The Beer Review that was not and a beer quote.

Monday I took this photo of the Michelob Hop Hound to prepare to write a review of the beer. There are two glasses of beer because the label of the Hop Hound claims the beer has a "unique amber color." I thought, "there's nothing unique or amber about this beer." I showed this beer comparison to Sally who asked, what is the other beer and she was surprised when I told her it's my homebrew.

I didn't do the beer review because the Hop Hound turned out to be flat and nothing worth writing about. So, which beer's Hop Hound and which one is homebrew, you tell me?


"In my opinion, most of the great men of the past were only there for the beer." A.J.P. Taylor, British Historian

Magic Hat Monday

Today I'll be giving a review of Magic Hat, Odd Notion Summer 2010. Each season the Magic Hat brewery makes a new style of their Odd Notion label. The summer beers tend to be wheat beers and the cool season beers tend toward dark ales.

Odd Notion Summer 2010 pours with very little head retention. The fragrance of the beer is like a white wine, like muscadine. The body of the beer is very clear and unlike many wheat beers which are cloudy. The initial sip tastes of wheat and carbonation. The flavor is not hoppy or bitter; I wonder if this is some hybrid of barley and wheat malts? The pallet remains slightly sour and light to the end. I may finally be a wheat beer fan after twenty years of beer drinking.

For the record, I'm the one who ranked Magic Hat #9 and Terrapin Hop Karma in the top five beers in North America.


Wow, I really need to polish that table.

T-shirt Thrusday

The heat of the summer has gotten to me, when I arrive home from work I just wanna lay around. After completing a new adventure for Encounter Critical last week I haven't done anything productive with my spare time. Well, I did make a few pages of notes for the next EC adventure but I still haven't organized them. I don't want to let the blogs bog down either, so I'll attempt a few blog posts before I get lost in that adventure design.

This week’s shirt contains the image of a mythic man who, for me, is a very important cultural icon. No, it is not President Obama or Che Guervara but the Buddha. This is one of my favorite shirts ever which I've owned for fifteen years. Obviously, I don't wear it very often and, this time of year, it's too hot to start wearing it, I'd sweat and the shirt would start falling apart.

I present to you; the Buddha shirt. Perhaps I'll write that blog about why I love customer service today?

7 down, 358 shirts to go.

Two more for T-shirt Tuesday

Here are two more of my old t-shirts. The one of the left is a t-shirt from Bonnaro 2004 which I attended with some of my old college buddies. Yes, we where old college buddies in 2004 too. The graphics of the shirt display some of the lyrics from the Grateful Dead song Tennessee Jed. Tennessee, of course, being the state where the Bonnaro festival is held. This shirt has various small holes in the front which I always manage to put in my shirts. I guess I snag the shirts on plants while I'm gardening?

You can see, the shirt on the right is a Budweiser shirt. I got this shirt from one of my stepsons when he was ready to retire the shirt. I don't advocate the consumption of beverages from the Anheuser-Busch breweries but it is an All-American brand and well represented on a t-shirt. The shirt is rather stretched and dirty and I had to wash it with bleach once after I wore it to mow the lawn. Lawn mowing is usually what I do in these old hand-me-down shirts.


These two are the last of the old and nearly worn out shirts which I have to share. Now we'll be getting into the old and well preserved or new and worn regularly section of the shirt collection. Six down; 359 shirts to go.

Margarita Monday, or not?

The FRI staff had our usual round of Margaritas this weekend. In fact, we had Margaritas last Tuesday, before our weekly rpg, when we went to dine at Senior Taco. There was nothing fancy to our Margaritas this weekend so I will not discuss the mix, I believe we used Jose Cuervo Martarita Mix and the Margaritaville Lime Tequila.

As will become evident with further posts, I'm a sucker for snazzy pack ageing and new ideas so, I just had to try the Smirnoff Blueberry Lemonade.

I know the idea of this drink creates images of wine coolers and the idea is justified. It's been years since I've had one of these, frou-frou, bottled drinks but the idea of mixing blueberry and lemonade intrigued me and the drink wasn't bad. This isn't to say I'm ever going to buy a pack of them but it really wasn't bad as an experiment. These drinks are marketed as malt beverages rather than wine coolers. As I understand they are made from malted corn and rice (the adjunct liquors of light beers.) This creates a whole new category for these former wine coolers, now they fall into the near beer category along with the MGD 64 I just had to try a few months ago.

My honest opinion of the Smirnoff Blueberry Lemonade is that it is not a bad drink. It tastes mainly like lemonade with just a hint of blueberry in each sip. I like blueberries but I wouldn't have thought of putting them in lemonade. If you don't like blueberries but you do like lemonade, don't shy away from this drink, the blueberry flavor adds just a bit of sweetness to the sour lemonade flavors. The drink could even be used in a Margarita mix and I'm likely to give it a try some time, maybe with more blueberries? Nah, I know that no one else would like a Blueberry Margarita.

A second product, that I noticed while in Colorado, is Frida Kahlo Tequila. I had never heard of this product and was intrigued by the image of Frida Kahlo on tequila packaging. This combination is culturally appropriate, in my opinion, but since I'm not Latin American I really don't get a vote. A brief internet search indicates that this tequila markets for $36 to $75 dollars and had, of course, created some protest associated with using Frida's image for marketing. I don't want to get involved in the politics of this issue. I'm just presenting the product to say, "Look at this." If you like modern art and you like adult beverages, here it is.

Beer Quote of the day.

As I think I've mentioned, I get the Beer of the Day calendar each year. Each page contains a description of a new beer and a beer fact, beer quote, beer history or trivia. Yesterday, Thursday July 1st contained the following beer quote which I wanted to share with you all.

"When I heated my home with oil, I used an average of 800 gallons a year. I have found that I can keep comfortably warm for an entire winter with slightly over half that quanity of beer."

-- Dave Barry