Category: Monthly Features

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The Firkin for February 2023

Am I the only one who feels that the big thing seems slow to arrive. Is the big craft beer trend caught in an airport somewhere?

No new IPA variant is on the horizon. A slight uptick, to my mind, in Triple IPAs but we seem stuck in Cold (IPL or IPA) weather when it comes to the dominant style.

Pastry stouts seem to be reaching an expiration date as you can reliably find then on shelves. We get the yearly pilsner spiel but them and lagers have a low ceiling.

Maybe some adjunct will become the de rigeur ingredient for brewers, I had an excellent blue corn pilsner recently and I could see any number of heirloom agricultural products touching a beer fans nerve.

But as we saunter into the last month of Q1, it seems no change in direction for the good ship craft.

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A Book & A Beer – The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

I do not actively hate books that I read. I may think a writing style is poor, or there is a character that I don’t like but I can usually ferret out a good component of a book.

Yet, I pick up a supposed classic. One that has a new two-part movie coming out and has had multiple movies made from it that is just crap. None of the three titular heroes are worth a damn. They drink and eat, to excess. They are offended and ready to duel at the drop of a hat and they have the money management skills of a toddler.

And yet, they are paragons compared to the complete asshole that is D’Artagnan who tries to have an affair with a married noble, then falls for the female villain while ignoring the servant girl who does everything he asks her to.

There is barely any action really. Mostly horse riding and a little sword play. The villainy is pretty cartoonish and the pacing of the book is painfully dull. I stopped reading two separate times and came back to it thinking that the kernel of a story or a character arc would arrive, but alas, it was not to be.

If you dare to read this mess or another howler of a book, I would recommend finding a beer that you thought was bad from your drinking past or a beer with bad marks on Untappd. The goal being to find out what flaws that the beer has thar are most offensive and if it could be saved.

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Needed or Not? – Mystic Galactic

The bottle of whiskey in the fancy bottle above will set you back $75,000. Why? Because it will be aged in a low altitude orbit above the Earth. The very definition of “space aged”.

But wait, that is not all. You get an NFT, exclusive launch and re-entry parties, a piece of one of the space barrels and a sample bottle so you do not sully the main bottle. If the wooden barrels filled with alcohol do not explode on re-entry, of course.

Part of me wishes that craft beer would bring back the over the moon, wack-a-doodle ideas that cost more than they taste good. Age a beer in a cemetery. Brew a glitter seltzer shandy. Break some rules!

Needed? – Of course not. You can spend that 75k if you want, but you have to spend the same amount on a charity at the same time.

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A Podcast & A Beer – Let’s Make a Sci-Fi

This month the spotlight is on Sci-Fi.

Three Canadian comedians try to create a good sci-fi show, in Let’s Make A Sci-Fi.  Those comedians are Ryan Beil, Maddy Kelly, and Mark Chavez.  It is an eight episode series that follows the ups and the downs of birthing the next cool adventure. 

This podcast ticks a couple boxes off the bat, under 10 episodes so I am waiting for a finish and in the 30 to 40 minute range so I know editing has been done.

Plus this is not just a riff-a-thon. The trio are actually trying with humor as a side dish. Plus it makes you think about why you like certain Sci-Fi and not others. I don’t think I would have made the choices they did and I may not have liked their pilot but the getting there was fun and interesting.

On the craft beer side, I would look for any Ecliptic Brewing beers because they have space and astronomy themed beers that would match plus they have some nice lighter PNW IPAs that would be just right. If not Portland adjacent, I would choose a dark as the sky Czech Dark Lager since that style of beer hides a lighter interior.

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Sports & A Beer – All Star Games

All-Star games in the U.S. have morphed quite a bit in the last few years alone. Who would have thought that there would be flag football played with NFL players or that the NBA would have playground style captains picking teams.

Overall an All-Star game has turned into a weekend of entertainment and not a true celebration of the best players and it has suffered along with awards shows like the Oscars and Grammys with what is the best anyway.

Injuries and just being worn down also play a role. NBA players with a third of their season still in front of them just don’t want to aggravate anything and thus no read defense is played and the NBA finally had to change the rules to a first to this point total rule. The NFL plays after a long season, that is now even longer right after the Super Bowl so no Chiefs or Eagles are going to play.

My idea is to put the game at the start of the season. Have the sportswriters choose the starting line-ups and give the fans and coaches input on reserves. Make it a shortened game and have each team play for a charity with the winning team donating a larger amount. Add in three point shooting or field goal kicking contests to round it out.

This would hype up the coming season and add a little competition back into the event.

On the beer side, choose your beer rating app of choice and find a starting five of the best ranked beers. Saison Dupont. Pliny the Elder. Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. Those would be on my list.

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The 1st Firkin of 2023

Speak for 11 seconds otherwise Skynet will know that you are inebriated. Confused? Read THIS, then come back.

Now, my first inclination is to think that the creators of this speech recognition software are tooting their horn a little bit too much. I am thinking of early lie detector tests where foolproof claims were made that just could not be backed up. Primarily because body reactions may not be about what you are being asked but what someone is afraid will be learned.

A person could have just gotten a yes to a date proposal, for example, and be really giddy. Maybe as giddy as I get when tipsy. Or they could have been told no and start mumbling. Would that trigger as an alcohol caused speech pattern.

And going back to my happier mood, how does the AI know my baseline? And what if I am particularly happy because my birthday month starts tomorrow? How does that factor in?

As with the lie detector, this inebriation sensor might be good as part of an overall set of proofs, not as a sole one.

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The Best Beers of January 2023

January proved to be weird beer month. My two co-winners this month were made to resemble tea and ice cream.

But before I jump too far ahead, honorable mentions for the month are the Simcoe IPA from El Segundo Brewing that stole thunder from their Meltdown behemoths. I also quite liked my first beer from Une Annee, their Tripel, with a sparsely decorated label was right on the mark.

Back to the weird. Cuppa a British Dark Mild with lovely notes of Earl Grey tea was way down the ABV scale, in the 3% range, but it was filled with malt and tea flavors. Near the end of the month, I was pleasantly surprised by a cream ale from La Bodega Brewing in Whittier, with added lactose so they could call it Whittier Ice Cream Ale. Again, not a big beer but well done.

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Hop Culture Best New Brewery of 2022 # 3 – Fox Tale Fermentation

Our final stop for January is in San Jose, California at Fox Tale Fermentation. And boy do they have some fun ingredients in their beers.

Time to pick some projects for the taster tray…

Plant Cultura – Oaxacan Green Corn Lager

Magic Monday – Farmhouse Ale with fresh pressed Asian Pear Juice.

Fung Shui – Farmhouse Ale with Candy Cap Mushrooms

Legend of Pandan – Tiki Inspired Golden Ale with Macadamia, Coconut and Pandan.

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Sean Suggests for January 2023

Let’s take a little drive around SoCal to taste all sorts of hops from Noble to un-named and Pilsner to IIPA to start the year off right.

Bottle Logic – Semplicitá Italian Pilsner – 5.2% “Saphir and Saaz hops tout delicate aromas of pine and white flowers and transition to the palate with an up-front bitterness. It lingers for a moment and folds into the fresh bready sweetness of the malt base with a medium-light body and effervescent carbonation.”

El Segundo Brewing – Simcoe West Coast IPA – 6.8% – “Once again, we love a hop so much, we had no choice but to name a beer after it. Simcoe’s been around since 2000, making it a classic hop of the West Coast IPA. There’s been plenty of hops that have made a splash since then, but Simcoe has a certain… je ne sais quoi that keeps us coming back for more.”

Ogopogo Brewing / Harland Beer Co. – Merlion 2 DDH Hazy IIPA – 8.5% – “With Citra, Incognito Citra, HBC 586 and HBC 586 Cryo.”

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A Podcast & A Beer – Seen Through a Glass

Seen Through a Glass is hosted by bourbon and beer writer Lew Bryson who many already know and may have heard on other podcasts. Now he has his own show….

…and I think it is really good. It takes a small section of Pennsylvania and blows it up for everyone listening to hear. Plus you have to love Bryson’s big laugh that drops quite frequently during each show. It has a bit of that Rick Steves travel feel to it.

Los Angeles does not get much Penn beer especially not the small producers that Lew has talked about so far but a good substitute would be find your nearest food cart hub like Steelcraft here in Los Angeles so that you can have a food and beer experience since Bryson weaves food into each episode. Plus those trips will get you back into travel mode.