This beer is a dark amber, slightly copper pour, lighter than in the photo. It is lightly carbonated, and tastes a bit thin if you drink it too cold, I mean at lager temperatures. You can smell the malt and nice hops in the aroma. There is not much citrus, which is a good thing as far as I am concerned. The taste is mild and pleasant, on the malty side. It gets rounder as it warms. This is not in the same league as the wonderful brown ales of England, but it is a fine American Brown that rejects intense hoppiness. You could drink several of these and enjoy them. Overall, this is a pleasant, if nondescript beer. Maybe a good brew to use to introduce someone used to light American lagers to more flavorful ales. It is unlikely to upset anyone, or impress them either. So mark it down as an acceptable, though safe choice.
This can be a wonderful beer, really. It can be mellow, complex, with nutty flavors. Or it can be skunked like the one I am drinking right now. The light ruins the beer and makes it sharp, sour, and one dimensional. The last one I had was nectar, this one sucks. And I bought them from the same place.
See, a clear bottle depends either on intense pasteurization like Miller does or exquisite shipping and handling. To use a clear bottle, you must protect the bottles during the entire shipping process. This one was ruined.
Or you can avoid this all and have it on tap, or the new mini keg I have seen advertised. Once I see that for sale, it is bought. But for this skunked beer, if I was not so cheap I would toss it.
It is true. I have this problem with my alcohol consumption. A 6 pack lasts me too long to post enough about the beers I enjoy. See, I like to be drinking the beer while I write about it. Makes sense to me. But since a 6 pack tends to last me at least a week, I cannot write about as many beers as I would like to. It is a problem. I just do not drink fast enough.
And I am not thinking I can drink much more really, it does not suit me. So I will try to purchase some variety packs to help increase the number of different beers I have to taste and write about. That is really the best I can figure out to do. Sorry about the lack of beer posts, but I have this drinking problem.
It is like when I used to make beer. I would make it faster than I could drink it, so I had to buy more bottles and a frig in which to store it. Those cost money, so my lack of drinking was costing my family.
One of my musical projects is putting my records and cds onto my computer hard drive so that I can enjoy the tunes in a more user friendly fashion. And it is great, I have them loaded up on Media Player and can listen to my cds and high resolution vinyl sourced files with ease. I expected this ability to make it more fun to listen to tunes, and to make them more accessible for my wife and children, and it has done that. For instance, it is easy and simple to listen to different versions of songs or just Ben Folds or all Beatles. My wife and oldest daughter responded by listening to music more. Cool! But I expected that.
I did NOT expect that my cds would sound so much better once they are ripped to my hard drive. I rip them at full resolution, that is what external 1 terabyte drives are for! And they sound better than they do when played by my rather nice Denon universal player. I use a M-audio sound card that can play the 24/96 vinyl files and use my Denon receiver to decode the data. And it sounds fantastic!
But those are not the real topics of the post, just encouragement for any reader of this humble blog to do the work to put their music on their hard drive. At full rez, you will thank me.
The real subject I wish to address is a form of prejudice. You see, after I rip the files, they are sorted into a genre. Now the genre is typically wrong or simplistic. Ben Folds does not always ROCK, he is more likely to POP or even POWER POP. And he writes a mean BALLAD. Think Brick. I do not want to hear Brick, a BALLAD when I am wanting to ROCK out. So I go in and make more accurate genre labels for each song on each album. It takes time, but it is time well spent.
So I get an artist like Phil Keagy or a band like King's X and they are lumped into RELIGIOUS or CHRISTIAN. Huh? I guess I can kind of understand Rebecca St. James being in that genre, but it is difficult to make that fit when she does songs like this:
OK, it starts off nice and gentle, but that is rocking in the middle! I agree that her lyrics are explicitly Christian. But many of The Clash's lyrics were explicitly socialist. And I do not see their music lumped together with Billy Bragg because of the world view of the people who make it. Here is Phil Keagy. Most of his music is classified in the RELIGIOUS genre, but does that fit his wide variety and diversity of musical output? You decide. Here is Phil playing what I call ACOUSTIC.
Wow. And it is wonderful in full resolution over your stereo. It has no words, but it is RELIGIOUS? Now I am sure Phil dedicates his music to God and Jesus, way to go Phil! But so did Bach. And if this is RELIGIOUS, what is it when Phil does this?
I think that fits the genre of ROCK or AMAZING GUITAR if I had that genre. Perhaps I will! But most of Phil's excellent work is put in RELIGIOUS. And some people would rather be caught listening to Perry Como than shopping in the RELIGIOUS aisle of even iTunes.
If this is you, stop being so prejudiced. It is keeping you from knowing and listening to outstanding music. Now I appreciate and am blessed by the spiritual content of Christian music. But I love listening to the Clash and I do not share their world view. If you are avoiding good music because it is Christian, your life is the poorer for it.
So listen to some Phil Keagy, some Rebecca St. James, some Jennifer Knapp, some Petra, some King's X. Rock out with The Call, funk it up with Kirk Franklin, bob your head to Toby Mac. Heck, I am an old fart, so I am not hip to even a small percentage of the excellent Christian music being made. I will the stuff I know and love in the future, but in truth, to hear about it, you will have to seek it out. Because mainstream wants to put it in a little box that does not fit.
But you, gentle reader, are not the kind of person to accept that kind of prejudice.
I was looking for a video of Al Green doing "I'm So Tired Of Being Alone" with Chicago. It is included on the remixed cd of VI. I have been grooving to that song hard! I found it, almost. The clip had been removed due to the copyright holder's somplaint. Well, I understand that, even though it makes me sad. So here is another song from the album, Feeling Stronger Everyday.
Well, it is barely August. This is a Christmas ale that I picked up because I love everything that the Left Hand Brewing Company puts out. I bet their waste water tastes like nectar! Their Mil Stout is served in heaven. On draft. Really.
So this is a lightly carbonated ale that pours with a medium brown color. You can smell the spices as soon as your nose gets near the glass. The aroma is strong of nutmeg, clove, and maybe some cinnamon. In that order more or less. The smell is fresh but powerful. If you eschew spice additives in your beer, stay away. Stay away from anyone at the next table drinking this beer!
I usually do not like spiced beer, but this is from Left Hand. So I like it! The strong spice is primarily nutmeg and it goes down easily with an interesting aftertaste. The beer loses some crispness as it warms, and the spice becomes more prominent. The alcohol is 8.6%. This spiced ale is not for everyone, but then spiced ales are a niche product. I am glad I am drinking this one, but I would save the next one if I had bought two.
A great powerpop record by Bill Lloyd. From 1987, before he became a part of Foster and Lloyd. I had heard the title song on the local Vanderbilt radio station and enjoyed the quirky goodness. After I bought the album, I was really surprised at the quality of the rest of the songs. There is a little Alex Chilton in Bill's voice, guitar, and writing, and that my friends is a very good thing. The cd is out of print, but I have seen the music available online. Here is a low quality video of Bill blasting a song from the record. If you love powerpop, and God knows I do, this is one to add to your collection.
