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Beer Rants and Books

Monthly Archives: March 2019

Edmund’s Oast – Something Cold

28 Thursday Mar 2019

Posted by mrericness in Beer Reviews

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Beer, Beer Review, Blonde Ale, Craft Beer, Edmunds Oast, South Carolina

Here I am, getting back into the swing of things after wrapping up a week and a half visit with family in Central Florida last week!  With temperatures hovering in the mid-70s (a good 35-40 degrees warmer than what we left in Boston), it seems somewhat appropriate that one of my first beers from the trip is a warm-weather style.  I had this on-tap during our traditional visit to Maggie’s Attic in Mount Dora.

Beer Name: Something Cold

Brewery: Edmund’s Oast (Charleston, SC)

Style: Blonde Ale

ABV: 5.0%

Description: The brewery’s “ultra deluxe” blonde ale.  Read all about and get some of the brewing specs here on their website.

Appearance: On draft it poured a see through straw-yellow body topped by a thin layer of white foam.

Smell: Faint sweetness.

Taste: It began with crisp, mellow light malts and grains.  From there it took on some mild fruit and light malt sweetness.  Very balanced and smooth throughout.

Mouthfeel: Roughly medium bodied with slightly less than moderate carbonation.

Hype: None that I am aware of.  I was just happy to see a friendly tap to help me get into the vacation mood.

Overall: It was a very good beer for enjoying in warm weather.  It’s not really of a style about which one can rave about big flavors, but for what this was I enjoyed it.  The beer offered everything I was looking for in the style, namely a refreshingly crisp, clean taste and a nice bit of sweetness.

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Vacation!

21 Thursday Mar 2019

Posted by mrericness in Uncategorized

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Blog Life, Vacation

Hi everybody!  The BeerRantsAndBooks family is currently on vacation and will be out of town until the end of the month. I won’t be posting for the reminder of my trip but rest assured I have plenty of great content on the way.  One of the great things about visiting family is that it gives me a chance to not only check out some out of market beers, but I also get to catch up on my reading as well. See you in April!

Great Divide Brewing Company – Chai Yeti

19 Tuesday Mar 2019

Posted by mrericness in Beer Reviews

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Beer, Beer Review, Colorado, Craft Beer, Great Divide Brewing Company, Stout

My wife and I hit up the beer store the other day and after looking through our options decided to bring home a Pack of Yetis – a box containing three different versions of the Yeti stout plus the handy little mug shown below.  Having already decided on purchasing one bottle of the Chai Yeti for $11-12, deciding to spring the extra $10 for the rest of the haul was an easy choice.

Beer Name: Chai Yeti

Brewery: Great Divide Brewing Company (Denver, CO)

Style: Imperial Stout

ABV: 9.5%

Description: Per the brewery’s website, this version of the beer blends traditional chai spices of cinnamon, green cardamom, black pepper, ginger, nutmeg, and vanilla into their malty, roasty Yeti stout.

Appearance: It poured a thick black body topped by a dark tan head.

Smell: Sweet dark malts with a hint of light roasted coffee and chai spices.

Taste: Creamy sweet malts upfront with the chai influence coming through towards the finish where it comes out just ahead of the base beer’s bitter and moderately roasty finish.

Mouthfeel: The body was thick was a touch below moderate level of carbonation.

Hype: Personally elevated.  The regular Yeti was one of those beers that really got me into stouts so many years ago and I was very interested to see what this version was all about.

Overall: Highly enjoyable!  The chai was a nice addition to an already solid base beer and served to really compliment the flavors of the original brew.  

Book Review: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, by Becky Chambers (Book One in the Wayfarers Series)

14 Thursday Mar 2019

Posted by mrericness in Book Reviews, Sci-Fi

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Becky Chambers, Book, Book Review, Reading, Sci-Fi, Science Fiction, Wayfarer

I had been looking forward to this read for quite some time, though for some reason I was slow to pull it off my long list of books to read.  Since being self-published in 2014, and subsequently picked up by Hodder & Stoughton the following year, this series has been consistently featured on numerous must-read lists and blog reviews that I’ve come across in my daily browsing.  Now it’s finally time for me to join the party!

The story follows the crew of the Wayfarer, a small-time space tunneling ship, as they welcome aboard a new member, a Mars-born clerk named Rosemary Harper who, despite her inexperience, is quite eager to leave her past behind and head out into the stars.  Taking advantage of the extra credibility having a clerk apparently lends to their operation, Captain Ashby Santoso secures a potentially dangerous yet highly lucrative contract for his ragtag crew. It’s the same job they’ve always done, but to get there must endure a long flight to a small, inhospitable planet that was until recently the focus of civil war between an alien species whose motives no one seems to understand.

Although this book ended up being way more character focused that I had originally thought it would be, I must say that the diverse cast of alien and human characters made it an incredibly fun read!  They collectively gave me a Farscape-meets-Firefly vibe and their personalities and crew dynamic were certainly enough to keep the long journey entertaining.  I particularly liked the closeness of the crew and the running banter/cultural curiosities that carried on between the alien and human characters.  While each crew member had a chance to have at least some of their story told, the two that stood out the most for me were Kizzy Shao, an extremely extroverted, video game loving, smash-smoking human machine technician, and Dr. Chef, an affable six-limbed Grum who does double duty as ship’s physician and cook.  On the topic of Dr. Chef, and the rest of the non-human cast for that matter, I also really enjoyed the author’s tendency to go a bit further outside the box in terms of alien physiology than most popular Sci-Fi adventures seem to go. I feel like this is something that doesn’t get explored nearly as often as it should.

Beyond the characters, there were a couple of areas in which this book really stood out for me as unique.  Most notably, the concept of gender fluidity and a wide variety of sexual orientations played pretty central roles in most of the character’s stories.  While this wasn’t necessarily as big a selling point for me personally as it has been for a lot of other reviewers I’ve come across, I did enjoy how these different perspectives shaped the story and contributed to the book’s themes of seeking to understand and respect each others’ differences and celebrating our relationships (platonic or otherwise) with the people we choose to include in our lives.  These topics were presented in such a fun, positive way that they added an extra bit of the joy of the read beyond what the characters had to offer.

On the other hand, my biggest criticism of this book is that for a space adventure it did not really have a lot of action in it.  While I appreciate that this was not the main intention of the story, there were a few places, particularly in the middle, where I felt a little bit more could have happened without sacrificing the core of what the story was.  As much as I liked the episodic chapters and slice of life (in space!) feels, a part of me was left wanting for a slightly deeper plot. Don’t get me wrong, I thought the universe was quite interesting and the characters a fantastic group of beings to hang out with, but I feel like we only barely touched the surface of this world and I wish I was able to go farther into it.

With that in mind I am feeling somewhat conflicted about the next book.  For all the fun I had traveling with the crew of the Wayfarer, I was a bit disappointed to learn that the sequel seems to move on to a (mostly) new set of characters.  It kind of feels like I’m be leaving behind a fun group of friends I just met before really getting a chance to know them.  I suppose I am in on the next book, though I don’t feel as excited by it as perhaps I should be given how much I enjoyed this one.  Here’s hoping for a pleasant surprise when I get to it!

Idle Hands Craft Ales – Double Citra Four Seam

12 Tuesday Mar 2019

Posted by mrericness in Beer Reviews

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Beer, Beer Review, Idle Hands Craft Ales, IPA, Massachusetts, New England

The second of two four-packs I picked up at Idle Hands the other day, this was a welcomed sight following the news that their immensely popular Galaxy Four Seam is on an indefinite hiatus due to the brewery’s new hop contracts.  Let’s see how this one compares.

Beer Name: Double Citra Four Seam

Brewery: Idle Hands Craft Ales (Malden, MA)

Style: New England IPA

ABV: 6.6%

Description: The brewery took their popular Four Seam IPA and dry-hopped it with (surprise!) twice the usual amount of Citra.

Appearance: It had a mostly golden, hazy straw-colored body with hints of amber lurking in the depths. A thin white lacing formed with the pour and stuck around for maybe half the glass.

Smell: An absolutely amazing burst of juicy citrus and tropical fruits right out of the can with a hint of bitterness hanging just on the edges.

Taste: Subtle tropical and citrus fruits upfront gradually gave way to a dank blend of earthy and piney hops.

Mouthfeel: Medium-plus body with a touch below moderate carbonation.

Hype: The previous Four Seam variant with Galaxy was quite popular and well-regarded, so I was very interested in giving this a try.

Overall: I liked it well enough, but the taste unfortunately didn’t quite live up to the amazing aroma of this beer.  I’d have no problems drinking this one again (indeed I almost assuredly will at some point), but I wouldn’t prioritize seeking it outside of the taproom.

Boulder Beer – Killer Penguin

07 Thursday Mar 2019

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Barelywine, Beer, Beer Review, BiL, Boulder Beer, Colorado, Craft Beer, Penguin, Snow

Don’t let that cute, unassuming appearance fool you.  That wobbly little bird would off you in a second if you were a fish.  I’m just going to admit now that I bought this one on name alone so I could have some fun with it. With a major snowstorm approaching, how could I resist?

Beer Name: Killer Penguin

Brewery: Boulder Beer (Boulder, CO)

Style: Barleywine

ABV: 10.0%

Description: Not too much to say about this one other than link to the brewery specs here.  My bottle was from the 2018 vintage.

Appearance: It poured to a bubbly, reddish-light brown body with some off-white lacing lining the top edges of the glass.

Smell: Subtle sweetness from dark fruits and caramel malt.

Taste: This has a solid caramel malt backbone throughout that was topped by notes of cherry and dark fruit on the front end and an aggressive mix of resinous earthy hops towards the finish.  The ending tastes combined a sticky, bitter sweetness and warming alcohol presence.

Mouthfeel: Medium to medium-plus body with a roughly moderate level of carbonation.

Hype: None that I was aware of, this was a complete impulse buy based off of the name alone.

Overall: I liked this a lot, but I must say it was really not what I was expecting based on the style and description.  I suppose it technically fits within the description offered on Beer Advocate, but I found myself thinking of this more as a red IPA than a barleywine.

Idle Hands Craft Ales – Double Crossroader

05 Tuesday Mar 2019

Posted by mrericness in Beer Reviews

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Beer, Beer Review, Craft Beer, Idle Hands Craft Ales, Massachusetts, New England, Stout

With a week of winter storms in our forecast, my wife and I stepped out the other day to make sure we had sufficient supplies for the house.  Included (of course) in that outing was a stop at our local neighborhood brewery. I noticed earlier in the day that they had a couple of things of interest to me, in particular this big new stout that seemed perfectly suited for winter weather.

Beer Name: Double Crossroader

Brewery: Idle Hands Craft Ales (Malden, MA)

Style: Imperial Stout

ABV: 13.3%

Description: A powered up version of the brewery’s Crossroader Imperial Stout brewed with brewed with maple syrup and aged on American toasted oak.  The four-pack of cans cost $22.

Appearance: Poured a dark brown/black body with a small amount of light tan lacing across the top of the glass.

Smell: A subtle blend of boozy maple syrup, lightly roasted malts, and some oak influence.

Taste: There was a whole lot of flavor to unpack with this one!  I got intermingling tastes of dark malt, espresso, bittersweet chocolate, and maple on the front end before the brew came to a moderately warm finish that showed off the oak aging processing.

Mouthfeel: Medium bodied with low carbonation.  I was honestly a bit surprised this wasn’t a bit thicker, but that did not negatively impact my drinking experience.

Hype: The base stout was well received when it came out a little while ago and they couldn’t have planned on releasing this at a better time.  Idle Hands has also been pretty low-key in terms of drawing in the hardcores beer hunting crowd, but I was certainly excited about this one.

Overall: Very, very good.  The beer’s great blend of flavors combined with its nice, warming feeling made this one a winner in my book!  Definitely a great choice for sitting back and watching the snow fall and well worth the money.

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