code samurai seeking inner(peace)
Just a quick post to say that all the beer reviews from nicoleandgreg.net have been migrated over to this site for the sake of clarity in the content. nothing much to add to that – except the most disturbing thing you will see… today.
Please don’t judge me…
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The Blue Ribbon Bacon Tour, sponsered by Vande Rose Farms made another stop in the ‘burgh this past weekend. It’s very much like a traveling version of the annual Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival held in Des Moines, Iowa each year. I seem to recall the Tour stopping in Pittsburgh once before and I had missed it. This time I made sure I would enjoy all the bacon-y goodness. Hosting the event from Harris Grill was the one and only Mr. BaconPants. He was joined by Heather Lauer from BaconUnwrapped.com, author of the book Bacon: A Love Story: A Salty Survey of Everybody’s Favorite Meat.
Read MoreI can’t remember exactly when this happened so for the sake of argument….
Years ago, there was a lovely radio station here in Pittsburgh called ” The Zone”… which I believe was short for The Man Zone (or at least I think it was). I can’t recall clearly and since that time the station has been replaced by several formats in the last few years. It was supposed to be a man-oriented all-talk radio format. I liked it. Opie and Anthony in the morning drive. The studio where the radio station broadcast from happened to be in the same industrial park I worked at during this time. Not that it matters…
The point of this back story is this: I listened to this station on my drive home every night from work. It was hosted by Scott Paulsen who I grew up listening to on the perennial Pittsburgh favorite WDVE.
One of my favorite features of the show occurred every day at 5 o’clock. Scott would give away a case of beer “minus One”… which he would drink on air and talk about it. Well, eventually CBS caught wind of this and quickly put a stop to this practice. Well, the day Scott announced this – I was immediately struck with an idea… so i called up the station and offered to come across the street at 5 each day to drink the beer for him until the issue was resolved. Well…
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Is Super Dry going to be super fly?Hell no.
This beer is bad. Just not good enough to even make effort to write about… but here ya go.
Bright and clear. The cold beer frosts over the glass to cloud what I knew to be a rather clear, and even colored beer. The head was generous at the onset – rising to two inches from a brisk pour. The bubbles are nonstop.
ugh. This is bad. slightly medicine quality. Sour grass.
Oh… oh wow. this is bad. The artificial sweetness is overwhelming. Corn flavor with a hint of grass.
Thin. Tightly bubbled. Pleasant effervescence
Light enough that it could be enjoyed with some complex Japanese food. By someone else. Not me.
Bad. Not enough to even write about.
D-
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Lagers are fast becoming my default beer as of late. Still like the stouts and hops… but on a daily, i’m trying to see beer. Nothing complicated. Lager. Old School. So i get talked into cheating on Yuengling, and trying a 6-pack of Boston Lager. Samuel Adams Boston Lager. Sam Adams, from Boston, comes out of the Boston Beer company. Nice website (www.samadams.com). Fresh enough to look current without going out on a limb. Still looking for a twitter stream to follow. Hard to believe they would be late to the 2.0 communication stream. Facebook though.
Poured into a Yuengling pint glass. Nice and cold out the fridge.
beeropedia has a really nice description:
Samuel Adams Boston Lager is brewed using two row Pale and Caramel Malt as well as the German Noble hop varieties of Hallertau Mittelfruh and Tettnang Tettnanger. It is brewed using a decoction mash and undergoes a secondary fermentation called Krausening, both of which impart a lingering, complexly sweet finish. Samuel Adams Boston Lager is also dry hopped using the Hallertau Mittelfruh hops for an enhanced hop signature in the aroma and finish. It takes about five weeks to brew. This long conditioning period gives Boston Lager a complexity and smoothness that have become its hallmark.
Nice enough. A bright copper that glows nicely under light. A light carbonation streams bubbles up nice. A doughy, slightly dirty, way off white head is fluffy. Mismatched bubble sizes dot the landscape of the head. The head falls eventually. Although to its credit, the head manages to nag on longer than expected. The fall is not graceful. The lacing that remains just from the drop is staggering. Looks untidy.
its just not as dark as i expected. sort of shiny.
Hard to get at first. Might have been due to the couch loaf i floated. whew! stinky. In any event, I did end up getting quite a nose full. whoops. hand slipped. But the aroma that came through was clear. Slightly bready and a hint of… ghetto car wash citrus Tree. That all too perfect, sleazy orange scent. But a malt undertone peaks through to cut the artificial sweetness.
Steak. Red meat beef. That’s a meal. Everything else is fluffy, secondary and limited. So too, when it comes to beer – taste is the thing. If I’m grabbing a six pack for the night. Poof. I want it to taste good. For me, lagers give me that flavor without the weight to make it terribly heavy. This beer comes a little underneath my expectations. I’ve been riding a Yuengling kick since visiting them last year. I admit it. So I’m judging this beer against that specific beer. Fair or not. It is what it is… I’ll freely own up to it.
This beer is balanced. No question. It is the first thing that I even realize first. But it seems somehow fake. Too perfect. Beer after beer tasted exactly the same. Four beers in and it tastes the exact same… that is weird to me. I always seem to want a beer to change as I get through it, its follow up beer. So when the Boston Lager comes across the plate the same way each beer is off putting. Or is it?
Way fuller than the rest of the widely available competitors. Its certainly on the same level as Yuengling here … in that regard.
Its light. Crisp enough to be playful. Its fuller than a light beer for sure. It never over stays its welcome long enough to become unrepeatable. The distance is reached with ease. And Kody kitty likes it too.
Not overly filling. Certainly holds true to itself. Beer after beer. The entire measure was six and the distance is equal. Easily done. The drinkability is there without question. Which really brings us back to the beginning of things. Doesn’t it?
This beer keeps to its even keel the entire ride. I guess I expected some imperfections. Consistent taste delivery, beer after beer. All in all it tastes good. In that background kind of way. Nothing loud, but certainly not the type of taste that is lost on you. I can dig that.
B-
Here we go. Decided to spend some hard earned money on myself in light of the holiday gift giving process draining me of most of my money. For someone who doesn’t really love the season
Read MoreI just finished copying over all my old beer reviews from the old site.
19 in total, these reviews span several months. You might notice that the language at times is specific to a particular evening where I might have been drinking a certain style of beer. Forgive the spelling and grammar as I’m still getting used to writing again for public consumption.
Speaking of consumption – I’m celebrating this content migration by enjoying a fine, chilled Magic Hat Jinx.
Enjoy the beer reviews.
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just a guy who likes to build things for the web, tablet, and mobile devices. 
