strong Recommendations" was the title I was using for that post.
The most recent draft post was going to compare two seemingly unrelated topics. One topic was homosexuality and same-sex marriage, and the other was corporate logos on athletic jerseys. In general, both topics tend to pit more traditional, more conservative, and older segments of the population with younger and more liberal segments. One specific thought I had was that both issues were generally more accepted outside of the United States. I also think it is interesting that homosexuality and same-sex marriage are more accepted in the northeastern and western region of the country which are known to be more liberal while corporate logos are embraced by NASCAR which is popular in the more conservative Southeast and Midwest regions.
One of the draft posts was to be the promised follow-up to this post from back in 2011. That post covered a couple of radical realignment proposals for Major League Baseball. The title for the post was to be "Bottom-Heavy Baseball" since it focused on the proposal that put 18 of the 30 teams in three six-team lower-tier divisions. Based on a related spreadsheet, I was going to focus on maintaining traditional rivalries (New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals, Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants). I accomplished this by averaging the player salaries of the two rival teams when assigning the teams to either the upper or lower tier.
Another now-deleted draft dealt with the Ten Commandments from the Bible. Basically, a book I was reading at the time had an example that involved how many of the commandants people remembered. I think the example showed that people who were asked a question involving a moral question were more likely to chose the high road if they were first asked to recite the Ten Commandments. However, the number of commandments they could recite (which perhaps reflected how religious they were) did not have any affect on their choices. Basically, it was thinking about the Commandments that made people more moral and not actually knowing the Commandments. I wondered if the Commandments that I remembered said anything about my personality and my moral values. I believe "Ten Strong Recommendations" was the title I was using for that post.
The most recent draft post was going to compare two seemingly unrelated topics. One topic was homosexuality and same-sex marriage, and the other was corporate logos on athletic jerseys. In general, both topics tend to pit more traditional, more conservative, and older segments of the population with younger and more liberal segments. One specific thought I had was that both issues were generally more accepted outside of the United States. I also think it is interesting that homosexuality and same-sex marriage are more accepted in the northeastern and western region of the country which are known to be more liberal while corporate logos are embraced by NASCAR which is popular in the more conservative Southeast and Midwest regions.
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Number 800
I apologize to my faithful imaginary readers for I have recently been forsaking you. I have been posting pictures of beer on my Facebook page instead of posting those photos here. I hope this peace offering will help rectify the situation.This photo is a bottle of Thirsty Dog Brewing Company's
Siberian Night Aged in Bourbon Barrels. Thirsty Dog is located in the world-famous vacation locale known as Akron, Ohio. I was going to go with "tropical paradise" in reference to Akron, but I used that in a previous post where I won a bottle of Thirsty Dog's Bourbon Barrel-Aged Wee Heavy.
I am almost finally caught up on updating my Beer List which now stands at 801 entries. Assuming I can ever figure out which version of Left Hand Brewing's Fade to Black that I had the other day in order to be able to add it to the list, Siberian Night Bourbon Barrel Aged should be number 803.
Working backwards, the 802nd entry on the list will be a draft of Hop On Top from the Lynnwood Brewing. Besides being a stupid name, the Lynnwood Brewing Concern is the relatively new brewery associated with Lynnwood Grill which is a bar in my neck of the woods. I previously mentioned Lynnwood in a very odd post comparing love and bars.
The 801st entry will be a draft of Polished Pilsner from another new local brewery. Bombshell Beer Company is located in Holly Springs. The Raleigh suburb of Holly Springs is also home to Carolina Brewing Company (not to be confused with Carolina Brewery in Chapel Hill but I have covered that particular topic before).
Moving on to a nice round number, Jurata Baltic Porter would be the 800th addition chronologically to the beer list. Jurata is a cross-continental collaboration between Coronado Brewing Company located in Coronado, California and Cigar City Brewing located in Tampa, Florida. (Tampa is nicknamed the "Cigar City.") These types of brewery collaborations continue to increase in popularity. The first collaboration brew that I had was Hopfen-Weisse which was originally a collaboration between Germany's Bräuhaus G. Schneider & Sohn and New York's The Brooklyn Brewery. Reunion Ale, a collaboration between New York's Shmaltz Brewing Company and Georgia's Terrapin Beer Company, is now on its third annual release.
As I stated above, these numbers all depend on getting the bottle of Fade to Black that I consumed added to the list. That beer would be entry number 799.
Siberian Night Aged in Bourbon Barrels. Thirsty Dog is located in the world-famous vacation locale known as Akron, Ohio. I was going to go with "tropical paradise" in reference to Akron, but I used that in a previous post where I won a bottle of Thirsty Dog's Bourbon Barrel-Aged Wee Heavy.
I am almost finally caught up on updating my Beer List which now stands at 801 entries. Assuming I can ever figure out which version of Left Hand Brewing's Fade to Black that I had the other day in order to be able to add it to the list, Siberian Night Bourbon Barrel Aged should be number 803.
Working backwards, the 802nd entry on the list will be a draft of Hop On Top from the Lynnwood Brewing. Besides being a stupid name, the Lynnwood Brewing Concern is the relatively new brewery associated with Lynnwood Grill which is a bar in my neck of the woods. I previously mentioned Lynnwood in a very odd post comparing love and bars.
The 801st entry will be a draft of Polished Pilsner from another new local brewery. Bombshell Beer Company is located in Holly Springs. The Raleigh suburb of Holly Springs is also home to Carolina Brewing Company (not to be confused with Carolina Brewery in Chapel Hill but I have covered that particular topic before).
Moving on to a nice round number, Jurata Baltic Porter would be the 800th addition chronologically to the beer list. Jurata is a cross-continental collaboration between Coronado Brewing Company located in Coronado, California and Cigar City Brewing located in Tampa, Florida. (Tampa is nicknamed the "Cigar City.") These types of brewery collaborations continue to increase in popularity. The first collaboration brew that I had was Hopfen-Weisse which was originally a collaboration between Germany's Bräuhaus G. Schneider & Sohn and New York's The Brooklyn Brewery. Reunion Ale, a collaboration between New York's Shmaltz Brewing Company and Georgia's Terrapin Beer Company, is now on its third annual release.
As I stated above, these numbers all depend on getting the bottle of Fade to Black that I consumed added to the list. That beer would be entry number 799.
Saturday, February 22, 2014
Beer List 2013
As I continue to catch up on my backlog of entries to my Beer List, I have finally made it to the end of 2013. Obviously, the calendar year ends on New Year's Eve, and I was at a New Year's Eve party on December 31, 2013. An interesting thing about using Twitter to track the beers that I consume is that I know exactly which beer was my last for 2013 and which was first for 2014. My last beer of 2013 was a bottle of Old Engine Oil which is a porter from Harviestoun Brewery located in Alva, Clackmannanshire, Scotland, United Kingdom. The first of 2014 was a bottle of Newcastle Cabbie which is a limited-edition black ale (as opposed to their famous brown ale).
Returning to the Beer List, I drank 148 different beers in 2010. I found a missing beer in my Twitter feed from 2011, so the number of different beers for 2011 has risen from 150 to 151. In my post on the Beer List for 2012, I figured that I had consumed 150 different brews which would bring the total to 449 after correcting for the missing beer in 2011. I have gone back through the beer list and added dates where I could (which is how I found the missing beer from 2011). Unfortunately, I do not have a standalone list for 2012 and not everything had a post on Twitter, so I know there are several entries from 2012 that are now mislabeled as 2013. Up to the end of 2013, the Beer List stands at 756 entries which means I drank 307 different brews in 2013. That probably helps account for all those extra pounds I have accumulated.
Returning to the Beer List, I drank 148 different beers in 2010. I found a missing beer in my Twitter feed from 2011, so the number of different beers for 2011 has risen from 150 to 151. In my post on the Beer List for 2012, I figured that I had consumed 150 different brews which would bring the total to 449 after correcting for the missing beer in 2011. I have gone back through the beer list and added dates where I could (which is how I found the missing beer from 2011). Unfortunately, I do not have a standalone list for 2012 and not everything had a post on Twitter, so I know there are several entries from 2012 that are now mislabeled as 2013. Up to the end of 2013, the Beer List stands at 756 entries which means I drank 307 different brews in 2013. That probably helps account for all those extra pounds I have accumulated.
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Son of the Palmetto State
It has been almost four months since I last published a post. I am also months behind on updating my Beer List. I recently started working to add all the backlogged brews to the list. The list is currently up to 725 entries, and I have worked my way up to November 14. On that Thursday, I attended a college football game. My sister April was in town. We grew up in South Carolina, and April went to college at Clemson University. The Clemson Tigers had been recovering nicely from a disappointing blowout loss three weeks earlier to rival and eventual national champion Florida State. April and I drove down to Clemson to watch the Tigers continue that recovery with a blowout win over Georgia Tech. The game was broadcast nationally on ESPN. Clemson would go on to finish their 2013 season with a 11-2 record, ending the regular season with loss to their intrastate rivalry game with the South Carolina Gamecocks, and then a win in the Orange Bowl against Big Ten powerhouse Ohio State.
However, this post is about cleaning up the backlog of Beer List additions. The 726th entry will be a draft of Son Of A Peach from RJ Rockers Brewing Company located in Spartanburg, South Carolina. While Georgia is the Peach State, South Carolina is actually second in the United States for peach production, ranked behind California and ahead of Georgia. Therefore, it is not too surprising that a South Carolina brewery has a peach-flavored brew. The interesting thing about this beer is that it will be the first from a South Carolina-based brewery to be included to my list. I currently live in North Carolina, and as a point of comparison between the two states, of the 725 brews currently on the list, 145 are from the northern neighbor. Represented on the list are 26 separate breweries located in North Carolina: Aviator, Beer Army, Big Boss, Boone (aka Blowing Rock), Carolina Ale House, Carolina Brewery, Carolina Brewing, Deep River, Duck-Rabbit, Foothills (including brews from the former Carolina Beer), French Broad, Front Street, Fullsteam, Gizmo (previously Roth), Green Man, Highland, Lonerider, Mash House, Mother Earth, Natty Greene's, Olde Hickory, Railhouse, Raleigh, Red Oak, Triangle, and White Street (whew!).
Interestingly enough, Son of a Peach is not actually the first beer on the list to originate from the state of South Carolina. As I mentioned in a previous post, Evil Twin Brewing is located in Denmark and/or Brooklyn, New York. However, their beers are brewed by Westbrook Brewing Company which is located in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina. The gypsy nature of Evil Twin is addressed in an article from USA Today.
However, this post is about cleaning up the backlog of Beer List additions. The 726th entry will be a draft of Son Of A Peach from RJ Rockers Brewing Company located in Spartanburg, South Carolina. While Georgia is the Peach State, South Carolina is actually second in the United States for peach production, ranked behind California and ahead of Georgia. Therefore, it is not too surprising that a South Carolina brewery has a peach-flavored brew. The interesting thing about this beer is that it will be the first from a South Carolina-based brewery to be included to my list. I currently live in North Carolina, and as a point of comparison between the two states, of the 725 brews currently on the list, 145 are from the northern neighbor. Represented on the list are 26 separate breweries located in North Carolina: Aviator, Beer Army, Big Boss, Boone (aka Blowing Rock), Carolina Ale House, Carolina Brewery, Carolina Brewing, Deep River, Duck-Rabbit, Foothills (including brews from the former Carolina Beer), French Broad, Front Street, Fullsteam, Gizmo (previously Roth), Green Man, Highland, Lonerider, Mash House, Mother Earth, Natty Greene's, Olde Hickory, Railhouse, Raleigh, Red Oak, Triangle, and White Street (whew!).
Interestingly enough, Son of a Peach is not actually the first beer on the list to originate from the state of South Carolina. As I mentioned in a previous post, Evil Twin Brewing is located in Denmark and/or Brooklyn, New York. However, their beers are brewed by Westbrook Brewing Company which is located in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina. The gypsy nature of Evil Twin is addressed in an article from USA Today.
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Tracking Beer
After taking four posts and almost two months to cover my recent trip to Colorado, I am also almost two months behind on updating my Beer List. Granted, I did squeeze in a post about a beer tasting at the Wine Merchant in Cary, but now it is time to bring the list up-to-date. I have previously lamented about not doing the Beer List chronologically. In fact, I actually used the exact words "previously lamented" in a previous post. Unfortunately, the Beer List started as a Blogger gadget at the bottom of the page, and I did not think to include dates when I first started.
While I like the idea of tracking beers consumption like at the Flying Saucer downtown, I never really thought I would get up to the one hundred beers required to get a plate on their wall. Now, my Beer List is approaching 700 entries which is another nice round number. I am confident that I will be exceeding that number with my backlog of pending entries. However, I really do not know if I will be able to tell exactly which beer reaches that magic number. In addition to my normal tweets, I have two empty variety pack boxes from previously mentioned Blue Moon's fall seasonal pack and the Samuel Adams Harvest Collection Variety Pack, as well as also a list of brews from another recent beer tasting at the Wine Merchant.
Number 691 on the list will be a draft of Sour In The Rye from the Bruery located in Placentia, California. Number 692 will be a pint of Hell Yes Ma'am, a Belgian-style golden ale from Raleigh Brewing Company which is located right here in Raleigh, North Carolina. Next will be a draft of Double Don Golden Lager which is ... ummm... well... watermelon-infused. It is from Deep River Brewing Company which is located in nearby Clayton, NC. Number 694 will be a bottle of Out of Your Gourd Pumpkin Porter from Redhook Ale Brewery located in Seattle in the state of Washington.
It is at this point that I remember that I have already added the brews from the previous beer tasting at the Wine Merchant to the Beer List. That event actually occurred after I consumed the beers listed in the paragraph above. To resolve that issue, we can just subtract five or so from the numbers above and probably also the next couple. It is also possible that one of the brews from that tasting was actually the 700th beer which would make this whole post a moot point. However, I am not going to worry about that technicality.
Number 695 will be a draft of Reverb Imperial Pilsner from Boulevard Brewing Company which is located in Kansas City, Missouri. Numbers 696 and 697 will both be from Ballast Point Brewing Company located in San Diego, CA. Their Tongue Buckler is an imperial red ale. I also had seemed to be a version of their Black Marlin Porter brewed with cocoa and chipotle peppers.
After some additional research, I have discovered that the brews from the beer tasting at the Wine Merchant fit right here chronologically. The numbering should be correct from here, so now we can stop doing all that subtracting in our heads.
Number 698 will be a draft of 4042 Stout from previously mentioned Deep River Brewing Company. Number 699 will be a pint of Crazy Pils from Aviator Brewing Company. I enjoyed that pint while touring their brewery over in the oddly-named town Fuquay-Varina. That bring us to entry number 700 on the beer list which I am pretty confident is a draft I had of Coronado Brewing Company's 17th Anniversary Ale. Coronado Brewing is, not surprisingly, located Coronado, California.
I have made it to 700 beers on my list. Of course, I still have a month's worth of backlogged entries including the two seasonal variety packs and the more recent beer tasting. I need to get cracking.
While I like the idea of tracking beers consumption like at the Flying Saucer downtown, I never really thought I would get up to the one hundred beers required to get a plate on their wall. Now, my Beer List is approaching 700 entries which is another nice round number. I am confident that I will be exceeding that number with my backlog of pending entries. However, I really do not know if I will be able to tell exactly which beer reaches that magic number. In addition to my normal tweets, I have two empty variety pack boxes from previously mentioned Blue Moon's fall seasonal pack and the Samuel Adams Harvest Collection Variety Pack, as well as also a list of brews from another recent beer tasting at the Wine Merchant.
Number 691 on the list will be a draft of Sour In The Rye from the Bruery located in Placentia, California. Number 692 will be a pint of Hell Yes Ma'am, a Belgian-style golden ale from Raleigh Brewing Company which is located right here in Raleigh, North Carolina. Next will be a draft of Double Don Golden Lager which is ... ummm... well... watermelon-infused. It is from Deep River Brewing Company which is located in nearby Clayton, NC. Number 694 will be a bottle of Out of Your Gourd Pumpkin Porter from Redhook Ale Brewery located in Seattle in the state of Washington.
It is at this point that I remember that I have already added the brews from the previous beer tasting at the Wine Merchant to the Beer List. That event actually occurred after I consumed the beers listed in the paragraph above. To resolve that issue, we can just subtract five or so from the numbers above and probably also the next couple. It is also possible that one of the brews from that tasting was actually the 700th beer which would make this whole post a moot point. However, I am not going to worry about that technicality.
Number 695 will be a draft of Reverb Imperial Pilsner from Boulevard Brewing Company which is located in Kansas City, Missouri. Numbers 696 and 697 will both be from Ballast Point Brewing Company located in San Diego, CA. Their Tongue Buckler is an imperial red ale. I also had seemed to be a version of their Black Marlin Porter brewed with cocoa and chipotle peppers.
After some additional research, I have discovered that the brews from the beer tasting at the Wine Merchant fit right here chronologically. The numbering should be correct from here, so now we can stop doing all that subtracting in our heads.
Number 698 will be a draft of 4042 Stout from previously mentioned Deep River Brewing Company. Number 699 will be a pint of Crazy Pils from Aviator Brewing Company. I enjoyed that pint while touring their brewery over in the oddly-named town Fuquay-Varina. That bring us to entry number 700 on the beer list which I am pretty confident is a draft I had of Coronado Brewing Company's 17th Anniversary Ale. Coronado Brewing is, not surprisingly, located Coronado, California.
I have made it to 700 beers on my list. Of course, I still have a month's worth of backlogged entries including the two seasonal variety packs and the more recent beer tasting. I need to get cracking.
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Colorado Trip 2013: Days Six and Seven
This post will be my fourth and final entry covering my trip with my girlfriend Sara to Colorado. In the first post, I discussed our first and second days visiting with my sister, nephew and niece. My second post on this topic covered days three and four which saw us journeying up to a cabin in the Rockies Mountains. The third post discussed the fifth day. On that fifth day, we drove back from the Rockies.
Sara and I had the sixth day of our visit mostly to ourselves. We decided to borrow my sister's car and drive into downtown Boulder. The main drag in downtown Boulder is Pearl Street. We found a place to park the car on the street in a residential area a few blocks from Pearl Street and walked the rest of the way. We walked up and down Pearl including stretch known as the Pearl Street Mall which is closed off to traffic. We stopped by several of the eclectic shops along the way and picked up gifts for April and her family. Sara also bought gifts for friends who were watching her cat while she was away.
Eventually, it was past lunchtime, and we were past hungry. We were looking for a place to eat that had a local flavor, but we did not find anything that excited us. Instead, we ended up at West Flanders Brewing Company which is located at the western end of the Pearl Street Mall. The location was familiar to me because I had visited during my trip back in 2011. The location was previously home to a BJ's Restaurant and Brewhouse. I found out that the BJ's had since moved to a new location a couple of miles down the road, and in 2012, West Flanders took over their previous location on Pearl Street.
With her lunch, Sara ordered a pint of Tree Hugger Organic Amber from Asher Brewing Company. I helped her with it enough to feel comfortable adding it to my Beer List. I had promised myself that for lunch I would not have another buffalo burger along with another beer sampler, but that is exactly what I had. I believe West Flanders tries to focus on Belgian-style ales as their name would indicate. I had four of their tasters, the Trippel Lutz, Third Kingdom IPA, Canniption Pale Ale, and Angry Monk. The Trippel Lutz is obviously a Trippel. The Canniption and Third Kingdom are an American-style pale ale and an American-style IPA respectively. The Angry Monk is a Belgian-style pale ale, but the brewery's webpage has a humorous story about how their Angry Monk was originally called a "Trappist-style Ale."
Day seven was getaway day for Sara and me. Our flight back to Raleigh was delayed for a bit, so we had time to grab a snack and, of course, a beer or two. At Timberline Steaks and Grille in the Denver International Airport, she and I grabbed a couple of seats at the bar. I enjoyed a couple of brews from Odell Brewing Company located in Fort Collins, Colorado. I had the Odell IPA and the Odell 90 Shilling Ale. Then we boarded a plane and flew home.
Sara and I had the sixth day of our visit mostly to ourselves. We decided to borrow my sister's car and drive into downtown Boulder. The main drag in downtown Boulder is Pearl Street. We found a place to park the car on the street in a residential area a few blocks from Pearl Street and walked the rest of the way. We walked up and down Pearl including stretch known as the Pearl Street Mall which is closed off to traffic. We stopped by several of the eclectic shops along the way and picked up gifts for April and her family. Sara also bought gifts for friends who were watching her cat while she was away.
Eventually, it was past lunchtime, and we were past hungry. We were looking for a place to eat that had a local flavor, but we did not find anything that excited us. Instead, we ended up at West Flanders Brewing Company which is located at the western end of the Pearl Street Mall. The location was familiar to me because I had visited during my trip back in 2011. The location was previously home to a BJ's Restaurant and Brewhouse. I found out that the BJ's had since moved to a new location a couple of miles down the road, and in 2012, West Flanders took over their previous location on Pearl Street.
With her lunch, Sara ordered a pint of Tree Hugger Organic Amber from Asher Brewing Company. I helped her with it enough to feel comfortable adding it to my Beer List. I had promised myself that for lunch I would not have another buffalo burger along with another beer sampler, but that is exactly what I had. I believe West Flanders tries to focus on Belgian-style ales as their name would indicate. I had four of their tasters, the Trippel Lutz, Third Kingdom IPA, Canniption Pale Ale, and Angry Monk. The Trippel Lutz is obviously a Trippel. The Canniption and Third Kingdom are an American-style pale ale and an American-style IPA respectively. The Angry Monk is a Belgian-style pale ale, but the brewery's webpage has a humorous story about how their Angry Monk was originally called a "Trappist-style Ale."
Day seven was getaway day for Sara and me. Our flight back to Raleigh was delayed for a bit, so we had time to grab a snack and, of course, a beer or two. At Timberline Steaks and Grille in the Denver International Airport, she and I grabbed a couple of seats at the bar. I enjoyed a couple of brews from Odell Brewing Company located in Fort Collins, Colorado. I had the Odell IPA and the Odell 90 Shilling Ale. Then we boarded a plane and flew home.
Monday, October 21, 2013
Review: The Spy Who Loved Me
The Spy Who Loved Me by Ian Fleming
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
In my opinion, the grand master Ian Fleming swung and missed on this one. I suppose one should not expect an author to hit a gland slam every time out, nor should one expect every book in a series to live up to the previous works. There can be duds, and this is one.
The main character and narrator is Viv Michaels, a young French Canadian who was sent to finishing school in England by her aunt. After school, she spends a few years in Chelsea. After a brief return to Quebec, she departs on a journey down the United States on her Vespa motor scooter.
I do not think having a female character narrate a James Bond thriller is a bad idea, and I appreciate the author taking a risk with this popular series. Unfortunately, that that risk just does not pan out in this book. Perhaps if the narrator had been a femme fatale, the idea would have worked much better. In this case, the first half of the novel basically reads how I think a bad Harlequin romance would open.
James Bond does not make his appearance until about midway through the story. The most interesting part of the whole work is one chapter that explains how Bond has come to arrived at a motel in the Adirondack Mountains. This one chapter almost makes this book an actual spy novel. I think a fleshed out version of Bond's adventure up to that point should have been the meat of this work.
After arriving at the motel, Bond finds our narrator in some trouble. Viv has been working at the motel ever since stopping a few weeks earlier, and now that the tourist season has ended and the main proprietors have left for the winter, she is manning the place on her own. Needlessly to say, Bond helps her out of her jam.
While the last quarter of the book is exciting, it does not compensate for the mind-numbing first half nor the tease of an spy novel that is the Bond's backstory. I am ready to put this one behind me and move on the next in the series, On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
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Thursday, October 17, 2013
Colorado Trip 2013: Day Five
I am continuing my chronicle of Sara's and my recent trip to visit my sister and her family in Colorado. This will be the third post. The first two posts are available here and here.
On the fifth day of the trip and our third day staying in the Rockies Mountains, we all made a visit to Breckenridge, Colorado. We stopped by the town's Riverwalk area. There happened to be a marathon and half-marathon being held in Breckenridge that weekend, so we stopped and watched some runner finish their runs. Then we walked up and down the main street of town and hit a few of the tourist-trap shops.
We made it down the street to Breckenridge Brewery in time for lunch. I previously discussed Breckenridge Brewery in my post about my visit to Colorado in 2011 to see my sister. During that trip, she picked up a 12-bottle sampler pack that contained four of their brews. For lunch on this day, I once again ordered a tasting sampler. This sampler included three of the four beers from the sampler pack of bottles. Therefore, I had already tried their Agave Wheat, Vanilla Porter, and flagship Avalanche Ale. I seemed to have liked them from the bottle back then, and I enjoyed them as well on this occasion as drafts.
Their fifth main line brew, Oatmeal Stout, was also on the taster sampler as was the 471 Double IPA from their small batch collection. The other three brews on the tasting list seem less widely available. The menu says their Trademark Pale Ale is a local favorite. The menu also tells me that Zwickel Bier (or zwickelbier) is an unfiltered German-style lager. Then there was the Roasted Habanero IPA. Even with three of us taking sips, it took awhile for us to finish that one.
After lunch, we took the gondola up to the ski resort at the top of the mountain. Unfortunately, the gondola closed for a bit due to some weather, so we ended up taking a bus back down to the town of Breckenridge. Of course, by the time we got back down, the gondola was running once more.
On the fifth day of the trip and our third day staying in the Rockies Mountains, we all made a visit to Breckenridge, Colorado. We stopped by the town's Riverwalk area. There happened to be a marathon and half-marathon being held in Breckenridge that weekend, so we stopped and watched some runner finish their runs. Then we walked up and down the main street of town and hit a few of the tourist-trap shops.
We made it down the street to Breckenridge Brewery in time for lunch. I previously discussed Breckenridge Brewery in my post about my visit to Colorado in 2011 to see my sister. During that trip, she picked up a 12-bottle sampler pack that contained four of their brews. For lunch on this day, I once again ordered a tasting sampler. This sampler included three of the four beers from the sampler pack of bottles. Therefore, I had already tried their Agave Wheat, Vanilla Porter, and flagship Avalanche Ale. I seemed to have liked them from the bottle back then, and I enjoyed them as well on this occasion as drafts.
Their fifth main line brew, Oatmeal Stout, was also on the taster sampler as was the 471 Double IPA from their small batch collection. The other three brews on the tasting list seem less widely available. The menu says their Trademark Pale Ale is a local favorite. The menu also tells me that Zwickel Bier (or zwickelbier) is an unfiltered German-style lager. Then there was the Roasted Habanero IPA. Even with three of us taking sips, it took awhile for us to finish that one.
After lunch, we took the gondola up to the ski resort at the top of the mountain. Unfortunately, the gondola closed for a bit due to some weather, so we ended up taking a bus back down to the town of Breckenridge. Of course, by the time we got back down, the gondola was running once more.
Monday, October 14, 2013
Colorado Trip 2013: Days Three and Four
After a hiatus to discuss more recent beer consumption, this post is a continuation of the chronicle of Sara's and my trip to visit my sister and her family in Colorado. My first post on this subject covered the first two days of our stay. In this post, I will cover the next two days.
My sister's in-laws have a cabin in the Rocky Mountains near the tiny town of Alma, Colorado. On the third day of our visit, we drove up to the mountains. We stopped on the way for lunch at an restaurant in Fairplay, Colorado. I enjoyed a nice draft beer with my meal. Not unexpectedly, my cellphone got spotty coverage while I was in the Rockies. My texts to Twitter were randomly sent and posted whenever there was some decent coverage. I believe the beer I had at that restaurant was First Cast IPA from Elevation Beer Company which is located in Poncha Springs, Colorado. Honestly, I do not remember it being anything particularly special.
When we got to the cabin, I found that there was leftover beer in the refrigerator. I discovered a bottle of Caramel Apple Spiced Ale from Blue Moon which was probably from one of their Brewmaster's Seasonal Sample Packs for fall. I later purchased that sampler myself back in North Carolina, and I am drinking a bottle as I type this. The taste is sweet like caramel and has autumnal spices including, I would say, nutmeg.
On day four, we all got up early, climbed into my sister's Subaru Outback, and ventured into the Pike National Forest. Due to recent rain, some of the mountain roads were impassible for the Outback, but we eventually found our way to Kite Lake. The views were absolutely beautiful, but after awhile, we were ready from some lunch (and perhaps some beer).
We traveled down the mountain to Buena Vista, Colorado. We decided to have some lunch at Eddyline Restaurant & Brewery. Of course, I also decided to have their beer sample. It was not my first beer sampler of the trip, and it would not be the last. There is a photo of me on Facebook with a wooden paddle holding eight tasting glass. However, I only have the six brews shown in the accompanying photo plus one seasonal offering, their Innerglow Red Chile Porter. I do not know what the eighth glass would have been.
My sister's in-laws have a cabin in the Rocky Mountains near the tiny town of Alma, Colorado. On the third day of our visit, we drove up to the mountains. We stopped on the way for lunch at an restaurant in Fairplay, Colorado. I enjoyed a nice draft beer with my meal. Not unexpectedly, my cellphone got spotty coverage while I was in the Rockies. My texts to Twitter were randomly sent and posted whenever there was some decent coverage. I believe the beer I had at that restaurant was First Cast IPA from Elevation Beer Company which is located in Poncha Springs, Colorado. Honestly, I do not remember it being anything particularly special.
When we got to the cabin, I found that there was leftover beer in the refrigerator. I discovered a bottle of Caramel Apple Spiced Ale from Blue Moon which was probably from one of their Brewmaster's Seasonal Sample Packs for fall. I later purchased that sampler myself back in North Carolina, and I am drinking a bottle as I type this. The taste is sweet like caramel and has autumnal spices including, I would say, nutmeg.
On day four, we all got up early, climbed into my sister's Subaru Outback, and ventured into the Pike National Forest. Due to recent rain, some of the mountain roads were impassible for the Outback, but we eventually found our way to Kite Lake. The views were absolutely beautiful, but after awhile, we were ready from some lunch (and perhaps some beer).
We traveled down the mountain to Buena Vista, Colorado. We decided to have some lunch at Eddyline Restaurant & Brewery. Of course, I also decided to have their beer sample. It was not my first beer sampler of the trip, and it would not be the last. There is a photo of me on Facebook with a wooden paddle holding eight tasting glass. However, I only have the six brews shown in the accompanying photo plus one seasonal offering, their Innerglow Red Chile Porter. I do not know what the eighth glass would have been.
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Keg Tapping
I am skipping the continuation of my most recent trip to Colorado to cover another beer tasting event at the Wine Merchant in Cary, NC. I previously discussed a beer event at the shop back in March when I won a bag full of beer. Sara and I have since enjoyed another event which focused on various types of IPA brews. This "Tap Takeover" event focused exclusively on beers from Olde Hickory Brewery which, not surprisingly, is located in Hickory, NC. This tasting featured five brews from Olde Hickory, and while I have currently have two of their brews on the Beer List (the Imperial Stout and Table Rock Pale Ale), all five of these offerings were new to me. Unfortunately, this tasting occurred over two weeks ago, so as with my previous post, I will be depending heavily on the tasting sheet so graciously made available for the tasting.
The first brew that we sampled from Olde Hickory was the Single Hop Comet Pale Ale. As stated in the name, this brew features a single hop which is the rare Comet hop. Wikipedia tells me the Comet hop is American-grown and was "originally bred for its bittering characteristics". The group with whom Sara and I enjoyed the tasting mostly thought this beer had an herbal smell and first taste that led into a bitter finish and aftertaste. The tasting sheet tells me that this is the first in a serial of single-hop ales from the brewery. It also tells me this brew is 7.0% ABV.
Our second sampling was Olde Hickory's fall seasonal offering, Oktoberfest. This brew is a Märzen which is a pale lager. The tasting sheet notes that seven different malts were used in this brew while Olde Hickory's website tells me Noble hops were used to balance the malts. This drinkable brew is only 6.0% ABV.
The third beer to be sampled was their Death by Hops which I have previously managed to avoid. As expected, this Double IPA is a super-hoppy brew. The tasting sheets informs me that five different hops originating from the West Coast are used in this beer. Those five are Chinook, Columbus, Simcoe, Centennial, and the popular Cascade. Did I mention this one was hoppy? Their webpage does mention that two types of barley, Carapils and Crisp Crystal, were also used in the brewing process. This one is another that is at 7.0% ABV.
Next was even more hops with the Redeemer which is one of the brewery's limited releases. This brew is an Imperial IPA and weighs in at a hefty 10.0% ABV. It also counts five West Coast hops (Columbus, Centennial, Amarillo, Cascade, and Zythos) among its ingredients list. Not only did I have to work my way through my portion, I had to drink most of Sara's since she decided to go ahead and move on to the next and final offering.
Rounding out the five taps was David The Bat which is a Scotch ale. The tasting sheet tells me this brew was the winner of a homebrewing competition hosted by Olde Hickory. This one is 8.0% ABV.
This was another fun and interesting beer tasting, and I am ready for the next beer event at the shop later this month.
The first brew that we sampled from Olde Hickory was the Single Hop Comet Pale Ale. As stated in the name, this brew features a single hop which is the rare Comet hop. Wikipedia tells me the Comet hop is American-grown and was "originally bred for its bittering characteristics". The group with whom Sara and I enjoyed the tasting mostly thought this beer had an herbal smell and first taste that led into a bitter finish and aftertaste. The tasting sheet tells me that this is the first in a serial of single-hop ales from the brewery. It also tells me this brew is 7.0% ABV.
Our second sampling was Olde Hickory's fall seasonal offering, Oktoberfest. This brew is a Märzen which is a pale lager. The tasting sheet notes that seven different malts were used in this brew while Olde Hickory's website tells me Noble hops were used to balance the malts. This drinkable brew is only 6.0% ABV.
The third beer to be sampled was their Death by Hops which I have previously managed to avoid. As expected, this Double IPA is a super-hoppy brew. The tasting sheets informs me that five different hops originating from the West Coast are used in this beer. Those five are Chinook, Columbus, Simcoe, Centennial, and the popular Cascade. Did I mention this one was hoppy? Their webpage does mention that two types of barley, Carapils and Crisp Crystal, were also used in the brewing process. This one is another that is at 7.0% ABV.
Next was even more hops with the Redeemer which is one of the brewery's limited releases. This brew is an Imperial IPA and weighs in at a hefty 10.0% ABV. It also counts five West Coast hops (Columbus, Centennial, Amarillo, Cascade, and Zythos) among its ingredients list. Not only did I have to work my way through my portion, I had to drink most of Sara's since she decided to go ahead and move on to the next and final offering.
Rounding out the five taps was David The Bat which is a Scotch ale. The tasting sheet tells me this brew was the winner of a homebrewing competition hosted by Olde Hickory. This one is 8.0% ABV.
This was another fun and interesting beer tasting, and I am ready for the next beer event at the shop later this month.
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Colorado Trip 2013: Days One and Two
Near the end of last month, my girlfriend Sara and I flew to Colorado for my now annual visit with my sister April and her family. I previously posted about my trips around Labor Day last year and back in April of 2011. Colorado is well known as one of the best states for beer. My previous two Colorado-related posts were heavy on beer consumption, but this trip topped both of those in that regard. So much so in fact, that I am going to break up this trip into several more-easily-digestible posts.
On the first day, I was happy to discover that my sister has a sample pack in her refrigerator from Left Hand Brewing Company. I tried a bottle of the Stranger American Pale Ale which was new to me and a bottle of their flagship Sawtooth Ale which was already on my Beer List. Left Hand's brewery is located in Longmont, Colorado.
On the afternoon of the second day of our visit, Sara, April and I had ourselves a little outing. We started at Avery Brewing Company's tap room in Boulder. I decided to have four IPA tasters. Their standard IPA is on the Beer List in almost every imaginable form. The other three samples, Simcoe/Chinook IPA, Summer’s Day IPA, and duganA IPA were all specials of the tap room. It was interesting to taste the subtle and not-so-subtle differences between the four flavors of IPA.
The next stop on our second day beer outing was Twelve Degree Brewing (or 12° Brewing per their logo) in Louisville, Colorado. They seemed to be a relatively new microbrewery. They focus almost exclusively on Belgian-style beers which I appreciate. The three of us sampled six of their own brews plus two from guest taps. The six of their beers that we tried were the Soleil Saison which is a Belgian farmhouse ale, Walter's White which is a which is a Belgian-style white ale, Brabant Tripel, Foxx Rougge, Sorach which was another farmhouse ale, and Sorach L'Orange which was brewed with oranges. The two guest brews were Powder Daze Pale (now Powder Run Pale) from Echo Brewing in Frederick, Colorado and Hop Savant from the Crooked Stave Artisan Beer Project out of Denver.
Our next stop before getting some ice cream was Lucky Pie Pizza & Taphouse which is also in Lewisville. In addition to some great food including their hand-made pizzas, I elected to go with their Colorado beer sampler. The sampler included Tivoli Helles Lager. Tivoli Brewing Company is located in Denver. The sampler also included Hoppy Bock Lager from New Belgium Brewing which is located in Fort Collins, Colorado (and soon to be Asheville, North Carolina) and Moirai IPA from FATE Brewing Company in Boulder.
After enjoying some ice cream and before heading back to April's house, we dropped in at Gravity Brewing which was down the street and across the railroad tracks. While there, I had an Ante Meridiem Espresso Stout and a Schwag Session Ale.
I will cover the rest of my Colorado trip in a subsequent post (or posts). However, I did want to mention that Boulder and the surrounding areas were hit hard by devastating flooding a couple of weeks after Sara and I were safely back home in North Carolina. I am happy to report that my sister, her family and their house were all spared any harm from the flooding.
On the first day, I was happy to discover that my sister has a sample pack in her refrigerator from Left Hand Brewing Company. I tried a bottle of the Stranger American Pale Ale which was new to me and a bottle of their flagship Sawtooth Ale which was already on my Beer List. Left Hand's brewery is located in Longmont, Colorado.
On the afternoon of the second day of our visit, Sara, April and I had ourselves a little outing. We started at Avery Brewing Company's tap room in Boulder. I decided to have four IPA tasters. Their standard IPA is on the Beer List in almost every imaginable form. The other three samples, Simcoe/Chinook IPA, Summer’s Day IPA, and duganA IPA were all specials of the tap room. It was interesting to taste the subtle and not-so-subtle differences between the four flavors of IPA.
The next stop on our second day beer outing was Twelve Degree Brewing (or 12° Brewing per their logo) in Louisville, Colorado. They seemed to be a relatively new microbrewery. They focus almost exclusively on Belgian-style beers which I appreciate. The three of us sampled six of their own brews plus two from guest taps. The six of their beers that we tried were the Soleil Saison which is a Belgian farmhouse ale, Walter's White which is a which is a Belgian-style white ale, Brabant Tripel, Foxx Rougge, Sorach which was another farmhouse ale, and Sorach L'Orange which was brewed with oranges. The two guest brews were Powder Daze Pale (now Powder Run Pale) from Echo Brewing in Frederick, Colorado and Hop Savant from the Crooked Stave Artisan Beer Project out of Denver.
Our next stop before getting some ice cream was Lucky Pie Pizza & Taphouse which is also in Lewisville. In addition to some great food including their hand-made pizzas, I elected to go with their Colorado beer sampler. The sampler included Tivoli Helles Lager. Tivoli Brewing Company is located in Denver. The sampler also included Hoppy Bock Lager from New Belgium Brewing which is located in Fort Collins, Colorado (and soon to be Asheville, North Carolina) and Moirai IPA from FATE Brewing Company in Boulder.
After enjoying some ice cream and before heading back to April's house, we dropped in at Gravity Brewing which was down the street and across the railroad tracks. While there, I had an Ante Meridiem Espresso Stout and a Schwag Session Ale.
I will cover the rest of my Colorado trip in a subsequent post (or posts). However, I did want to mention that Boulder and the surrounding areas were hit hard by devastating flooding a couple of weeks after Sara and I were safely back home in North Carolina. I am happy to report that my sister, her family and their house were all spared any harm from the flooding.
Monday, August 26, 2013
Review: Secret Pilgrim
Secret Pilgrim by John le CarréMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
This book is eighth and final of John le Carré's works featuring his most well-known character, George Smiley. I have read five of the previous seven novels, and of those previous works, I think this one is most similar to The Looking Glass War in the fact that Smiley is not the main character but plays an ancillary role. The main character is a fellow spy by the name of Ned who due to the outcome of the Russia House as come to serve as the headmaster of the training academy for new agents. Ned has invited the now-retired Smiley to visit the school and address the new group of recruits.
This book does not read like a single coherent novel but rather like a group of episodic short stories or chronological vignettes. With the background of Smiley speaking to the agents-in-training, Ned reminisces about his own career starting with his first adventure as a young intelligence officer. Each episode is interesting own its own and helps develop Ned into a full-featured character. I suppose the aim of the overall novel is to highlight the themes of the Smiley series as it brings the series to a close.
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Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Another Great Idea
Last Wednesday, the National Football League announced changes to the Pro Bowl starting this season. There will be multiple changes including eliminating kickoffs and adding two-minute warnings at the end of the first and third quarters. The most prominent change is dropping the long-established NFC and AFC affiliations. Instead of selecting players based on conference, the players for the two teams will be selected by a fantasy-type draft. This change is similar to my suggestion for the Pro Bowl as part of my proposal for improving the NFL and is similar to the format adopted by the NHL several years ago for its All-Star Game.
To be honest, my suggested change to the Pro Bowl was necessitated by my proposal for dropping the AFC and NFC. I am hopeful that the actual changes to the Pro Bowl will foreshadow a future elimination of the two historical conferences. Perhaps changing the Pro Bowl format is just the first step in a major reorganization of the league.
I previously never got around to fleshing out the details of the last component of my NFL proposal with addressed managing the broadcast rights for NFL games, To finally finish up my NFL proposal, I am going to write about this last part (for now at least). Below is a summary of the first six points followed by the seventh.
NFL Proposal Summary
Under my plan, the networks would basically buy the rights to the currently established time slots. The networks would also be allocated a certain number of points for each season. Using these pools of points, there would be an auction for the television rights to each regular-season game. I think there would probably have to be a separate auction to establish the broadcast schedule for postseason games.
In regards to broadcast scheduling, I would also establish a rule that teams located in the Mountain and Pacific Time Zones could not be scheduled for regular season games starting at one o'clock Eastern. I do not think scheduling West Coast teams for early kickoffs is fair for the players traveling across the country or the fans of those teams. Unfortunately, there would have to be an exception to this rule for the playoffs since there are a limited number of playoff games and my tournament format forces teams to travel across country.
To be honest, my suggested change to the Pro Bowl was necessitated by my proposal for dropping the AFC and NFC. I am hopeful that the actual changes to the Pro Bowl will foreshadow a future elimination of the two historical conferences. Perhaps changing the Pro Bowl format is just the first step in a major reorganization of the league.
I previously never got around to fleshing out the details of the last component of my NFL proposal with addressed managing the broadcast rights for NFL games, To finally finish up my NFL proposal, I am going to write about this last part (for now at least). Below is a summary of the first six points followed by the seventh.
NFL Proposal Summary
- Eliminating Conferences: Drop the NFC and AFC and change from the eight four-team divisions to four eight-team divisions by merging the divisions with the same direction names
- Realignment: Rotate Baltimore, Indianapolis and Miami to form more geographically-correct divisions
- Relocation: Not a fixed proposal, but the suggested divisional alignment would be better able to handle future relocation of teams
- Regular Season Schedule: Teams would have 16- or 17-game schedules composed of two games versus each divisional opponent plus two or three games against teams from other divisions
- Playoff Tournament: Fixed-bracket postseason tournament with semifinal winners continuing to receive the George Halas and Lamar Hunt Trophies
- Pro Bowl: Players for the two Pro Bowl teams are selected from a pre-established pool in a televised fantasy-style draft - Done
7. Television Schedule
The current contacts with the various television networks would have to be adapted to handle the first part of my NFL proposal that eliminates the AFC and NFC. The two contracts for broadcasting NFL games on Sundays at 1 PM and 4:30 PM are based around the two conferences. The Fox Broadcasting Company currently owns the rights to televise NFC games while CBS has the rights to the AFC games. For inter-conference games, the broadcast rights are based on conference of the visiting team. There are separate television contracts for the time slot on Thursdays at 8:30 PM (currently held by the NFL Network), Sundays at 8:30 PM (currently held by NBC), and Mondays at 8:30 PM (currently held by ESPN).Under my plan, the networks would basically buy the rights to the currently established time slots. The networks would also be allocated a certain number of points for each season. Using these pools of points, there would be an auction for the television rights to each regular-season game. I think there would probably have to be a separate auction to establish the broadcast schedule for postseason games.
In regards to broadcast scheduling, I would also establish a rule that teams located in the Mountain and Pacific Time Zones could not be scheduled for regular season games starting at one o'clock Eastern. I do not think scheduling West Coast teams for early kickoffs is fair for the players traveling across the country or the fans of those teams. Unfortunately, there would have to be an exception to this rule for the playoffs since there are a limited number of playoff games and my tournament format forces teams to travel across country.
Friday, July 5, 2013
The Searchers
I want to begin by promising my mostly imaginary readers that this post will not be a book review from Goodreads. I have had some free time recently, so I have been able to finish a few books that I had been reading plus had plenty of time to write reviews for them. My three most recent posts were book reviews which makes four straight going back to March and five out of the last six going back to February. Instead of a book review, I am going to discuss a few topics somewhat related to career.
I was contacted recently by a friend I had not seen in a few years. He was the primary organizer of our friendly neighborhood get-togethers. I had thought that he had gotten a new job, and he and his family had moved somewhere out west. Instead, it seems that the job offer fell through, the family had not moved, and he has been busy getting his own business off the ground. He was previously a recruiter for various companies. Now, he is trying his hand as a career consultant. He is also working on a book. He asked me to stop by his office for a conversation. I readily agreed but mostly because his new venture is headquartered in the offices behind his sister-in-law's and her husband's new brewery.
The visit went well. I am glad that he is still in the area, and we discussed getting the get-togethers restarted. Those have fallen off significantly since he stopped participating. Unfortunately, I was never quite clear on his intentions for me. He obviously was looking for assistance with his new business from several different angles. Specifically what he was looking for from me was never quite clear. He mentioned technical help with the company although I assume on a volunteer basis. He was also discretely looking for investors. (However, he has been not-so-discretely searching for funding via the online site Fundly.) Of course, I am also a potential client for his career services and a customer for his book. In the end, I just enjoyed the conversation and the free beer.
In other news, my company has recently gone through a reorganization which included some layoffs. Several people that I know were affected including three in my group. Some of the affected people I know were older, so they were able to take early-retirement. I was switched to another department, but at the moment, my job is safe. In fact, a few months back, I was approached about an open position in a different group under a manager I know pretty well. I interviewed with that manager, was offered the position, and accepted. However, my transition was blocked by the manger of my new department. While you would think being needed that much would be a good thing, I do not think that is the case here. My recent annual rating was only average. I had discussions about a promotion with both my previous and potential managers, but my current manager has not been receptive to that idea. However, I did get a decent raise which helped somewhat salve my disgruntlement.
I also ran into one of my old managers at a recent chapter meeting of my particular professional organization. I have always been friendly with this guy. At our previous company, he and I played on a softball team together. His son and daughter also stepped up to play a few games for the team when we needed some extra players. I started called him "bossman" in the softball field and eventually in the office. He organized outings to hockey games. Unfortunately, I learned that he had just lost his job and was now looking for a new position.
Which brings us to the topic covered during that particular chapter meeting. The presentation just so happened to be from a career counselor. I paid rapt attention and took notes. I am sharing some of his career tips covering résumé-writing and interviewing below.
Résumé
The speaker was a retired lieutenant colonel in the United States Army, so some of his tips such as the shined shoes reflect that experience. However, he also had experience in the private sector, and some of this tips such as not overdressing the part reflect that.
I was contacted recently by a friend I had not seen in a few years. He was the primary organizer of our friendly neighborhood get-togethers. I had thought that he had gotten a new job, and he and his family had moved somewhere out west. Instead, it seems that the job offer fell through, the family had not moved, and he has been busy getting his own business off the ground. He was previously a recruiter for various companies. Now, he is trying his hand as a career consultant. He is also working on a book. He asked me to stop by his office for a conversation. I readily agreed but mostly because his new venture is headquartered in the offices behind his sister-in-law's and her husband's new brewery.
The visit went well. I am glad that he is still in the area, and we discussed getting the get-togethers restarted. Those have fallen off significantly since he stopped participating. Unfortunately, I was never quite clear on his intentions for me. He obviously was looking for assistance with his new business from several different angles. Specifically what he was looking for from me was never quite clear. He mentioned technical help with the company although I assume on a volunteer basis. He was also discretely looking for investors. (However, he has been not-so-discretely searching for funding via the online site Fundly.) Of course, I am also a potential client for his career services and a customer for his book. In the end, I just enjoyed the conversation and the free beer.
In other news, my company has recently gone through a reorganization which included some layoffs. Several people that I know were affected including three in my group. Some of the affected people I know were older, so they were able to take early-retirement. I was switched to another department, but at the moment, my job is safe. In fact, a few months back, I was approached about an open position in a different group under a manager I know pretty well. I interviewed with that manager, was offered the position, and accepted. However, my transition was blocked by the manger of my new department. While you would think being needed that much would be a good thing, I do not think that is the case here. My recent annual rating was only average. I had discussions about a promotion with both my previous and potential managers, but my current manager has not been receptive to that idea. However, I did get a decent raise which helped somewhat salve my disgruntlement.
I also ran into one of my old managers at a recent chapter meeting of my particular professional organization. I have always been friendly with this guy. At our previous company, he and I played on a softball team together. His son and daughter also stepped up to play a few games for the team when we needed some extra players. I started called him "bossman" in the softball field and eventually in the office. He organized outings to hockey games. Unfortunately, I learned that he had just lost his job and was now looking for a new position.
Which brings us to the topic covered during that particular chapter meeting. The presentation just so happened to be from a career counselor. I paid rapt attention and took notes. I am sharing some of his career tips covering résumé-writing and interviewing below.
Résumé
- Your résumé should be in a readable font such as 11 point Times New Roman
- Your name and email address should be at the top of each page on your résumé
- Have a professional summary instead of an objective statement
- Research the company to know what they do and what they are looking for
- Instead of just a résumé, make the document a proposal presenting solutions
- Include a list of skills specific to the job posting to which you are responding
- Address every key word in the description from the job posting
- Your résumé should be limited to two pages with all the fluff removed
- Do not list your membership in organizations that are not related to the job posting
- Be well-groomed with a professional-looking haircut, trimmed fingernails and shined shoes
- Again, do some research in order to be knowledge about the company
- Do not under-dress or significantly overdress for the interview
- Dress a step above how current employees at your potential position in the company dress
- Answer the "Tell me about yourself" inquiry with a professional response that addresses solutions to the job posting
- Have prepared questions for the interviewer such as "How does this position contribute to the overall success of the company?"
The speaker was a retired lieutenant colonel in the United States Army, so some of his tips such as the shined shoes reflect that experience. However, he also had experience in the private sector, and some of this tips such as not overdressing the part reflect that.
Thursday, July 4, 2013
Review: Smoke and Mirrors
Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I has been has been quite a long time since I read Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, Stardust, and American Gods. In fact, it was several years before I joined Goodreads. However, I remember thoroughly enjoying all three of those novels. (I also thought the movie version of Stardust was great.) I do have to admit that I have not read any of his graphic novels though.
Perhaps it is the length of time that has elapsed or perhaps it is just the prudish American in me, but I do not remember his novels being particularly disturbing or having a heavy reference to sex. With many of the stories and poems in this book, it almost seems that the author is just trying to be shocking for the sake of being shocking. Many of the works either focus on sex directly or relate tangentially and usually in an overly creepy manner. Some other selections might not have concerned sex per se but still managed to relate to genitalia with the male type seemingly more referenced than female. While I really do not think of myself as particularly prudish, all this just did not work for me. However, I did find the various works readable, and almost all of them were thought-provoking which I very much did appreciate.
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Sunday, June 30, 2013
Review: You Are Here: A Portable History of the Universe
You Are Here: A Portable History of the Universe by Christopher Potter
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I swear that I wrote the bulk of this review prior to completing the book. I read most of this book while traveling and wrote my initial thoughts on a sheet of paper from a notepad printed with the name of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino where I was staying in Las Vegas. I state this because I wrote the part about Wikipedia before I got to the end of book where in a note at the end of the bibliography, the author states that he, in fact, frequently consulted Wikipedia as part of his research while writing the book. Perhaps that is why the book reads like several Wikipedia articles strung together.
I am somewhat biased I am afraid because I have read several book of the popular-science type and particularly ones covering the beginning of the universe and the development of life. I have read A Short History of Nearly Everything, The Science Class You Wish You Had, Coming of Age in the Milky Way, and of course, Carl Sagan's Cosmos and Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time. I feel that any of those authors could have written this book in just a few days using nothing but Wikipedia as a reference.
The universe is immense. The universe is old. The universe is complex. That is all. Carry on. So goes the first meaningful chapter which is a straightforward comparison of size starting at one meter and proceeding ever larger until arriving at the size of the visible universe. In similar fashion, subsequent chapters cover the history of science including the development of the scientific method and measuring devices. A chapter midway through the book mirrors the earlier chapter by starting at 100 centimeters and going down to subatomic particles. Other chapters start at the Big Bang and the birth of the universe and proceed through the development of galaxies including our own Milky Way, then the Solar System and our home planet, and then the development of life on Earth and eventually arriving at the evolution of our own species. The information presented is easily gathered from Wikipedia and is arranged in a basically straightforward manner.
I would like to think that I can appreciate a well-written popular science book. I just do not think this is an example of one.
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