Month: October 2004

Big Hop Bombs: Ruination IPA, Stone Brewing, California

Nothing but an ale most masterful could claim this name. 7.7%. Light wine. It smells like opening a bag of hops pellets and tastes like licking one out. This is a BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEG brew and meant to be. If you do not like hops this is not the beer for you. If you can not contemplate beauty in the idea of having hops petals sprinkled upon your salad of leafy spring greens, this may not be the brew for you. If you like beer that hits your mouth like Tabasco with no pepper in sight, you may want to try it out. The bottle says:

Stone Ruination IPA. So called because of the immediate ruinous effect on your palate. The moment after the first swallow, all other food and drink items suddenly become substantially more bland than they were seconds before.

The same could be said for spraying your mouth with aerosol Pledge or Minwax…and for the same reason. This is BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEG. Have I said that already? It is like distilling blue cheese down to a syrup and sucking down a pint of that. Intensity. Supersaturation of the hop acid. 100+ International bittering units. Right there. In my mouth. Here is what others say. Here is what the brewery says.Wow.

My New Conspiracy

During my weekend newspaper and magazine reading, I kept coming across references to politicial blogging and its new found effectiveness or perhaps just acknowledgement. KOS was referenced somewhere in the New York Times without much explanation of what he was. The latest issue of maissonneuve had an article called “A Blogger on Blogging” by Maud Newton. On top of that there was lots about the discourse generally, the presence of Pajamastan.

So if the pop culture is getting all substantive about blogs, sooner or later they will get co-opted, bought-out, sponsored. Sooner or later, someone will drop a bomb via a blog and it will turn out, like controversial medical research going against the grain, that BigCo was behind it all the time. The supposed independent voice will turnout to be coming from a cubicle in a farm of bloggers, all supported by wage or grant and a policy guide defining what must and must not be said.

Has this happened yet? How can I get in on it?

National Six-Pack III: Labatt 50, Quebec

fifty50. portland asked me to. And worst of all, this is actually a case…which I can never remember what they call in Ontario where a case is really a two-four. In Halifax, a case was 12. I don’t know what I will do with the other eleven. A slice of lime won’t even make it a Molrona as this is from Labatts.

50 was exotic in the early 80s Maritimes. You paid a premium under the category “western beer”. Why? Twelve years ago I might have had a few quarts of 50 on Friday night at the Lockmaster in Ottawa listening to bands. Having brewed my own beer for a long time, a beer like this stands out for its cheap ingredients – rough hops, sourish yeast and that funny coated feeling on your lips brewer’s sugar leaves behind. Here is one Minnesotan beer advocatonian‘s take:

This is pretty much a bizzarro world beer. Answers the question “What would an ale taste like if it was made by a macro brewer?” And it’s just as bad as a macro lager, maybe even worse. Flavor smells grainy, musty, and only faintly of the hops that a Pale Ale should have. Barely any hops at all, tastes pretty much labatt blue. It is crap. Since only respectable brewers pretty much make PA’s, against the style this is the bottom of the barrel. I feel bad that I could have gotten a 6 pack of summit, schell, flying dog, goose island, or many other far superior pale ales for the price. If ever offered one, just say “no.”

Twenty years ago Harpers magazine ran an article on the Seattle micro-brewing scene which ended with the reaction of one beer lover having a mass produced beer after a number of micros. He said “did I miss my mouth?”. This sets the benchmark for the low end of the Canadian pale ale scale…but you know I bet it doesn’t, if you really hunted them out. I won’t be bothering. I have my eye on Kawartha Lakes Pale Ale or Big Rock Traditional for the next examination of our national pale ale heritage.

I think I remember that 50 goes well as a red eye with V-8. It’ll be ok.

How Kerry Could Win

Here is a wicked thought. Kerry wins electoral college and loses the popular vote. Because the President is so heavily supported in many states but each state is won on a first past the post system, the extra extra votes are useless. They do not make him win anymore. Here is the percentage lead Bush holds in each of his top three states:

  • Texas (34 electoral votes) 21%
  • Florida (27 electoral votes) 5%
  • Georgia (15 electoral votes) 19%

If you look at the western plains, West of Iowa and east of the west coast states, many of the states are lead by Bush by over 20%. By comparison, Kerry will win the 55 electoral college votes in California by a lead of under 10% and the 31 of New York by just a little more.

Wouldn’t it be sweet of the White House were to be won by Kerry in the same way Bush won it?