beer talk: lion stout

so, since i was down in the area of a big package store, i figure hey, let's go get some fancy beers that maybe i haven't had before. so, i'm wandering around, wind up at the single bottle cooler, and find among the high life and michelobe ultra a bottle of lion. it is apparently from sri lanka, which i didn't know had any breweries, but welp, there you go. there is a quote from 'the beer hunter' on the back, which conjured up images of some dude on safari riding around on an elephant to get to some remote microbrewery, but i looked the dude up and apparently he revolutionized beer journalism and died last year, so now i feel like kind of a schmuck.

so, although not labeled as such, i'm pretty sure 8% abv puts you in the imperial range, but you would never know by having it. it's actually a very mild sweet stout, a little bit of acidity to it, with some coffeeish taste on the back. the few sips i had cold were alright, but my bag lady neighbor came over to talk to me for a half hour and when i came back and it had warmed up a little bit, it tasted much better. it's bottle conditioned, so watch out for sediment in the bottom, but i assume as a result it would probably age well.

so, i would say this gets a pretty good recommendation. you should get a bottle, maybe, if you like the sweet stouts. i'm gonna go put the bottle on top of my fridge now.

beer talk: bear republic crazy ivan

since chauz has me bloggin', might as well steal a gimmick

ok, so, i am totally at the dirty truth right now, which is a pretty good beer bar (but not the best) in the area, and i'm all 'oh, matt, let's try something new.' so, the crazy ivan's on tap here. i'm having a glass right now.

this is... an unusual beer. it's classified in the belgian category... i'm not sure that's appropriate. it's got a nice amber color to it, light head that vanishes pretty quick, no distinct smell to speak of. The taste.... the taste is hard to describe. i don't know how this works, exactly, but it somehow manages to go through three phases. here are three seperate sips, with an attempt to quantify each:

phase one: kind of like a red ale, i want to say? it's a pretty nice taste, some good hops in here, not too bitter, and it would be great if it stayed there

phase two: i'm going to blame this one on some kind of late release malt. about three seconds after swallowing, you get this feeling like your tounge got hit with a hammer. comes with a slight numbing sensation

phase three: once the numb's gone, you're left with something that i imagine would taste like what would happen if you slammed a pilsner immediatley after a porter. there's some mild stuff going on, but it's hard to tell.

all of this is kind of confusing. i mean, it's neat, but it's not exactly good. you should try it once. that's probably enough, i think.

although, it was hotter earlier in the week

am i right?

it's pretty hot out

yep.

microblogging

is a term i just made up for really short blog posts. like twitter, kind of, except with your own url. and not nessecarily about what you're doing. just short, sweet bloggin', the way blogs were intended to blog.

bloggin'

it is a goal of mine to use the word 'blog' as much as possible in this blog. this is because i think the word 'blog' is silly. blog blog blog.

welp

welp,

i think when i do this i will not use capital letters. this will make me edgy, like ee cummings. i'm going to keep the punctuation, though, i need that shit.

so, yeah, this is me, this is you, i've started a blog strictly out of solidarity for pre-post-collegiate associates.

i enjoy meta humor, and i hope you do too, because otherwise this will be painful for you and i apologize for this.

expect another update on trivialities in about 3 months.