Beer Review: Boulevard Lunar Ale

As an aspiring beer critic, I tried to figure out just what I had here before reading the information on the Boulevard website. The Lunar Ale is a brown ale and tastes to me like a combination of pale ale and hefwiezen. Sure enough it's amde from pale and wheat malts and it's unfiltered. It's a little heavier than the regular Boulevard Wheat, but has such a complex taste that I'm going to have to have another!

Beer Review: Boulevard Bully Porter

I have long been a fan of darker beers, especially porters and stouts. Bully Porter stands up there with the best. Often the porters focus on the malt aspect, with a sweet finish, this one doesn't neglect the hops and is little more bitter than most porters. This is a great fall brew in my not-so-humble opinion!

Beer Review: Boulevard Wheat

The first time that I had a Boulevard Wheat I didn't like it; this was a few years ago when I judged my beer by how much I could drink before last call at O'Rourke's; quantity was more important than quality. It was just too different for me. I stayed away from wheats after that. Then, two years ago I tried some Empyrean Ales wheat and found out what I was missing.

So now I'm working on a variety 12-pack from Boulevard, earlier today I had a wheat. Now wheats, especially unfiltered wheats like this one tend to have a sweet, citrussy taste, about an average alcohol content and go down real smooth. Boulevard is light, but flavorful. You certainly don't wnat to gulp it.

I would say, after having developed my beer palate this last year or so, that Boulevard is a king among wheats. I rate this one a 9 on the IGB beer scale. I started it off tonight as I was grilling and finished it with some chicken, and the two seemed to go together well.

Beer Review: Sam Adams Fruit Beers

At one time I stayed away from fruit flavored or fruit brewed beers; I'd run screaming like a little girl if I found some in the fridge. Sam Adams has changed my mind, but only in certain circumstances.

• Blackberry Wit was part of the Summer Styles 12-pack. It's an wheat beer brewed with blackberries. The berry taste, as well as the coriander & orange are subtle but recognizable. I found this to be a great beer for sitting outside in the hot sun while grilling this summer. It was light and refreshing, but flavorful enough to sip and savor, rather than gulp down.
• Cherry Wheat is part of the Harvest Collection that came out in early September. If drunk ice cold, this a good beer to have with a hamburger or with desserts. If you drink it too slowly and it warms up, the cherry comes out more strongly and it tastes like cough medicine!

Beer Review: Sam Adams Boston Lager & Sam Adams Light

Every one of the Sam Adams Variety packs, or collections, has to date included the Boston Lager. I rate the this one, on a scale of 1-10 as a 7. It's a full bodied lager, refreshing, and quite tasty, but doesn't particularly stand out. However it's a good beer to have at the bar when you're going to exceed the two drink limit! The Light is another story. Buying the Summer Styles 12-pack with this one included was like buying a 10-pack, it might as well have been a Keystone.

Usually when I buy the variety packs, the Boston Lager is my "guest beer", the one I offer my sons and stepson who would ask "What's wrong with this beer?" if they had a Dunkelweizen or an IPA!

Sam Adams Homebrew Winner 2008

One of the Sam Adams 2008 Homebrew winners is Cranberry Wit. I never used to be a big fan of the fruit beers, but have gotten to like them (under certain circumstances). This one is an unfiltered wheat beer, flavored with cranberries. I'm going to reserve judgement on this one until November; I saved back four bottles to have with Thanksgiving turkey. Last year I found that the Cranberry Lambic tasted great with poultry, but not so much on its own.

The Traditional Bock is fair-to-middlin' as bocks go, but has a strong malty taste that goes well with a steak and some potatoes.

The Double IPA is the best of the lot. It has a high alcohol content (9.6%) that you might expect from an Imperial, and in fact tastes a lot like the Sam Adams Imperial White. A lot of citrus in the aftertaste, and that fumes-in-your-nose sensation that high octane beers sometimes give you. Overall though, not one I could drink a lot of.

All three of these were distributed as part of the 'Longshot' 6 pack during early 2009.

Beer Review: Sam Adams Variety Packs

The Sam Adams Summer Styles just left the market, to be replaced by the Harvest Collection.





Summer Styles included

• Boston Lager
• Sam Adams Light
• Blackberry Witbier

I'll review Boston Lager & Light separately, and catch the Blackberry in a review of fruit beers, but here's my thoughts on the three summer offerings:

• Pale Ale: Great full-flavored beer that nonetheless cools you off on a hot day. This was great with steaks and fried onions!
• Summer Ale: wheat beer with a splash of lemon and coriander, a great "lawnmower beer". This was often the first bottle I'd grab on a really hot day or while sitting in front of the grill waiting for the steaks to cook.
• Hefweizen: classic unfiltered wheat beer, smooth, yet complex. A great beer for sitting in the recliner after a long day.
  

Harvest Collection features:

• Boston Lager
• Brown Ale
• Cherry Wheat
• Dunkelweizen
• Octoberfest
• Irish Red

I also recently tried the Longshot Collection, winners of the 2008 Home-Brew contest

• Cranberry Wit
• Double IPA
• Traditional Bock

I'll start breaking these down and giving my thoughts on each this week

Beer Review: Schell's Variety Pack

I've never tried Schell's beer before, but they were offering one each of 6 varieties, so here goes:

• Pilsner: Most domestic beers for mass consumption are Pilsners, a light-colored, refreshing lager that has broad appeal. This particular Pils outshines most that I tasted. Slightly hoppy with a white foamy head, this one went down real smmoth.


• Pale Ale: I'm drinking one now! Light amber colored, hoppy, but not too hoppy, if you know what I mean!


• Firebrick: This is a reddish colored lager with a hearty taste that compares well with better bocks. Sweet, malty taste with a hoppy aftertaste


• Stout: Compares to Guiness, but not as heavy


• Dark: The only one of the bunch that I'm not too impressed with. Dark colored, but not very unique in flavor


• Zommerfest: Medium hoppiness, brewed with honey. A good "lawnmower" beer

I'd recommend this six pack to anyone partial to the lighter or hoppier brews.

The Fair is Finally Gone!

Really, who misses the state fair? Lincoln, in its schizophrenic desire to appear both urban and rural, has pretended to support the State Fair, even going as far as to create the fictional character of "Roger Yant" to take the move to Grand Island to court.

While many Lincoln residents say that they will pine for the unique combination of tattoos and missing teeth that always accompanies The Fair, others say that the pressure to eat greasy foods served on dirty wooden sticks always made them uncomfortable. Others expressed relief that they would never again be subjected to a reunion concert by 2/5 of some obscure 80's hair band who had lost their hair and their ability to rock.

Mayor Chris Beutler, another fictional character introduced to push for keeping The Fair in Lincoln, when asked what Lincolnites would use to substitute for the heady aroma of farm animals and watered-down beer, suggested Husker Tailgate parties.

Obama Speech Outburst

Rep. Joe Wilson, in one of many interviews today, said that he was inspired by Kanye West when he shouted out "you lie" during President Obama's health care address.

Illogic

Did you ever notice that most discussions that you have with people are based not on logic, but on emotion? You can be making the most finely crafted argument designed to prove to any and all that your point is the truth, the way it is. But if the other person is angry or sad, then that becomes the relevant thing, not whether anything actually makes sense. This came up recently when an acquaintance asked me to help with something that it turned out I was unable to assist with. The response was a snarky comment on my level of empathy. When I attempted to explain my resoning I was assailed with references to things that I had done ten years ago as well as some gerneral name calling. This kind of reminds me of the health care debate. Agree or disagree with the details or even the broad strokes, no one is out to "pull the plug on grandma" or turn us into a socialist dictatorship. I suppose the pigeons have come home to roost, the Democrats made some of these same stupid accusations against the Republicans when the GOP was trying to make cuts in welfare in the 90's. Can you imagine if some of this took place in the reatil environment? Burger King accusing McDonald's of wanting to kill little kids with their new fancy coffee or McDonald's saying that "The King" was a pedophile? Hmmmm

No More Paper!

Profound Pronouncements and its predecessor, Words of Wisdom, by me, Ill-Gotten Booty has put out the last paper copy. For those of you who don’t know, “Words of Wisdom by Ill-Gotten Booty” was originally a recurring feature of the official newsletter of a business on the north side of Lincoln. The name “Ill-Gotten Booty” was taken from an article describing how certain shoplifters were prevented from leaving with their ‘ill-gotten booty’. A colleague commented that ‘ill-gotten booty’ sounded like it could be the name of the bass player from parliament-Funkadelic—and a new fictional character was born!
After an unexpected grace period the powers-that-be decided at one point that the newsletter needed to be more...hmmm...how to put it? Bland? It was at that point that “Words of Wisdom by Ill-Gotten Booty” came to life as an independent entity. After several years Booty Central moved to south Lincoln and continued as ‘Profound Pronouncements’. Eventually an on-line version in the form of a blog started up, mirroring what was being published on paper.
Well, it’s time to change again. Ill-Gotten Booty will still hold forth on-line, but this is the last paper version of this publication. You can find Ill-Gotten Booty at http://ill-gottenbooty.blogspot.com/ - and it’s interactive! You can respond to and become part of the articles that you have laughed at, disagreed with and sometimes just scratched your heads in puzzlement at! It’s been a fun seven years or so, but I’ve killed enough trees! Visit me at http://ill-gottenbooty.blogspot.com/ for more pokes at Sarah Palin, spotlights on Huskers in trouble with the law, information on comparative religion and rants about seemingly inconsequential subjects.

Top Ten Reasons to Follow IGB On-Line

10. Sarah Palin isn’t done saying stupid things
9. Surely not all of you are Husker fans
8. What are you going to do when Court T.V. and Jerry Springer aren’t on?
7. Somebody has to point out all the inconsistencies in politics and religion
6. The guy who scrawls anonymous complaints on issues of IGB and pins them to the wall can still be anonymous.
5. You know that you love top ten lists
4. Some people still think the term ‘Ill-Gotten Booty’ refers to prostitution.
3. You need something to tweat about
2. Night Crew
1. You’ll be prepared for the Ill-Gotten Booty-themed holiday party.

Praying for Plane Crash Miracles

There were two major plane crashes over the Hudson River between New York City & New Jersey this past year. The first involved a plane that ended up landing in the river and had no fatalities and only minor injuries. It was widely hailed as a miracle, with lots of references to a deity (often referred to as ‘God’) intervening in the laws of physics (the definition of ‘miracle’) to land the plane safely and spare everyone’s lives. Later in the year a small plane and a helicopter collided, crashed, burned and everyone inside died; over virtually the same stretch of river. It always makes me wonder why all the people who give a deity credit for saving all those people’s lives in the first incident are loath to blame the said deity for killing all the people in the second incident. Maybe the people in the plane-helicopter collision didn’t have time to get in a quick prayer.
This to me highlights the problem with miracles, prayer and the like. We always remember when events line up with what we prayed for, viewing that as “proof” that prayers are effective, are answered, etc. Why is it that we don’t put as much emphasis on the times when things don’t line up with what we prayed for? There are a variety of theories as to why lack of results happen: It wasn’t God’s will, you’re the wrong religion, you prayed for the wrong thing, God works in mysterious ways, God gives you what you need, not what you want (on that last one, why pray then?). Some religions or philosophies put the blame squarely on the one praying, some put it on God’s shoulders, but it seems that few just throw up their hands and conclude that prayer just doesn’t work, or doesn’t work often enough to make a difference. Another thing that figures in is what’s called ‘confirmation bias’. People naturally look for or notice those things that confirm their previously held beliefs and ignore or minimize those events that contradict those beliefs. Me? I’m praying that there is enough space in this box to say everything that I want to say.