13 Days of Halloween – Day Eleven: Jackie O’s Brewery – Dark Apparition

Tags

13 Days of Halloween, Beer, Beer Review, Jackie O's Brewery

I apparently managed to round up a rather spooky collection of brews this month!  This next one comes at you with additional props as well.

Beer Name: Dark Apparition

Brewery: Jackie O’s Brewery (Athens, OH)

Style: Russia Imperial Stout

ABV: 10.5%

Description: Dark malts and bold flavors abound in this brewer’s favorite.  Check out the official description here for more information.

Appearance: Dark brown/black body with a short-lived beige lacing from the pour.

Smell: Rich dark malts mingled with molasses and bourbon.

Taste: A strong dark malt backbone topped by a sweet bourbon hear upfront followed by notes of dark chocolate and molasses about halfway into the sip.  The finish was warm, with a layer of dark roast covering an excellent barrel presence.

Mouthfeel: On the thinner side of medium and rather slick.  Very low level carbonation.

Hype: Elevated due to the brewery’s reputation and cost if the bottle.  At $16 my wife informs me that this accounted for almost half of our beer expenditures for my Halloween theme this year.

Overall: It was a good beer, but could have potentially been much more than that with a thicker mouthfeel.  The slickness and relatively thin body did make the beer dangerously easy to drink, but that’s not really what I want in a brew like this.  I also think that a heartier body would have carried the big tastes a bit better. Considering the price I would probably not repeat this one in the future.

Happy Monday and Scenes from a Successful Weekend!

Tags

Activism, Beer, Blog Life, Honk Fest, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Theater, Weekend

Hello and Happy Indigenous People’s Day!  I’m in high spirits today on account of a much needed day off following an amazing weekend.

On Saturday, my wife and I had a long anticipated date night (technically afternoon) to belatedly celebrate our anniversary by seeing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead at the Huntington Theater in Boston.  The show was fantastic and we followed it up with dessert at a nearby coffee shop that gave my wife fond nostalgia for her time teaching in South Korea.  If you’re not acquainted with the play, go out and read it right now!  (Note: a passing knowledge of Hamlet is strongly recommended).

On Sunday we took our son on a subway ride into Porter Square to see the Honk Festival‘s parade. Billed as a festival of activist street bands, the parade and ensuing musical performances are always fun and chock full of energy, political awareness, and brass bands and drums.  The weather was beautiful and we all had a great time!  After the parade, we happened upon an excellent brunch spot where I got a chance to show off my newest sticker alongside a delicious Marzen from Castle Island Brewing Company.

30 Day Geek Out Challenge – Day 26: Favorite Disney movie?

Apparently I goofed a bit and published today’s prompt a few days early. You can find it here. Not sure how I managed to do that, but there you have it.

30 Day Geek Out Challenge: A Pause

Tags

Blog Life, Renaissance Faire

As  a scheduling note, I am taking a break from the challenge today.  I feel like a day off to attend a Renaissance Faire keeps things sufficiently geeky, though.

Happy Friday!

Tags

Blog Life, Final Fantasy, Friday, NES

After experiencing the dreaded False Friday yesterday, aka a Thursday that me and a few of my coworkers thought was a Friday, here we are at the real thing!  This last week was a really rough one for a variety of reasons, so my grand plans at posting didn’t really work out so well.  To make it up to you, I offer this classic video game encounter I had the other day as a metaphor for the week.

Monday – Feeling somewhat ambushed:

Friday – I (barely) survived!:

Don’t Worry, Be Hoppy!

Tags

Beer, Wormtown Brewing Company

That is all!

Terrapin Beer Company – Wake-n-Bake

Tags

Beer, Beer Review, Coffee, Stout, Terrapin Beer Company

Over the course of a few visits down to the Southeastern region of the country, Terrapin has become one of my go to breweries when picking things to take back to home base.  I know they’re not the most trendy of picks, but so far I’ve really liked all the beer I’ve had from them. With that in mind, it only seems appropriate that I end my series of vacation beers with them.

Beer Name: Wake-n-Bake

Brewery: Terrapin Beer Company (Athens, GA)

Style: Coffee Oatmeal Imperial Stout

ABV: 9.4%

Description: An oatmeal stout brewed with coffee from Atlanta, GA based Jittery Joe’s.  You can find the full specs here.

Appearance: It poured to a thick black body topped by a thin tan layer of foam.

Smell: A sweet and grainy blend of oatmeal and dark malt with light roast coffee in the background.

Taste: Sweet and creamy right from the start, this rather inviting opening was followed by dark malts and oatmeal grain mid-sip before taking on some light roast coffee and a bit of heat on the finish.

Mouthfeel: The body was on the plus side with a low-level of carbonation.

Hype: Personally elevated.  In addition my affinity for the brewery I have also heard a ton of great things about this beer over the years.

Overall: Very good.  This one met my high expectations and was an excellent beer to end our trip with.

Vacation!

Tags

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!

2018 Year in Review Part Two – The Beer

Tags

Beer, Beer Review, Blog Life, Year in Review

For Part Two of my 2018 retrospective I am going to look at the beverage portion of my blog.  I feel like I occasionally struggled in this area last year and there were at least a few times I got pretty burnt out on reviewing beer.  After some reflection on why this was happening, I realized that I was spending too much time chasing beers solely for making a review and not paying enough attention to what I actually wanted to drink.

I blame no one but myself, but I think NEIPAs in particular got me into that situation.  Yeah, they’re popular and tend to have names that sound like they’d be fun to post about, but the reality is that there are a lot of incredibly similar, perfectly-fine-but-not-inspiring examples of this style that are for the most part indistinguishable.  At one point I felt like was just writing the same review over and over again and quite honestly failed to find joy in it.

To break myself out of this rut, I started revisiting some old favorites and even (gasp!) sat back and drank some beer without having any intention of reviewing it.  I’ll say it now that some of the best beers I drank last year didn’t even come close to making the blog. In previous years I would have been incredibly disappointed by this, but with my current mindset I couldn’t be happier with the results.

Having said that, reviewing beer is something that will still be a central part of my blog, but it may look a bit different going forward.  I was already not one to chase the latest and greatest (not to mention rarest) brews available, nor do I have the luxury of regularly hitting up breweries.  Instead, I am going to focus more on personal tastes and quality over my previous desire for quantity. It may mean fewer posts, but I am confident it will be a better experience for me.  I’m sure my wallet and waistline won’t mind, either.

Let’s close with a look at my top five most-viewed beer reviews from last year:

• Trillium Brewing Company & J Wakefield Brewing – Affogato
• Trillium Brewing Company – Dialed In, with Pinot Gris Juice
• The Alchemist – Beelzebub
• Stone Brewing Company – Fruitallica
• Central Waters Brewing Company – Barleywine Ale

With the exception of the final spot, I probably could have guessed these results.  That the top two spots went to releases from the popular brewery in my area was certainly no surprise, and the brew taking top honors was certainly much sought-after.  The same could be said for Beelzebub and Fruitallica was a national release from a well-known brewery with some crossover appeal on account of the name. And that leaves the Central Waters Barleywine which was my one minor surprise.  To my knowledge this isn’t a particularly popular beer, but considering how good it was, I am certainly happy it got the attention.

Well, there you have it.  My 2018 year in beer. I hope you all join me for a few pints in 2019 as well!

The Twelve Beers of Christmas, Day Ten: Evil Genius Beer Company – Santa!! I Know Him!

Tags

12 Beers, Beer, Beer Review, Cheech and Chong, Christmas, Craft Beer, December, Evil Genius Beer Company, Holidays, Saison, Santa

Since this is what the name made me think of, I now turn my introduction over to the comedic stylings of Cheech and Chong and their beloved holiday classic, Santa Claus and His Old Lady.  It’s too long to put full script here, but it’s definitely worth a listen.

Cheech: Once upon a time, about, hmmm, five years ago, there was this groovy dude and his name was Santa Claus, y’know? And he used to live over in the projects with his old lady and they had a pretty good thing together because his old lady was really fine and she could cook and all that stuff like that, y’know. Like, she made da best brownies in town, man! Oh, I could remember ’em now, man. I could eat one of ’em, man, wow…

Chong: Wow, did you know these people, man?

Cheech: Oh, yeah, man. They used to live next door to me, y’know…until they got kicked out, man…

Beer Name: Santa!! I Know Him!

Brewery: Evil Genius Beer Company (Philadelphia, PA)

Style: Saison

ABV: 7.2%

Description: A holiday saison brewed with rose hips, black currants, and chamomille.  Get the full story here.

Appearance: Poured a slightly reddish, caramel colored body with no head.

Smell: Light earthy sweetness with subtle hints of peppery yeast in the background.

Taste: Started out with that same earthy sweetness (presumably from the currants) that I mentioned above.  The initial sweetness was followed by a dry tea flavor and a moderate peppery yeast presence.  Dry and ever so slightly tangy on the very end.

Mouthfeel: Just shy of medium bodied and very bubbly, especially when first poured.

Hype: Like the rest of the beers in this series, none in particular.  I bought it for the name.

Overall: I was a little unsure about this one going in but ultimately I quite liked it.  The carbonation was a bit too strong at first but after giving it a minute or two to settle this was drinking great!  Great subtly and balance despite all the flavors going on.