Tag: A Book & A Beer

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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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In the Tap Lines for November 2023

Fall is well and truly here in SoCal. And with Halloween in the rearview we can focus on the twin heavy hitters of Thanksgiving and Christmas and by that I mean the Doctor Who episodes forthcoming. And also plenty of craft beer talk and general foolishness like…

~ e-visits to (3) breweries from NBA cities for the new season

~ special featured reviews of beers to take to Thanksgiving (or not)

~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 The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff

~ A Podcast & A Beer listens to Patented

~ Sports & A Beer returns with Demanding Trades

~ New Beer Releases 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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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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In the Tap Lines for October 2023

Fall is probably my favorite season even though the biggest holidays of the year (my birthday and Christmas) do not fall (sorry) inside its months. The switch from SoCal summer to milder temps and the Festbiers just make me happy. Enough about me, let’s get to what will be covered this month…

~ e-visits to (3) breweries from Richmond, Va.

~ special featured reviews of fall seasonal beers

~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 Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

~ A Podcast & A Beer listens to Strike Force Five

~ Sports & A Beer returns with re-aligning college football

~ New Beer Releases 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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A Book & A Beer – Circe

When I was in Portland, my wife was lent this book by my Mom, and I decided to read it too. It is Circe by Madeline Miller.

This tale follows Circe a daughter of Helios, the God of the Sun and a Titans. Circe is a strange and not like the other children of Titans. Nothing like her parents either. She has the power of witchcraft.

It is a book that puts the narrative into Circe’s point of view. You see how she reacts to the day-to-day activities of her fellow Titans and the Gods as well. Most of the book finds her banished to a deserted island where she deals with visitors who mostly interrupt her peace. Most get turned into pigs.

This is one of those books where having a list of characters at the back is very helpful. My college days reading of Greek tragedies only took me so far. I have a predilection for stories told by a not major character elsewhere. It fleshes the world out and you gain new insight on people you think you know but you really only know from their narrative.

For beer, I would look for beers with either botanicals such as juniper, sage and the like to represent the ingredients for many of Circe’s spells or look for a wine barrel-aged sour beer because there is a lot of sour grapes between parent and child, between siblings, between sea creatures and sailors and practically everyone in this book.

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In the Tap Lines for September 2023

California has been in weird times lately. Hollywood strikes, a tropical storm for the first time in 84 years and robotaxis wild in San Francisco. Let’s get back on sturdier ground in beer…

~ e-visits to (3) breweries from the new trendy beer city, Pittsburgh

~ special featured reviews of Oktoberfest beers

~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 Circe by Madeline Miller

~ A Podcast & A Beer listens to Family Trips with the Meyers Brothers

~ Sports & A Beer returns with too many hot takes

~ New Beer Releases 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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A Book & A Beer – The Sullivanians by Alexander Stille

This world is weird. People have an innate desire to control. Both occur page after page and all over The Sullivanians by Alexander Stille.

First have to mention that this is not fiction. This happened in New York City in the not so distant past of the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. Saul Newton and Jane Pearce taking bits and bobs of psychology from their mentor, Harry Sullivan started their own group which was part commune, part social experiment but mostly ill thought out and misguided.

It is wacky stuff. I am no prude but damn the partner swapping was out of control with special couples rooms that I would not have crossed the threshold of until they had been hosed down. Kids were taken away from parents and raised by others or simply shipped off to schools far away. Your therapist might be drunk and still charge you for their time even though you were paying dues. Then it became a theatrical troupe and then as the pattern with cults. It ended up being a restrictive, paranoid and violent group.

Since it is New York based and by the end bitter with accusations and counter accusations, your obvious brewery to find is Other Half and their hazy IPA’s with swirling colorful label designs.

Here in L.A., no stranger to cults, I would pick a brewery and have one of their pale ales, then and IPA, then a hazy and finally a DIPA and see if you might be someone easily swayed into evangelizing or if you are more wary, like me.

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In the Tap Lines for August 2023

August is filled with lots of, shall we say, interesting posts coming from me. Stay tuned in for the two daily posts for monthly features like where I pair beer with books, podcasts and eve sports stories.

~ e-visits to (3) breweries from around the United States

~ special featured reviews of beers from around the country

~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 The Sullivanians by Alexander Stille

~ A Podcast & A Beer listens to Who Shat at the Wedding

~ Sports & A Beer returns with bad Womens World Cup vibes

~ New Beer Releases 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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A Book & A Beer – The Trackers by Charles Frazier

Charles Frazier is best known for the hit Cold Mountain, his latest book is also set in a rugged past with a bit of a plain name to it, The Trackers.

The plot centers on a muralist for the Works Progress Administration sent to Wyoming to add art to the post office in the small town of Dawes.

That artist, Valentine Welch, has a rich benefactor in John Long who has recently married and is pondering politics as a next move. That wife, Eve, is mysterious and fresh off being a singer that travels the country. Another mysterious Eastwoodian character is Faro, the head ranch hand.

This was a bit of a split book. The front half is about the various people and the town and the mural. Then Eve disappears and it becomes a Chandler / Hammett mystery. Neither really worked for me because the lead, Val, is plain and uncomplicated so the others have to raise the interest level. And they do so in a very rote way. The troubled singer, the world wise ranch hand and the land baron who seems upright but is hiding a certain rot underneath. The Trackers has a written for the screen feel to it.

I would have Ranch Water as the first pick even though I have only had 2nd generation not really a Ranch Water. Since this is a beer and a book post, I would select an often overlooked pair of styles. The brown ale and the amber ale. This book is kind of pedestrian and you need a beer with some heft and malt to it.

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In the Tap Lines for July 2023

Climate change has weirded out the weather here in Los Angeles and in many other spots on the globe but this month is the time for lighter beers as we get higher temperatures. Plus the other fun stuff below….

~ e-visits to (3) breweries from Australia for the Women’s World Cup

~ special featured reviews of beers from around the country

~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 The Trackers by Charles Frazier

~ A Podcast & A Beer listens to Drifting Off with Joe Pera

~ Sports & A Beer returns with Bad Owners

~ New Beer Releases and Best Beers of the Month

~ I will tap the Firkin and give my no holds barred opinion on the craft beer world.