Category: Monthly Features

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Best Beers of February 2022

Birthday week and month is now over and it was an easy pick for best of the month, Eagle Rock Brewery and their nitro pour of Umi Kumā Lua, their anniversary IPA.

The IPA in standard form has nutmeg in the recipe but that is amped a notch with the nitro pour that has fresh ground nutmeg over a super creamy top plus umbrella to get the full effect. The hop and that cream layer with that spice really work as a whole. No nitro cans but the non-nitro version is also quite good with notes of pear and pine.

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A Book & A Beer – The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers has achieved quite a feat. Going from poetry to a 790 page novel and making it interesting all the way through. The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois is a Book with a capital B.

Jeffers is adept at pulling the tangled strings of personal history of individual members of an extended family tighter and tighter until the point where each step becomes a boom throughout the genealogy.

Our lead is Ailey, the youngest daughter. But all the characters get a moment in the sun, hence the length of the book. She is fierce and smart in equal measure but she like most of the characters has lived with weight saddled on them and then they add more with their life choices.

This book has garnered all sorts of accolades but I wish that there was less tripping of one’s self going on. Early pregnancy and drugs are there but at times the book is just too much. A little nod to balance would have highlighted the rocky times in sharper focus especially considering the slavery and Native American darkness of early Georgia that flashes throughout the book. I thought, more than a few times, “don’t do that, it is not going to end well.”

I am going to go the really obvious route here. For those of us in Los Angeles, Crowns & Hops is a brewery coming to Inglewood in the next year or two. They first and foremost a quite good beer maker and second are a black run business. Get a mixed 4-pack if you haven’t had their beers before.

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A Podcast & A Beer – Wild Things

Siegfried and Roy. They had a legacy but now most people remember one thing, the tiger attack and that is what Wild Things is all about…

Like most people, I assume, big cats, the early Vegas camp factor and the S&R hairstyles might be our other recollections when pressed. With the actual magic behind nowhere to be seen. But this podcast travels back and forth in time between their early career to post attack and the investigation into it. While also talking about their act. This type of of podcast fills in history gaps entertainingly which is more than can be said of most dry lectures.

There is not too many Las Vegas or Nevada beers out in SoCal distribution but a different tack would be to find the most over the top beers that you can. Be it high ABV, or a strange ingredient, or heck find a marshmallow beer. Or you could go macabre and find some red ales to match the blood.

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A Book & A Beer – Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney

I really quite liked Normal People by Sally Rooney plus the NY Times book crew really liked her latest book, so I picked up Beautiful World, Where Are You at the library.

And it was not to my liking.

I did not like any of the four main characters. Nor did I find their choices very smart. The last sixty pages or so were a slog. There were a couple times where I wished there would be some extraordinary outside event happen, like a car crash or illness. Anything to pull the novel out of the rut it was in.

I think Rooney has a style and characters that are just on the tipping point for me in terms of likability. Normal People stayed at the point but Beautiful World and Alice, Eileen, Simon and Felix fell over.

For this novel, pick two beers from breweries that you don’t normally like and do the same and pick two styles that you don’t like and taste them and try to match them to the four main characters.

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A Podcast & A Beer – Close to Death

Close to Death the podcast has a really good base idea to it that is sometimes executed really well plus the name is a play on words because it is about death and people who work in jobs adjacent to death.

One episode is about an obituary journalist, another is a medium who can speak to the dead or a taxidermist in another.

Each episode has a different co-host which is where the trouble lies. I much prefer the intro / outro host who has a much better voice and seems less trying to be funny and just is.

To pair with it, I would look for something marked as organic. Or something from a local farm. Anything that brings you closer to the earth.

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In the Tap Lines for January 2022

header_attractionsWelcome to 2022!  I have a feeling that it will be a better year than the two previous.  Maybe that is optimism or just that I keep seeing new beers pop up and it makes me hopeful.  Have a blessed new year!

~ e-visits to (3) breweries that I would like to visit in 2022
~ special featured reviews of beer brewed in LA
~Heads-Up on Los Angeles Beer Events
~ Three suggested beers to buy this month. One light, one medium and one dark
~ A Book & A Beer reads Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney
~ A Podcast & A Beer listens to Close to Death
~ Great Beer names and Best Beers of the Month
~ I will tap the Firkin and give my no holds barred opinion on the craft beer world.

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The Firkin for December 2021

It is easy to proclaim at the end of each year that the last twelve months were a crazy rollercoaster. But I think we need to look at this in three year increments instead of one year.

2020 had a different trajectory than 2021 and 2022 will (hopefully) be the last part of the trilogy of the Covid years.

I said hopefully because it may look a little bleak at the moment with Omicron and the January surge that will follow the holiday. But breweries hung in there and new ones opened. Both may have been by a hair but it did.

I think that beer life will improve this year, maybe by June we won’t be looking over our shoulders. It may not be enough for some breweries but I think it might allow for some positive churn.

But whatever happens, it will be crazy.

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A Book & A Beer – Foundation by Isaac Asimov

I have not read a lot of old school Sci-Fi. A bit of Heinlein, Dick and Asimov. But I was so taken by the visuals and dual (if not more) story arcs in the TV show version of Foundation that came out this year, that when I saw a pair of used Foundation books, I snapped them up.

First, I had to wrap my head around the amount of changes from page to streaming screen. Once, that was done, I needed to try to figure out why the additions and alterations were made. In that, I was less successful.

The book (one of a trilogy that spawned sequels then prequels) is very spare. Even Asimov admits that there is a lack of action. The fact that these stories were individual first then collected together shows a bit. There does seem to be a lack of spine down the center.

And yet, the world building is enchanting and the people sure but flawed since they are part of a multi-generational plan that you start to root for them and hope that they are indeed following Seldon’s plan.

To drink, I would suggest, since, we cannot drink beers from other planets that you instead lay in a supply of different beers from Ecliptic Brewing from Portland. Perhaps Starburst IPA or Orange Giant Barleywine. Suitably space themed for your own journey to Terminus.

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A Podcast & A Beer – My Dad Wrote a Porno Christmas

One of my all time favorite podcasts is back with their now annual Christmas episodes. If you are not versed in the erotic stylings of Rocky Flinstone, well, there are many past seasons for you to listen to. Be warned, My Dad Wrote a Porno is pretty hardcore in the sex and the humor. Add in the seasonal trappings of Christmas and things get out of hand with hilarious results.

I actually don’t suggest drinking a beer with this podcast. Way too many spit takes will happen. But when you are done listening, find a nice bubbly pilsner to continue the effervescent fun.

Or find a pomegranate beer.

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A Podcast & A Beer – Jacked Ramsays

Time to dig into early season NBA basketball and my favorite team, the Portland Trailblazers. What better way to dissect each game and player? Jacked Ramsays.

For those who have yet to join the Blazer Bandwagon, Jack Ramsay was the coach when Portland won its only NBA championship in 1977.

Host Danny Marang talks all things Blazers from recaps of games to interviews with players. Hopefully, this season won’t be as up and down as the past few but then again, a podcast about a team that never loses would get old, right?

For the beer to pair with it, you could choose one associated with new coach Chauncey Billups or a Philly special since Portland is a rumored destination for disgruntled 76er defensive star, Ben Simmons.

But let’s throwback like the City Edition jersey and scream Rip City with a Riip Beer Co. beer from Huntington Beach. Order up a Krimson Killa Red Ale as Logo Lillard hits another deep three to down the Lakers.