Category: Monthly Features

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A Book & A Beer – The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff

Vaster Wilds is in a word, harrowing. Author Lauren Groff has written a colonial era adventure that will leave you knowing for sure that we are really soft here in 2023.

We follow Lamentation Callat or as she is mostly called Zed or just a servant girl following her escape from a settlement that has fallen apart due to hunger and unpreparedness for this new world.

The narrative is her journey away from that horror interspersed with the journey from orphanage during a plague to America which is better but not great. Her mistress calls her the same name as a beloved former dog.

Hunting for food. Dodging men. Trying to stay warm. Staying alive in the wild. Each page makes you want her to find a nice warm abandoned cabin filled with food and clean clothes. But this wisp of a girl is strong.

I will avoid further description to stay clear of spoilers but this is a churn your stomach read that would have been good for Halloween. The last seventy pages flew by with great speed.

To drink, I would go rustic. Rustic pilsners seem to be a growing trend. Or a rustic saison. If neither are on shelves look for something unfiltered to approximate the types of water found in the forest and streams. A third choice would be something from the Bear Republic Brewing portfolio for reasons I cannot divulge.

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The Firkin for October 2023

America has a sweet tooth. And boy, howdy, it is a big one. That craving for sugar is well ensconced in craft beer just like the rest of the U.S. foodways.

Yes, I am calling for at least a moratorium on the hyper sweetened beers. As I have said before and will say again, creativity and boundary pushing is fantastic but we have reached the boundary and it is time to proceed in a new direction.

I am hoping that a new path is already being charted by intrepid brewers and breweries and it will only be a matter of time before that path becomes a clear trend.

But in the meantime, let’s pause it with pancake stouts, stop the sugary seltzers, cancel cacao coffee and eliminate excess eclair beers. We get it. Or at least I do. I want to see what else you can brew.

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Sports & A Beer – College Football Realignment

College football has a great product and loyal tailgatin’ fans but boy do the people in charge seem intent on not being content raking in cash hand over fist.

TV deals have created strange looking for literally greener grass dynamic as teams bolt one conference for another no matter how much air travel that means for the gymnastics or lacrosse teams.

The former Pac12 nee Pac10 is now just Cougars and Beavers. There are two “Big” conferences with more teams than games in a year. Supersized SEC and ACC and rivalries trampled into dust.

But there is a path out of the chaos. It starts with their being one TV deal that is evenly split with bonus money to individual teams that rank in the top 10 and those that make the playoffs. Further, at least half of your games have to be played in your time zone and each university will be required to retain at least one legacy rivalry game.

For example, the mighty Oregon State Beavers would have to play six games against West Coast opponents and their big game against the Ducks. That leaves six games against whomever would bring them closer to the top ten from a strength of schedule viewpoint.

For a beer you could go one of two ways. You can find a beer that has lost its way and find out what can be done to make the beer better or you dan give in to the football fat cats and find the most expensive, barrel-aged stout and cackle like a tycoon.

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Sean Suggests for October 2023

This month, gonna do breweries that have locations in Huntington Beach since I will be there for a brief weekend stay.

Green Cheek Pull’n Levers – 5.3% – “A New Zealand-Style Pils w/ Super Sauvin.”

Riip Beer Co. Pineapple Panacea – 7.3% – “hazy ipa with pineapple. straight from the “fountain of juice”, this elixir is certain to ease your mind and refresh your soul. healthy doses of  cascade.”

Beachwood Mocha Machine Picoso – 9.2% – “It’s our multi-award-winning Imperial Coffee Chocolate Porter roasted with coffee from Portola Coffee but with an added twist of Saigon cinnamon and spicy chilies.”

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A Podcast & A Beer – Strike Force Five

What happens when five late night hosts have no shows to do but want to help out their staffs? You get the rambling and often hilarious Strike Force Five.

There are three episodes that had me laughing uproariously. The game show with questions for the Late Night wives, the Jon Stewart episode and the Letterman episode. Not to say other episodes were lacking funny but for pure full funny hours, those are the ones to start with.

What beer to pair with funny? I do not stay up late, so I don’t have a midnight beer either.

Maybe what works best would be to go out and get a taster tray of five wildly different beers and put your headphones in and sip from each and then pick a favorite.

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A Book & A Beer – Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Silvia Moreno-Garcia know how to bring out dread and horror in her novels and Silver Nitrate is no exception.  You have three people down on their career luck and an unfinished horror movie with occult and Nazi leanings might be the reason why.

Montserrat and Tristán are our main protagonists switching from lead to sidekick in different chapters.  Montserrat is stuck in a deteriorating job as a sound engineer and Tristán is damaged goods as an actor due to a terrible accident ten years before.  But the childhood chums can (mostly) count on each other for support fighting an oncoming evil.

Silver Nitrate has a lot of set-up and character work to get through before the action can really take off as the book finishes.  I would have liked to see that action take place earlier as the revelations and new characters pile up near the end but I do understand that the relationship section needs to be built up to create sympathy for the leads.  I found both of them a little too annoying until the end when they come to a new part of their journey.  

But that is the only mark against what is a fine gothic horror story and a very appropriate book for October.

For beer, I would start off with the obvious. Mexican craft beer. Here in L.A. we get a few beers from small producers in Mexico so they would be perfect. Since it is a creepy book, you might want to get something that creeps you out. Maybe you don’t like Gose. Find one with American adjuncts like sea salt and cucumber.

Just make sure to not jump in fright. You don’t want to spill precious beer.

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Needed or Not – Coors Light Tap Lounger

Sorry, the subject line says Tap Lounger when Coors call it a Chill Throne. Honestly, back massager cool, tap extra cool. Everything else is a hard pass. Plus, I gotta think that when you plug this in it is gonna be hella loud, right?

If I could re-upholster and re-tap handle, then yes. Gimme. Otherwise, no.

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Needed or Not? – CandyCorn Whiskey

Look, I know you see Fireball selling like, well, fire and yes, spooky season is here but goddamn no one wants candy corn flavored whiskey.  

Two alternative names, free of charge: call it sugared up beginners whiskey and leave it at that.  Or just label it, whiskey that was passed over as inferior by everyone else so we dumped a but ton of sugar in it and are now trying to recoup the cost of the sugar.

And to breweries, do not even think of a candy corn beer.

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The Firkin for September 2023

I do not remember which brewery finally put me over the top but this month, I am officially done with photos and videos of spilled beer.

First is was the glamour shots of beer caught in freeze frame like a reverse waterfall flying up out of a glass, then it was the varied and sundry contests where beer ended up on the floor and lately it has been brewery staff drinking from a can but ending up with more on them and their clothes.

Maybe it is a sign of approaching geezerhood but as craft beer prices rise, wasting beer for a few digital thumbs up seems wrong. As a viewer, I wonder how many takes were needed for these videos. And as someone in a drought zone, I am heavily conscious of the amount of water it takes to brew beer and then add in the water needed to clean up after each Tik Tok stunt.

Then I break out my list of things breweries should do before uploading these videos like have an up to date tap list available, have your opening hours consistent on all platforms, keeping your website updated. Ya’ know, the basics.

I know that stuff is boring admin and doing video shoots is more fun and doesn’t seem so much like work but this beer fan is going to scroll right by spilt beer because that shit is sticky.