beer.emptyfree.com

OK, so first I found another bottle of the Cappuccino Stout last week. Score.

Next, I found a bottle of this Meantime “Coffee Porter” stuff. $3.25 for a small bottle, but ya gotta love the tag line: a full cup of coffee with every serving.

If not for the swank bottle, I’d say we have a winner in the breakfast beer sweepstakes.

Then, I got this image from J-List.com:

That’s beer. Kirin is trying to push HOT beer in the winter months… serving it up like cappucino with a garnish of sugar cubes and cinnamon.

That’s some hardcore shit. And scary too. Three coffee/beer things in the space of a week or so. Weird coincidence.

I never tried a bottle of Big Bear, but it will hold a special place in my heart for one reason: I remember seeing it at a liquor store a few years ago when it was priced under a buck.

Damn. Dollar store beer. FORTY ounces of beer for 99 cents.

I mean, fuck, the goddamnned BOTTLE and LABEL has to cost something! And that 99 cents was in the city of Chicago… which has liquor taxes up the ass! How is it possible to make money on beer at under 2.5 cents an ounce?

BTW, that picture is brazenly stolen from the fantastically wonderful 40ouncebeer.com, which has a great photo gallery of empty 40s to browse through. Good stuff, although I’m getting a psuedo-hangover headache just looking at some of those labels. Whooo… some bad memories are triggered for me by that King Cobra label…

’scuse me, I’m going to lie down and sleep this off now, thanks…

I’ve never been to Rabbit’s bar, but goddamned. Gotta love how they’ve decorated the place.

Yes, that’s right. A cute, cuddly, widdle bunny rabbit. With a stein of beer in it’s hand.

It’s practically screaming, “Hey, kids! Drinking beer is fun! Even cartoon rabbits drink beer! It’s great!”

Well, OK, not really. It’s nice to see that political correctness hasn’t seeped into this bar on the northwest side of Chicago, at least. This was probably made during the era when Hamm’s beer used cartoon bears in their ads. And ya know, did Hamm’s really make kids want to drink beer? Or was it just a clever way to market their beer?

And they serve Old Style there. Proudly. Genius. Here’s hoping the march of time never hits this bar’s exterior.

So, Chicagoans. How many of you are going to Beer on the Pier?

I’m tempted to go… something about 100-150 different breweries in one place + unlimited sampling that appeals to me. Tix are $35 in advance.

I abhor Navy Pier though. I’m not quite sure how “4-D mazes,” “Sea Dog,” “Children’s Museum” and “Dippin’ Dots” goes together with: “drink tons of beer here.”

But, who knows? Maybe Dippin’ Dots and Ska Milk Stout are the new “chocolate and peanut butter” combo.

But, I doubt it…

Firegod was in town last Sunday. Got to hang out with him, his missus to be and Turkish Spock. We had a great time, and ended up at Simon’s Tavern in Andersonville. While Turkish Spock commented on the presumably accidental Cronenbrugian vagina on the mural wall and the zydeco warriors played with wild Sunday-night post-mardi gras abandon, I got the bright idea to try what I think I had the worst beer I’ve ever had : Beck’s Non-alcoholic beer.

That may very well be the last non-alcoholic beer I’ll ever consume. But, I was driving, see? I’m frickin’ paranoid as hell about getting a DUI. Go ahead and call me a pussy, I’m OK with that. I’m a pussy with a driver’s license.

If I’m driving, I only allow myself to have one beer. So, after that first one came and went (a lovely pint of Mad Hatter India Pale Ale), I thought I’d try a non-alkie brew. Bad move.

According to the Beer Advocate, non-alkie beers are actually LOW alcohol drinks. They are about a half a percent alcohol, as opposed to regular beer, which is around 6% (or higher). This bottle of Beck’s low-alcohol beer tasted like they replaced the alcohol with a mixture of sugar and skunk piss. Bitter skunk piss, at that.

Now, admittedly, it may not have been the freshest beer they had the bar. The bartender had to look around the bar for a few minutes to find it. God only knows how long it had been there. I could see this being a potential problem for accurately tasting a non-alcoholic beer at a bar. But since I don’t ever see myself buying a six pack of NA beer, a bar may very well be the only place I ever taste them at all. How often do bars get new bottles of non-alcoholic beer, anyway? Once a year? Once every 2 years?

However, even getting past the skunkiness, that beer just tasted like the inside of a homeless man’s asshole. I couldn’t finish it. It was that bad. When was the last time you could say that you couldn’t finish a beer? God, I hope I never have to say that again.

Beck’s Alcoholfree has an average Beer Advocate rating of 1.76 out of ten. That’s pretty damn generous… and if you ask me skewed higher by a softball grading category like “appearance.”

It goes without saying that you shouldn’t try this beer. Hell, I shouldn’t have tried this beer. Shoulda risked a DUI, instead.

Thank you Mike Martin for turning my feelings into something tangible.

Splendid. If like me you feel it should be the focal point for your brau shrine you can snag one at Engine House 13. It comes in two flavors, pop and aged, and if you circle it with some patron saint devotional candles (set upon coasters of course) you’ll be all kinds of ready for the Rapture. There doesn’t seem to be any Saint Arnold candles though which is a real shame. Damn Pope.

Of course fine art needs a fine beer to accompany it and the current favorites ‘round these parts are the
Boulder Beer Company’s Never Summer Ale and Hazed & Infused. They’re smelly and tasty and make a boy go yum! I recommend the Never Summer at room temperature. Subsequent cold drinkings haven’t been as awesome for some reason. Both worked really well with Pokemon Colosseum, Legends of Wrestling II, and SSX3 just in case you were wondering.

If you need far more analytical (and as far as I’m concerned much less fun) reviews check this out for Never Summer and this for Hazed & Infused.

And man do I want one of these in my pad.

Hi. I’m Joe and I love beer. I love homebrewing. I love alcohol. More importantly I love Pop music especially top 40 bubble gum pop. One of those statements is false. You guess which one is not like the others.

My goals for 2006?

1) learn how to insert pictures
2) brew beer, and likely some mead and post some images and recipes
3) talk about great beer, mead and port

What? You don’t drink port? Oh, we’ll have to work to try and change that.

Perhaps the most honest logo in all of beer is that of Italian brand, Birra Moretti:

No girls with big tits. No Clydesdale horses, or zebra-striped referees- just an old European guy staring into his beer like it’s the one good thing left in his life.

I look at him and I imagine that his wife left him, his daughter married a lowlife gambler, he hasn’t talked to his son since his son came out of the closet, all his siblings are either dead or dying of cancer, and his pension payments aren’t getting larger.

But, he’s got that stein of beer, at least. Thank god for that. Sure, his doctors tell him he shouldn’t drink it, but what the hell do they know?

The real tragedy is that Birra Moretti isn’t that great of a beer. It’s crisp and light, but low on flavor with maybe moderate carbonation. It was pretty underwhelming.

A while back, the missus had a recipe that required half a bottle of vermouth. We went to Jewel, and on that particular day, Vermouth was the only alcohol we purchased during that visit.

So, I was a little amused that Jewel carded me for purchasing Vermouth. I mean, yeah, I suppose if you didn’t, 16 year old kids would be doing shots of vermouth in the parking lot, but come on… it’s fucking vermouth! The most vile and least alcoholic part of a classic martini!

Actually, maybe the next time someone offers to buy me a shot, I’ll ask for a shot of Vermouth. Or Triple Sec. I hate shots. I know that how fast you drink determines how quickly you get drunk, but I’d rather just sip and enjoy the alcohol at my leisure instead of forcing it down my throat. Y’know?

I’ve been infatuated with the “Seattle Manhattan” lately.

I found the recipe on a tag on the bottle of the Starbucks Coffee Liqueur that I bought last March. I tried it on a whim a few months ago, and ended up liking it. The recipe is:

1 part Knob Creek bourbon
1/2 part Starbucks Coffee Liqueur
1/2 part Dry Vermouth

Shaken and served with a marschino cherry as garnish.

My personal version of that replaces Jim Beam instead of Knob Creek, and reduces the ratio to 2 parts bourbon, 1 part coffee liqueur and a 1/2 part Vermouth.

I enjoy Jim Beam on the rocks occasionally, but mixing in the coffee liqueur adds a nice touch. And a healthy jolt of caffeine as well. A couple of these drinks and I’m buzzed and jittery… my inhibitions are lowered & I’m fidgety for something to do… truly, a winning combination!

I serve the drink in a highball glass for two reasons. One, my martini glasses are on a high shelf in the kitchen, and it’s a pain in the ass to get them down. And two, it’s not a fucking martini. It’s an attempt to make a foofy drink out of a man’s hard liquor. There’s more to a martini than just putting it a martini glass.

Yeah, my martini glasses are gathering quite a bit of dust up on that shelf. When they were trendy, a couple people got me sets of 8 for Christmas. That year, I had zero martini glasses on Dec. 15th, and then 24 martini glasses on Dec. 25. I like martinis, but, fuck, I don’t drink them THAT much. Guess everyone thought I was a lush that year. Or it was that whole repulsive Vince Vaughn/Favreau Swingers thing. Probably the former.

Let’s be honest for a second here about martini glasses: they’re not the most ergonomic things in the world, are they? I’ve cleaned up one too many Bombay Sapphire & Ketel One stains to serve drinks in martini glasses anymore. Too much of it ends up on the floor.

Happy New Year, everyone! Hope all your hangovers are at least manageable today. As for me, I woke up clear as a whistle this morning… thanks to Chasers. Man, those pills have to be the greatest miracle of the modern age.

Anyway, we had a chilled New Years at my house. Some friends came over, and we watched Invader Zim. My friend Carol brought over this new brand of Leinenkugel that was absolutely delicious: Apple Spice Leinie. It’s like having a beer and an apple pie. Actually, it’s like pouring cold apple cider into your beer. Sweet.

Damn, I love the fruity beers. I also polished off a bottle of St. Louis Peche that I’ve been saving for a celebration like New Years. And, yes, St. Louis Peche is one of those beers that has so much fruit in it that it barely tastes like beer. In fact, when I let Carol try it, she said, “That was beer?”

Yeah, well, fuck off if you don’t like it. I like my beers like my male pop idols: sweet and fruity as hell.

Speaking of delicious fruity beers, I tried the Maine Seadog Blueberry Wheat Ale recently. It was on sale at Trader Joe’s for five bucks for a six pack, and I picked it up, despite not caring for the taste of actual blueberries. Man, blueberries and ale pairs together almost as nicely as peanut butter & chocolate. It’s a little sweet, but not in an overpowering way.

And for 5 bucks, you certainly get yer money’s worth. Probably the best beer I’ve ever picked up from Trader Joe’s. Their beer section is always suspect, in my opinion. Three Buck Chuck is still king there, and their beer section suffers from being too small as a result.

By the way, my new year’s resolution is to post more in this blog, and also to bitch louder and more often for the other writers to post more.

Got two pictures to share with you from my trip to Tokyo:

That was outside of a “Kirin City” drinking and eating establishment in the Shibuya area. Gotta love beer communication. It truly is the best kind of communication.

And here’s proof that the Japanese are a more civilized society than we:

That’s a vending machine serving up Asahi beer and this sickly sweet (yet cheap) alcoho-pop shit. This machine automatically shuts itself off at midnight in a gesture to keep alcoholics and children from24-7 access to beer.

Let’s examine this: first off, well fucking done. Wish I had one of these in my neighborhood down the block. It’d be perfect for late nights after work, or simply grabbing a beer on the way to a party. The selection is limited here, true, but man, do they make up for it in quantity. Christ, look at that giant sized Asahi! That’s like a forty and a half in one bottle!

Ah, but of course if this did exist in my neighborhood… it wouldn’t exist for very long. It would last maybe 24 hours before someone got the bright idea to gank the entire machine into a garage or basement where they could pry open the machine and have a week-to-a-month’s worth (depending upon how full the machine was and how much you drink in a week) of beer.

But, in Japan, this not only exists, but prospers. You don’t see as many of these as you do the iced coffee machines, but still: wow. Must be nice…

I didn’t see quite as much wide variety of beers in Tokyo that I do here, but I did see a wider array of products from the Kirin and Asahi brands. I particularly enjoyed the Asahi Extra Dry. There’s a microbrew (or microbrand, anyway… seems that it’s made by Kirin) called Heartland that didn’t suck… although I tried to go to one of the Heartland bars in Roppongi, and that sure did suck.

And, surprisingly, I saw very little of the Hitachino brand of beers, despite their semi-popularity here in the snob sections of upscale liquor stores in Chicago, and in Japanese ex-pat stores like Mitsuwa.

I did hit the sake at the restaurants though. Acquired a taste for the fucker. I had some very tasty stuff there… can’t remember a label to save my life, but tasty stuff. I also had this potato-based, vodka-strong, sake-like, liquid crack called shochu. Couple glasses of that at dinner and I was nicely snockered.

I refuse to buy, and I dislike drinking Budweiser, but their humorous advertising is absolutely hysterical. Last year’s super bowl ads weren’t up to snuff, but they’re more than making up for it now with the Kung Fu master spots. Totally nailing that hot 18-45 male demographic with a beer-drenched take of kung fu clichés. Brilliance.

Equally brilliant was their (sadly, now ended) radio campaign, Real Men of Genius. Beer has never better advertised on the radio. It worked on TV too, but radio was where it began and truly shined.

Here’s a site with what might be every Real Men of Genius radio ad in MP3 format. You won’t be able to download them direct from that page, but when you click on them, they’ll load inside your browser, and give you a link to download them directly (one at a time). They’re only 80kbps, but these are goddamn radio commercials, so quit yer bitchin. You can hear everything just fine.

Bit of trivia: the guying singing in the background used to sing for Survivor. From Eye of the Tiger to Bud ads. Now, that’s a satisfying career.

When I saw this on the shelf, I had to pick it up.

That’s Atomium Beer. A Belgian Beer named after Brussels’ second most recognizable monument (after Mannequin Pis). If you remember the incredibly silly video for Front 242’s “Headhunter,” you’ll recall that the actual Atomium looks like this:

And just about every guidebook on Brussels tells you to go look at it, but not to go inside it. Apparently the Atomium’s windows haven’t been cleaned since was built in the sixties, and Brussels’ rainy weather usually conspires against views you might see from inside. We took the guidebook’s advice when we went to Brussels. We went to it, looked at it, snapped a few pictures, and then had some more beer.

People tend to diss Brussels, but I had a fantastic time there. Go ahead and keep going to your hashish cafes in Amsterdam… that means more room in the fantastic Brussels bars for people like me. Belgium itself is a beer drinker’s paradise. The country itself is only the size of Maryland, and yet produces over 1000 different brands of beer. And some amazing beer at that.

Anyway, the link to Atomium beer and the actual Atomium is that like the hexagonal design of the Atomium, the beer contains 6 different kinds of grain. Wheat, Barley, Spelt, Buckwheat, Rye and Maize. I’ve never heard of a beer made from corn before… I’m guessing that there might not be that much maize in the beer.

It’s a rich, flavored beer that’s light in color. It’s definitely a sipping beer, and definitely one to let settle. No matter how I poured it out of the bottle, the beer had a HUGE head on it. Guess I need to buy the official Atomium glass to truly enjoy it, eh?

It is a little pricey for a 4-pack. It’s not something you’ll want to drink to get drunk. The rich flavor made me cap my limit at two bottles of Atomium in one sitting was about my limit. But, if you’re in the mood for a tasty after-work-decompression beer with actual flavor, I recommend it.

Visit the Atomium Beer site here.

So to continue on my bizarre obsession with energy drinks mixed with beer, I picked up a six pack of “Sparks Malt Beverage” from my local grocery store.

Nice packaging. Sort of Red Bull meets Old Style 20 ouncers. And it looks like a battery.

The taste is an acquired one. Imagine if you could make maple syrup out of nothing but orange skittles and corn syrup. Then carbonate the fucker. You’re then getting close to just how fucking sweet this thing tastes.

I tried the first can while I was watching a DVD. That was a mistake. The sweetness of it really put me off. It was so sweet it was distracting me from what I was watching. I got through maybe half of the can by the time the movie was done, and threw the rest away.

I gave it another chance again last night while trying out Hulk: Ultimate Destruction for the Gamecube. And that’s when the drink clicked for me. I finished two cans while destroying cities, picking up puny humans and downing helicopters. Not sure how much of it was a sugar rush or how much of it was the video game, but I played for 4 hours straight, and still felt caffeinated and energized to keep me awake to watch Hurricane Katrina coverage for an hour or two. It made me see how this could be a popular club drink. Good lowbrow fun.

Not sure if I’d buy it again though. I’m trying to avoid having another root canal if I can help it. Besides, I’m thinking Zygo Vodka will be my next Energy-Alcohol experience. Any vodka that advertises itself as a “Morning Vodka” is my kinda booze.

And, besides, check out the photos page:

That’s right. Not only do you get re-energized by Zygo, but Zygo also compels hot chicks to kiss each other too. And wear hot lingerie. Gotta pick me up some of that shit.

OK, so he’s not the St. Pauli Girl. That would make St. Bernardus my second favorite logo in the beer world.

I think this is a glorious image for a beer to have. The beer God wants you to drink. The four-pack I picked up had this monk at the altar of a church with rays of light shining through the beer with heavenly magnifigance.

It reminds me of the Benjamin Franklin quote: “Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” Good old Ben. He’s a great countermeasure to all that horrible Puritan thinking that’s still screwing up this country.

I blame the Puritans for this country’s still somewhat tenacious blue laws. (The ban on selling alcohol on Sunday laws that’s still in effect in backward states like Indiana.) Back in the old country, Sunday WAS the day you had a beer! God said it was a day of rest! Can you think of a better way to rest and relax than with a nice cold pint?

Bah, silly teetotalling puritans. I’m glad they’ve segregated themselves into Utah. Makes them easier to avoid.

Back to the beer, St. Bernardus isn’t just a pretty face, but happens to be a tasty treat to boot. It’s a little pricey, but delicious. I went for the white beer variety, and found it creamy and smooth. The Beer Advocate is a fan of this beer too, giving the 10% alcohol “12 apt” variety a 94 out of a possible 100.

St. Bernardus has a web site in Flemish (I think) here. If you don’t read Flemish, there are plenty of pictures about the brewing process, if you’re into that kind of thing. I found my 4-pack at Whole Paycheck Foods.

O.K. I fucking love scotch. No really. A lot of people say they love scotch, but for me, it comprises a major part of my life.

I’ve had just about every great scotch imaginable. I’ve been in bars, and I’ve ordered things that they had to call the manager in to pour…

I just fucking love Scotch.

Right now, I have in my glass a very nice Macallen Cask Strength Scotch, and let me tell you now, buck-o, its the goddamned nectar of the fucking gods…

How would I desribe this stuff?
Valid question…

Its a wonderful carmel, earthy, just a bit sweet.

Its pure awesome in a bottle.

I’m enjoying it with a nice Becks, you know the pride of Bremen, that fucking town that looks like one of those fake Bavarian Villages, only its a real Bavarian Village…

So Macallen, Becks Beer, and the Incredible fucking Hulk - thanx TiVo…

Speaking of beer as a mixer, here’s the number one page that comes up when you Google: “beer as a mixer.”

If you want the recipes, you’ll have to give them a fake e-mail address. The first two are concoctions that actually require forethought and planning, but the last one is about as basic as you can get. BE-atch is Chambord mixed with B to the E.

Jesus, isn’t B to the E sweet enough? You gotta throw in some expensive purple liqueur on top of it? Why don’t you just have a cosmo and a line of coke?

It reminds me of a drink I used to see people drink when I lived in Boston and went to Man Ray. Purple Zima or Red Zima. That was Zima with a shot of either Chambord or Grenadine. Guess if you have to have Zima, you might as well have some flavor to go along with it. Plus, if you’re having the Red Zima, you can pretend you’re drinking glow-in-the-club blood. Wheeeee…

I’ll admit to having a couple of the red variety back in the day. It reminded me of the “Kiddy Coctails” or “Shirley Temples” I used to enjoy when I was four or five.

Thanks to Andy’s Fruit Ranch, I’ve found a way to impress boring people at parties.

Andy’s is a little grocery store a few blocks away from my house in Chicago in the Albany Park neighborhood. It prides itself on fresh produce and fruit, but for me, the true joy of Andy’s is the sheer amount of European imported goods that the store has.

I mean, they have a nutella section, OK? An entire section in an aisle devoted to over-sweetened, processed hazelnut/chocolate spreadable creams that haven’t caught on in the US yet. Looking for banana flavored cookies? Andy’s has got those, plus those chocolate covered banana things, and the 20-cent glory of Croatian Bananko.

Andy’s also has an impressive selection of cheap-ass eastern European beer.

Now, these beers really aren’t anything special. To me, they taste like American beer… light on flavor, high on carbonation, not too different from Bud, PBR, Coors and their ilk. But, the labels and brand names are fantastic. And at $1.65 or so a piece for a 20 oz. bottle, ya might as well pick up a couple different brands.

Ursus is damn impressive looking. Big frickin’ Romanian bear on the label. Won’t you impress the ladies with your gigantic bottle of Romanian beer with a big fucking bear on it. It is the “King of Beers in Romania,” after all.

Kamenitza has an almost Japanese name, but like most imports in Andy’s, it’s in fact a Bulgarian brew. The most popular beer in Bulgaria, if you believe their hype. Big on promoting the beer with football players, too.

Might as well pick up a bottle of Astika while you’re in there. Make yourself seem super worldly… even if it does taste only slightly different from American brews. Also Bulgarian.

Ah, what the hell. They’re cheap. And I’m sure they remind someone somewhere in Chicago of their fatherland.

“To the Fatherland!”

So I was stuck in a van yesterday.

Good times indeed, it was a 43 mile stretch of Michigan Highway from Ann Arbor to Detroit, and it was about 95 degrees and near 50% humidity, and the kicker was the AC in the Van blew on my trip out there earlier.

I know, poor me, right? Those Tsunami victims have nothing on me…

Anyway, regardless, it sucked. Oh yea - verily did it suck. Anyway, I was hot, and weary and quite obviously not properly gruntled by the time I get back.

The minute I got back to the office and called and relayed my tale to Amy, she suggested we go to Agave upon my return for some south of the border booze. This actually didn’t sound too bad. After all It was hot, I was hot, and I could use some.

I wanted something different wen I got there, so I tried a Sunrunner. Its basically a pint of Dos Equis, with a shot of Sauza Tequilla added to it. I know, it sounded somewhat disgusting to me at first, but I thought I’d try it.

Damn. Dos Equis and Tequilla go together like the mythological peanut butter and chocolate combo. It was really really good. All the tequilla did was really enhance the taste of the Dos Equis. And damn after about 4 of them I totally forgot the fact that I was hot and disgruntled. I was actually very properly gruntled after that. And feeling nothing of the earlier heat prostration. As I suppose is the point of most Mexican drinks (I’ve heard tell that it might get a tad bit warm down there).

Anyway on a hot day, I’d really recommend an icy cold Sunrunner. You will forget all about how hot it is.