Category: Monthly Features

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Sports & A Beer – How to Fix the Portland Trailblazers

Before my beloved and frustrating Trailblazers went on a big 8-1 winning streak in January and February things were looking dire. They were sitting at 13-28 and had suffered some serious blowout losses. It was looking like yet another season of waving the white flag in the hopes of getting a shot at drafting Cooper Flagg.

But now things are looking better and with continued good play we just might be the top of the non-playoff tier in the Western Conference. The next progressive step would be playoffs next year.

To do that there are two things that I hope the organization and head coach Billups do to evolve the team like the logo above…

First, we do need to trim the roster a bit and hopefully acquire some additional long term draft picks. The Time Lord Robert Williams III could fetch some attention as could Jabari Walker and Matisse Thybulle and as good as Jerami Grant has been as a Blazer, he could garner us some picks as well. The roster reduction will provide a flight path for more minutes for Clingan, Scoot and Dalano Banton.

Second, solidify a rotation and send in waves of fresh players. Being able to bring players who have started like Scoot, Shaedon, Dalano and Clingan off the bench allows us less of a productivity drop off so I would kindly suggest doing hockey like shifts and just tire other teams out.

For beer, I would suggest locating a new brewery and buying a few of their beers in a can taster flight of sorts. Wild Parrot Brewing in East Pasadena springs to mind as does ISM Brewing in Long Beach.

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Sean Suggests for February 2025

This month, gonna keep this an all We Love L.A. edition of the beer shopping list.

Crowns & Hops Heritage Amber Lager – 5.6% – “our special release beer brewed for Black History Month to celebrate the history and current contributions of African Americans.”

Trademark Brewing Ocean Thunder West Coast IPA – 7% – a Double Dry-Hopped IPA featuring Nelson, Citra and Strata hops.

Beachwood Brewing Jukebox Jammer IPA – 7.1% – “this West Coast IPA is packed with a bold, dank four-hop blend (Mosaic Dynaboost, Columbus Cryo, Mosaic, Talus) that hits all the right notes!”

And here is a wee bonus option that you might want to track down….

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A Book & A Beer – Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez

This is my first real big book in a while. Nearly 600 pages for Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez.

This is a supernatural / horror genre book with locales in South America and England and Africa for a tiny bit too. For a long novel, it moves pretty swiftly snd considering the time jumps from section to section and lead voice changes, is easy to follow along with.

The book is centered on Juan and his son Gaspar in the days and then years following the death of the wife and mother., Rosario who was born into a truly weird cult whose members thinks they can find eternal life from the Darkness. But you do not want to mess with the manifestation of it because it will take fingers, arms or eat you alive.

Juan is the medium from which the Darkness is summoned but being that middle man is killing him and he does not want that for his son which is the main plot driver.

I would give Our Share of Night a mild recommendation. If you can get past the inescapable fact that the father does not communicate to his son anything that would help him against the cult then you will be OK. So many events could have been avoided with a simple five minute conversation. The other big issue for me was the rushed ending. A book this long shouldn’t have to speed through the action at the end and then just abruptly end.

You will need a few different beers for this one and my main choice would be to try a couple things. First, look for a raspberry or cherry chocolate stout. Blood and darkness. You could also do a Guinness blend with the Irish stout with a fruited wheat beer or if you want to get experimental, a fruited sour.

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A Podcast & A Beer – An Arm and a Leg

I am not a true crime podcast fan but I have started an NPR podcast that is all criminality. An Arm and a Leg hosted by Dan Weissmann.

From profiteering to charity care it can be depressing but the podcast is also trying to be empowering as well by getting knowledge out about inner workings of the vast medical business.

With additional labeling being recommended for alcohol a possibility and with Dry January in the rearview, I would say that for beer to drink with this, go find some session IPAs or some low alcohol British-style beers with low ABV

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The Firkin for January 2025

Just before leaving office, the Surgeon General of the United States, following the lead of officials in Europe has suggested that an additional warning of cancer risk be added to alcohol products.

You can read up on the main points HERE but I have three questions that I would like additional information on…

  • is this for ALL alcohol? are grapes better than malt or apples better than toasted oak? are the botanicals in gin OK?
  • what is the math on amounts? is 16oz of 5.5% beer better than a cocktail with 45abv spirit?
  • what is the research (if any) on people who drink but do not get cancer. we have all heard about the old lady who drank scotch every week for forty years and lived to be 100. what is different about those folks.

This is all bearing in mind that science is ongoing, what seemed obvious now might be much murkier ten years from now.

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Sports & A Beer – Teams You Love to Hate

Since America is in a hate moment.  Sorry, strong words to start a sports post but with the recent election cementing our centuries long march of hate. I thought I should inaugurate the year with a look at franchises that I, and many others hate. 

The logos above show off a few truly despised teams but different parts of the country have their own heated rivalries.  For me, any Seattle team is automatically on the list since I am from Portland.  Also, add the Lakers as well.  Nothing like hearing all of Portlandia screaming Beat L.A. even if I do currently reside in SoCal.

The Cowboys are on the short list with their whole America’s Team showmanship.  The Patriots because of Brady.  The Yankees because of their open checkbooks (much like another baseball team formerly of Brooklyn).  Alabama as a representative of the high and mighty SEC conference and Ohio State with that super annoying THE Ohio State crap.

A sure way to get on the hate agenda is to have success plus be uppity about it.  All the teams mentioned have both and boy does that spur people on.  On the flip side, when those teams are not in their thrones boy is there some gloating going on.  The Michigan Wolverines helped the country out with that last year.  The other factor that I noted is that, like the orange baby, there is more crying of unfairness from the hated teams and not as much of the traditional fans saying, wait till next year bonhomie.  There just aren’t many Chiefs haters and the small amount that there are feel like their hearts are not in it.

Now I am not going to ask you to drink a beer from someplace you do not cotton to. What I instead suggest is getting a beer from a brewery you admire and jotting down why you admire them. Why? It is much better to spend time with those we love than those we hate. That is why I do not watch the Lakers.

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A Book & A Beer – Knife by Salman Rushdie

Memoirs are not usually my cuppa but after hearing Salman Rushdie talk about his scary new book, Knife about his near fatal stabbing, I added it to my library list and I was quite taken by the thoughtfulness and openness displayed. It could have been easy to be simplistic about such a horrifying attack recounting events in a rote fashion but Rushdie plumbs deeper and looks at the whole picture and not just one victim and one attacker and the medical consequences.

Such a violent and bloody book make for a much harder beer choice. But I will lean into the word meditations in the sub-title and suggest finding comfort beers. Nothing hoppy or bitter because that is not what this book is about. Find a lovely brown ale like Figueroa Mountain’s Davy Brown or look for a nice porter from your local brewery.

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A Podcast & A Beer – Sherlock Holmes Short Stories

I do not think that I will ever get tired of the mysteries and deductions of Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle. And now the Noiser podcast team have indulged me with readings by actor Hugh Bonneville of the short stories starting with The Speckled Band.

Since the short stories are brief, it takes about two or three episodes to crack the case in nice half-hour chunks and Bonneville brings the stories to life without getting too theatrical with the line readings.

To pair with mystery, dare I suggest you find your own Watson to cover up labels or pour beers blind so that you can deduce hops, terroir or even the brewery who made it. If Watson is away, then find yourself a nice mild or English IPA.

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The Firkin for December 2024

I am not inclined to doom and dread when it comes to the New Year. Perhaps because the bar of past years is not the highest of hurdles.

But I do feel mighty trepidatious about our breweries in Los Angeles and this country overall. Zooming out, it is clear that most voting Americans have no idea of the deleterious effects of tariffs and how they are best used in tiny, targeted doses. It is also clear that the ultra religious right cannot stay in church and rather enjoy pushing their twisted morality onto anyone and alcohol is one of their targets.

On a local scale, breweries here are closing or are in trouble. Will that balance out naturally with the remaining breweries getting the dollars? Perhaps. And I do think that turnkey breweries and cheaper kit may lead to a new set of exciting beer but that may not come to fruition until 2026. Until then, we may be looking at a lot of light lagers as draws since slushies and seltzers are fading fast.

The one thing that I will be tracking in 2025 are beer prices. I routinely purchase mixed 4-packs and I used to be able to get them at the $20 mark but in the last half of the year it has been more $24 to $25 and I am looking at barrel-aged beer prices with a sharp eye and substitute a hoppy pils for them. And I don’t even look at big bottles.

However this year turns out, I hope you all have a great beer year and I urge you to visit local and also travel to beer. It might make a difference.

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Sports & A Beer – What to do with these excess Bowl games?

With the coming of yet another new college football playoff format, the old school traditional slate of bowl games are fast becoming even more irrelevant than they were before the advent of sponsored games.  If you have lost track, check out this doozy of a LIST.

At some point, these games are going to become extinct.  It is a costly endeavor to put together a good game but when all you have left to pick from are a bunch of 6-6 teams, no one is going to watch these shelf turds let alone buy a ticket to one.

I say, that you start a second tournament for teams that have at least 9 wins but did not make the big tournament and have a Best of the Rest tournament.  Then next year that winner plays the national champion in the first game of the year.

Now, on to the beer….

When I get a 4-pack or 6-pack, I tend to give a can or bottle away because by the time I work my way through a full pack months have passed because I see newer beers and my FOMO (is that still a craft beer thing?) kicks in before I notice the forlorn last can in the hiding in the back where the new beers pushed it.  If you too, have lonely singles, break them out while you watch these also ran bowl games.