New Holland Cabin Fever Brown Ale
Looks like a Coke after pouring: not much head, dark brown coloring.
Roasted malt aroma, not much else to it.
Flavor profile is more of one of a higher alcohol content than 6.25%. Raisin seemed most prominent to me, like I see in more extreme brews. More roasted malt flavor, some chocolate, just a touch of hop bitterness in the finish.
Nothing particularly sensational, glad I only got two to sample.
Overall rating: 3.25
Anchor Our Special Ale 2008
Darker than I expected, deep brown with ruby reflections. Solid head hanging around, nice lacing.
Not getting a whole lot from the aroma. Roasted malts, small hints of some spicing.
Taste is pretty good though. There's a decent amount of piney hops in there to give it a little bit of a bite on top of the roasted flavors. A bit of cocoa, molasses, perhaps some spices milling about in there, but nothing striking me at the moment.
It's not too shabby, but I might find another warmer more to my liking this season.
Overall rating: 3.7
Curling? Curling!
I haven't posted too much about curling so far this season. I'm only playing one day a week and haven't had too much to post about. But it looks like I could be curling in Detroit January 2-4, so that could be fun.
Yesterday's game was a classic. My team got down 5-0 early, thanks to me coming up short on a draw to lose 3 on a steal in the second end. But we bounced back and were set up well in the third end. Unfortunately, a great shot by the other skip put me back in danger of losing another point to a steal. But on my last shot of the end, I managed to push his rock out and score a big three points. We continued to claw our way back and were down by one in the 7th end. We forced the other skip to make a fabulous shot to barely manage to take his one point, and we needed to score two points to tie in the 8th end. We actually did so fairly easily, and even looked like we might have a shot at 3 for the win. Alas, they took out one of our rocks, and I made a simple hit and stick to score two and send us to an extra end, much to the chagrin of everyone who wanted to go warm up and eat our pizza. So we went into the extra end tied, but without the last rock advantage. We played aggressively, getting two rocks in the house and somewhat covered. From there, my vice and I played to guard those two and get the steal. They managed to take one of ours out, but the other was still protected just past the tee line. My last rock was a good guard that made sure the middle of the ice was covered, and our rock was also under cover. The other skip was forced to go way outside to try to draw around to us, but the rock never curled back in, and we took a thrilling victory. It really was a heck of a game, with both skips making great shots. Well, at least they were great for the usual Sunday league play anyway.
I watched through the window as the Giants beat the Cardinals. Last year at this time, they were still struggling to make the playoffs. This year, they look like (knock on wood) the best team in football, even with the losses on the defensive line, and playing most of yesterday without Plaxico Burress and Brandon Jacobs.
The Spartans are who I thought they were. They still cannot get up for the big game.
And yet, my weekend was made by college football. I never got tired of watching ESPN scroll the stats of how epic Notre Dame and Michigan's losing seasons have been. Awesome.
Any Given Doomsday
Any Given Doomsday by Lori Handeland
My review
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I'm really not sure what this book wants to be. Is it sci-fi/fantasy? Is it inspired by Buffy (the TV series)? Is it a romance novel? I'm almost leaning toward the last option, because half the book is just sex scenes.
I did like the rest of it though: seers and demon killers and half human/half whatever breeds. Those parts were fun to read. Unfortunately, the preview for Book Two (at least it says right on the cover that it's a series) indicates there will be more chasing after lost love and angst, so I don't feel any need to read further in the series.
Next up is Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi (yes, What God Can Do For You Now has been postponed indefinitely).
Magic Hat Roxy Rolles
Coppery red color with good head retention and lacing. I actually get a good amount of malt sweetness along with the predominant hop aroma.
Very well-balanced flavor, though tending toward the hop side of things. Pine mostly, a bit of citrus, countered with a caramel undertone. Left a sort of butter coating on the tongue, and I felt the crisp drying hop finish was a nice touch.
Sometimes I think we give too much credit to the extreme alcohol beers and not enough credit to these "low" alcohol brews. This is a good example of packing a lot of flavor and nuance into what many would think is a "simple" beer category.
Overall rating: 4.45
Magic Hat Jinx
I had been a little disappointed with my first foray into Magic Hat beers a couple of years ago, but I decided to jump back in with their fall and winter offerings. This time, I was more pleased with the results.
Jinx pours a scant head with no lacing, but is a fine ruby red color.
The aroma is strong, smoky and malty at the same time. Perhaps even a bit of a whiskey or bourbon in there?
The first time I drank this I thought it tasted almost chocolatey. There's more to it than that. There is a good hop bite to it, peppery really. Underlying it all is a solid malt sweetness. And finishing it off is that lovely warm alcohol ester.
Smooth drinker, and a damn fine beer.
Overall rating: 4.55
Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale
Lovely sticky lacing on a good frothy head.
Not much aroma detected, and the initial feel is watery. But the beer comes back strong, with a nice hoppy bitterness. It is balanced a bit by a bit of malt sweetness, but still is mainly the hops that dominate, and not much else. Still pretty good for all that.
Overall rating: 3.95
Episode 44: A New Hope
I haven't been so excited about the results of an election... Well, ever.
Now, let's get to work.
One for Obama
I got in line this morning shortly after 6am, waited about 30 minutes, and cast my vote for Obama. Not too shabby for what's expected to be a huge turnout.
No matter who you support, get out and vote today.
Twenty Five Dollars
What a fun weekend. On Saturday, we went to the La Maison Française at the French Embassy to see a Czech performer doing a show with bubbles. Yeah, the soap bubble kind. It was really cool, and Ellie and Evan LOVED it. I came home to catch up on the Michigan State game, and promptly scared the kids with my yelling at the TV. It would have been fine if the MSU receivers could have caught the freakin' ball a little more often! Still, a win is a win, and we're unbelievably 8-2 right now, with Purdue at home next, before the big game at Penn State on November 22. It's a pretty exciting time for MSU football, shockingly enough.
We finally decided on Saturday to pull up the old crappy carpet on the stairs, so that we could get rid of the drywall that's been sitting around forever. I pulled the carpet up on Saturday evening, and there were actually pretty nice hardwood stairs underneath! A little TLC, and they'll look really nice. On Sunday morning, I tore down the paneling on one side of the stairs, so I could drop the drywall in. The demolition was fun (Lisa remarked that she's glad I have protective eyewear: there were a lot of splinters flying around!). It was a little frustrating though, just because there always seem to be gotchas whenever we try to redo something around our house. But we ended up managing to get the drywall mostly in place before I had to leave for curling.
Yes, the curling season has begun. For most people, it even started a couple of weeks ago, but I scaled back my schedule, so I'm only playing on Sundays. My team jumped out to a 3-0 lead, then a 6-1 lead, before wrapping up the win at 12-2. It's Pizza League though, so I wouldn't say I played great, or read anything into the results. We could just as easily get killed next week. But it is fun, which is how I like it right now. And it was especially fun coming home and watching the Giants whip the Cowboys. Man, do they need Tony Romo back or what?
So, to the subject of this post. Our local Safeway has a gas station. They give you $0.10 per gallon off for every $100 you spend in the store, or $0.03 just for being a member. We apparently had been racking up the credits and had spent $400 in the past couple of weeks, so we got a $0.40 discount. Off the $2.44 price. So we paid $2.04 per gallon. Wow. We spent only $25 to fill up the tank of our Odyssey, just a few months after routinely paying double that. Crazy.
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