Author: Alan

Three More US Pale Ales

A Sunday afternoon on a balcony overlooking the St.Lawrence and Lake Ontario and these three fine examples of American brewing. On the radio, the Yankees and Red Sox in the rubber game of the weekend’s series. Perfection.

Dogfish Head Shelter Pale Ale: From Delaware. I picked up a few of this ale last weekend in Syracuse and am glad I did. It poured white foam over fairly still orangey amber ale with a relatively soft mouthfeel. The hops are not overwhelming with their green profile. The beer is minerally even salty. There is lots of toasty bread crust graininess to the malt. Also, a sort of shadow of unsweetened chocolate lingers – maybe not from the use of chocolate malt so much as the combination of pale malt fruit, bitter hops and a modest but rish yeast strain. The finish is dry with a little white pepper heat. A very well balanced pale ale that satisfied even though it is not juicey moreish.

Stoudt’s American Pale Ale: From Pennsylvania. A rocky half-inch of white head resovles to foam and rim leaving lace. The ale is deep golden straw. Its aroma is floral as is the first sip. It is a far hoppier take on the pale ale compared to the Shelter Pale Ale. Again, it is minerally with green weediness to the floral hops. The strength of the hops overwhelms the pale malt, exposed and lightly braced as it is by a small addition of crystal malt. There is some toffee but less than you would expect from an English pale ale or a US IPA. The finish has some pear juiciness and accordingly a bit of moreishness. If this were any other brewer this might be their IPA but given Stoudt’s dedication to the big as well as their Double IPA this is a relative pip squeek.

Stone IPA: From California. Again a similar white rim over orangey amber ale, though lighter on the red notes, halfway to deep golden straw. Similar to the Stoudts but softer with less weedy green in the hops, more grapefruit rind and green herb. They are chewy without being bombastic – as Stone
can well be. A bit hot in the mddle, it has less of the salty mineral feel of the Stoudts. The yeast is creamy but quite subdued, just a rich note behind it all. Really nice if you like a hoppy ale and perfect with ballpark peanuts in the shell for the game – even if the Yanks beat the Sox 1-0.

 

 

Mr. Brown

This is in The Globe this morning:

The developments in New Orleans came against an increasingly stormy backdrop in Washington, where Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown was relieved of his command of the onsite relief efforts amid increasing criticism over the sluggishness of the agency’s response and questions over his background. Asked if he was being made a scapegoat, Mr. Brown told The Associated Press: “By the press, yes. By the president, No.”

I didn’t think he was getting the boot because of the hurricane but his track record:

  • The [Boston] Herald reported last week that Brown was fired from his last private-sector job overseeing horse shows, and that he was tapped to join FEMA by an old college chum and Bush campaign manager, Joe Allbaugh.
  • “His bio, the White House press release, and a number of sources list him as assistant city manager in Edmund, Okla.,” Miranda says. ” When we called the folks in Edmund, they told us that, no, his position in fact had been assistant to the city manager, which is a purely administrative job, a very different job. He was an administrative assistant. It’s sort of an entry-level, intern-type job for somebody who’s interested in learning about government. When he began that job in 1977, he was still a college student. He didn’t graduate with his B.A. until 1978.”
  • Time also reported that Brown’s profile on the legal Web site Findlaw.com, which is usually based on information provided by lawyers or their offices, said he was an “outstanding political science professor” at Central State University, now the University of Central Oklahoma. The school took issue with that assertion. “(Brown) wasn’t a professor here, he was only a student here,” school spokesman Charles Johnson told Time.

I have saved a .jpg of the bio from the FEMA website of Brown’s bio as Under Secretary which has at least two goofs in it. Are there more? You tell me. Here is the website. See if it changes.

I think he’s just getting the boot for being Mr. Fibber MacFibbfibb.

Colin Sad

I think it is good to get all cathartic once in a while, shed baggage and, well, point fingers. Colin Powell (former nicest person in what a made-for-TV-movie will one day call George Dubya, The First Years) has started to stretch his wings:

  • The Houston Chronicle says: “Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said in a television interview to be broadcast today that his 2003 speech to the United Nations, in which he gave a detailed description of Iraqi weapons programs that turned out not to exist, was ‘painful’ for him personally and would be a permanent ‘blot’ on his record.”
  • WebIndia 123 reports: “Powell told Walters government generally failed to prepare properly for Hurricane Katrina. I think there have been a lot of failures at a lot of levels — local, state and federal, he said. There was more than enough warning over time about the dangers to New Orleans. Not enough was done.”

Seeing as there is a reasonably valid connection to the state of affairs post-hurricane and thoughts on Homeland Security preparedness and response capability generally, these are…err…less than supportive statements post-9/11-wise. I wonder, now that GWB is polling in the low 40% range and dropping, whether the teflon is starting to finally wear off, whether actual acts and specific policies will be weighed for their own merit rather according to which side of the line drawn in the playground dirt you stand on as you scream “liar!” What will this quack do when he has to add a third dimension to his reality?

Tangent: bookends for two eras have struck me lately – one, Berlin Wall Fall to 9/11 and, second, 9/11 to Katrina. Essays in by noon please.

A Serb In Austin

Elderly well dressed couples from Austin show up in the afternoon, strolling among the evacuees smiling broadly and kindly at all of us. When they asked me, with the air of Princess Diana, “How are you doing? We see you managed to get your computer out,” I didn’t have the heart to tell them that I was from Serbia, and that I am doing fine.”

These observations at an Austin Texas refugee center are very interesting.

Professor Longhair

Someone I know says “longhair music!” with a humph when the wrong sort of classical music comes on the car radio.

There is another sort. I was thinking – as I am thinking too much – of the flooding down south and I remembered that I used to have a live double lp of Professor Longhair, the New Orleans blues pianist, probably on Atlantic records. I probably sold it in the great purge of ’92 when I sold my worldly goods to travel west. I recall the guy who bought it at the flea market saying “why are you selling this” – just like the person did who bought my They Might Be Giants CDs and like the kids did who I let pay less for my KISS comic book by Marvel (with real blood from the band members in the red ink!)…except they worked “woa” and “dude” into the question a few times.

There was something bouncy dancing about the piano played by Professor Longhair that I figured today I needed to get back – especially on “Big Chief”. I only found one cut, “Tipitana”, on a mixed discount CD of generic blues piano. Not good enough. I know I bought it in the 80s and I know I sold it over 13 years ago. It appears though that his albums were all live and pretty much all had a version of “Big Chief” [clip of version #37] and “Tipitana” [clip of version #841]. I would have thought the internets would have figured this stuff out by now.

Now it is all memory work, playing each 30 second cut from “Big Chief” from each CD – the concert in Germany (too fast), the concert in London (too slow) – over and over at Amazon to figure out which one it was. Thank God I held on to all my punk lps. That is all I can say. Thank God.