#5 – Tough Days

A lot of things can make for a tough day. The weather, your boss, a coworker, or a poor driver slowing you down can all make you have a bad day. But a tough day is a special bad day. Of course we all know people or pets we love will die, and even unexpected deaths are still sort of expected. At some point we realize that someone has to fill out the statistic books for this generation so after the initial shock of the news we can handle with the grief with some practicality.

But years later that I have come face to face with a simple task that is still tough. Day fourteen’s task is to write a letter to my father. I’m dreading this one, and putting it off.

Dad died just over 10 years ago. I still have trouble with it sometimes.

#4 – The Bucket List

Haven’t been keeping up with the journal, so might as well kill two birds with one stone. Today’s entry is my bucket list, day twelve’s task on the 30 day trek to a better man. Click the link or go see a predictable movie starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson to learn about bucket lists.

The task requires ten items at least, but I can beat that. (Does that mean I’m not doing nearly enough with my life?) I can come up with many because you can add anything, even as simple as eating a local restaurant you frequently pass, but never stop.

1. See all seven continents
2. Go to Cedar Point
3. Weigh less than 250 pounds again.
4. Eat at the Moonlight BBQ in Owensboro, KY
5. Visit Russia and see the Kubink museum and Kursk.
6. Travel in space.
7. Ride on a bullet train
8. Take a trip by train.
9. Take a trip by steamboat.
10. Take a trip via ocean freighter.
11. Take a cruise.
12. Visit Savannah, GA with the wife.
13. Take the kids to Disney World.
14. Take a wilderness trip to Alaska.
15. Become a CCIE.
16. Speak a foreign language moderately well.
17. Go deep sea fishing.
18. Skydive.
19. Climb a mountain (1001 feet counts).
20. Scuba dive.
21. Visit Hawaii.
22. Win a poker tournament at a casino.
23. Get a bachelor’s degree.
24. Continue this list.

#3

Once again up late, but nothing to write about.

#2 Journal Entry

To tired for a long post.
Celebrated Megan’s birthday with a great couple’s only trip to Kings Islands Howloween fest.
Bengals beat Ravens. First place in the AFC North! WHO DEY!!
Watching a great Broncos/Pats ending that got recorded as well.

Proud of myself for sticking to the journal even though it was late. I was tired, and it would have been easy to skip.

Best day of the year so far!!

1 – The First Journal Post

This is the first entry in my journal. I’ve been turning over new leaves thanks to the artofmanliness.com’s “30 days to a Better Man” series. Day #8 – Start a journal.

I’ve always wanted to start a journal, but three things have always prevented it, my lack of initiative, lack of follow-through (notice how much the Fictional Beer articles are updated), and thinking I have nothing to write about. But the Art of Manliness has pointed out that it is the mundane things that will be interesting in later years. I’ve taken the initiative, so now I hope I can stick with it until it is a habit.

It takes 21 days for something to become habit. Reading each entry in the ‘30 Days’ series should keep me reminded. However I’ve already been post-poning some days, and just coming back to them the next time I check the site. Two-weeks to get to day 8.

I do feel improved. Today I also completed day seven’s task by reaching out to an old friend, Jeff Roback, and MCSE classmate at Sullivan University.

I’ve been trying to eat healthier, and have been successful. However beer is still thwarting some of my efforts. A good beer buzz certainly increases the late night appetite.

Tomorrow I complete day nine’s task, take a woman on a date. Megan & I will be going to Kings Island’s Fright Fest without the kids. I’m really looking forward to it. We haven’t been anywhere alone (other than simple dinner & a movie) since going to St. Louis 3 years ago.  Only a day trip but still fun.

I hope to write about all sorts of subjects, and I have no real goals for this journal. Other than to keep it up.

LOTR – The Return of the Brewmaster

Recently I ventured to Middle Earth to commune with the hobbits and humans on the best brew in the Shire and surrounding lands. Specifically I’m speaking of Barliman’s Best.

Move Over ‘King of Beers’! This is the King’s Beer

Barliman’s Best is the namesake of Barliman Butterbur, owner of the Prancing Pony in the town of Bree. Barliman’s ales are so revered that many hobbits make excursions there for no other reason but the beer. Barliman is either absent-minded or just overwhelmed with the details of running a successful inn, but one thing is for sure. He is a master brewer, and Barliman’s Best is truly the best.

The inn has played host to all sorts of characters, but its most famous, and infamous, patron has got to be the shady ranger, Strider. Although you’ve probably know him better as King Aragorn. The king will tell you that his favorite beer is Barliman’s Best. That’s got to be good for business.

Aside from the celebrity endorsement, the Barliman’s is also mentioned in song as “a beer so brown” by Frodo Baggins. And good rumor has it that the beer was once blessed by Gandalf the Grey (now the White). With all the word of mouth advertising from locals and the nearby Shire, along with the king’s own endorsement, Barliman’s Best needs little in the way of advertising. So let’s get tasting!

What’s That? – A Pint!!

A Pint!

Barliman’s Best is top fermented. So an ale, but not crisp as expected from other ales.  This ale is heavy, woody, and packs a serious punch. An herby pungent bouquet greets your nose, which is overcome with a bitter taste. The finish however remains clean and refreshing, reminding you that this is a serious ale. Let’s explore those three moments further.

Barliman  sage for the strong, woodsy finish. I don’t know if woody or woodsy are good beer tasting terms, but this brew just makes you think of a forest. The sage aromas bring both the remininces of secret forest meadow and fresh game being cooked over a fire. A distinctly odd but comforting aroma.

The bitter taste of this beer is not achieved through hops. It is created by nettles of all things according to the recipe and tales told to me by other patorns. I seriously doubt this. There is something at work here other than common thistle plants. No one else has been able to copy this beer. If people are running around the woods gathering up thistles to make a quality beer perhaps they should by some of the beachfront property I have for sale in Mordor.

The bitterness is not over the top at all. It clenses the mouth, and leaves the palate almost dry. You’re refreshed but immediately ready for another swig. The high alcohol content makes you order more at midnight than you intended to order at sundown. Methinks Barliman has a taste for beer and business.

As good as this beer tastes, it is still a punch in the face. Plenty of alcohol and plenty of woodsy goodness, but still alien to my modern palate.

How ’bout Some Potatos?

Po-tay-toes!!!

As I mentioned above, I’d love this beer with some fresh game, fresh rabbit perhaps. A hearty stew would be welcome as well, or just let Barliman’s Best stand on its own.

The Rundown

• Category: Micro Brew
• Taste (20): 16 – 7000 year old recipes don’t get better than this.
• Ad Campaign (10): 3 – It doesn’t have one, but it doesn’t need one.
• Realism (10): 10 – I’m sure many beers over the centuries were made like this.
• WNI (10): 10 – The world needs good beer made the old, Middle Earth ways.

Final Meaningless Score – 40 – A must have the next time you’re near The Prancing Pony.

More Info

Maxbeer

Löbrau Beer – Futurama

The Beer of Choice for Those That Don’t Care

Bender: Ahh, beer. So many choices, and it makes so little difference.
Fry: How about Löbrau? It has dots on it.

Futurama is quite possibly my favorite show, and if I could live in the year 3000 I’d be drinking Löbrau Beer. Not quite as ubiquitous as Duff Beer, Löbrau is the most popular beer on New Earth.

What We Know

Löbrau is seen in various episodes of Futurama, most often in the hands of Fry and Bender while they sit in front of the TV. Pronounced “low brow,” Leela mentions that the beer is Canadian in one episode. Other than that, there is little known about the brew.

Löbrau is a slight parody of the name Löwenbräu, a 600 year old German beer whose name means lion’s brew. I doubt the writers are knocking the real beer. The obvious comedy is in the name “low brow.”

Advertising Campaign

We’re never given a slogan for this product, but I’d imagine one of the following fit.

• The beer of choice for those that don’t care about beer.
• Grip it! Chug it! Love it!
• When your thirst is big, but your wallet isn’t.
• Big on flavor! Lö on thought!
• “Too Lö!” – Endorsed by Zapp Brannigan.

Some may think that LöBrau may have a big ad campaign like Duff Beer. It’s much more likely that the beer survives on a small ad budget, and uses word of mouth among young chuggers everywhere, like Natural Light. In all my years of drinking beer and scanning the Liquor Barn’s seeming endless rows of micro brews I have never seen a big Natural Light display. Ever seen a ‘Natty Light’ superbowl commercial? No, but you’ve been to plenty of parties with plenty of Natural Light. One sign that says “Natural Light – $9.99 per case” is enough advertising. LöBrau is in the same vein and price point.

Taste (or lack thereof) and Appearance

LöBrau has a typical cheap beer color, yellow with lots of bubbles. There isn’t much of an aroma, at least from the beer, but there is plenty of aroma from its drinkers.

LöBrau is exactly what I expected when I imagine tasting it. It didn’t give me a lot to think about. LöBrau has a thin, watery bitter taste with little hops and a light but still bitter finish. The taste is highlighted by way too much carbonation.

Menu Suggestions

I’ve found that LöBrau tastes great with Popplers, Gobbler Weiners, or Bachelor Chow with Angry Norwegian Anchovies.

The Rundown

• Category: MACRO Brew
• Taste (20): 4 – It’s cheap beer.
• Ad Campaign (10): 3 – It relies on its price point rather things like advertising or flavor.
• Realism (10): 9 – There’s a lot out there like this.
• WNI (10): 0 – Do we really need to crowd out Old Milwaukee and Natural Light?

Final Meaningless Score – 16 – Drink Slurm instead.

More Info

List of Futurama Products

Upcoming Reviews

I hope to get some Olde Fortran and Pabst Blue Robot in the spring. I’m currently working through a trademark dispute with Sam Adam’s Head Boston Lager so I had to pull that review.

Duff & Duff Lite

Can’t Get Enough of that Wonderful Duff!

For my first real review I’ll start with the biggest brew of them all, Duff, and it’s low-cal alternative Duff Lite. Duff is of course the choice of Homer Simpson and most residents of Springfield, USA.

Similar Real Beers

Duff Man will never die! (Only the actor that plays him will.)

The Simpsons has used the brew to poke fun at a number of beer brewers, but it is most assuredly a parody on Anheuser-Busch’s Budweiser and Bud Light. There is Duff Gardens, Duff Man, a Duff dog (think Spudz McKenzie), and enough Duff merchandise to fill several craters on the moon.

Duff is cheap, watery, and non-distinct; a typical American lager. Light yellow in color, with little bouquet, little taste, and a slightly bitter finish.

Duff Lite is in a slightly different can.

Any good Simpsons fan will remember the Duff Brewery tour that featured seperate Duff and Duff Lite (and Duff Dry, but that’s another article) vats that all connected to a single pipe before bottling. In other words it’s all the same crappy beer, and the choice of nearly everyone.

Target Audience

Males 15-80.

If you can drink Duff wants you in their world. Of course their world is the even more fictional world where super models are climbing fences in middle-class neighborhoods to party with 30-something father of two with a beer gut.

Ad Campaign

Duff Man and his legion of buxom beer maids are ready to party with you! They are also ready to fire Duff merchandise out of a cannon, drink with a pit bull, salute the troops, remember the veterans, celebrate America, kickoff the Superbowl, sponsor NASCAR, or be the thrown beer of choice at the next NBA game.

You’ll notice I’ve spent more time talking about the Duff image than I have Duff beer. Duff prefers it that way.

Duff vs. Reality

Duff is just another macro-brew like Budweiser, Coors, or Miller, so I can’t see much room for it in reality. Just replace the word ‘Bud’ with ‘Duff’ and you have it already.

The Rundown

• Category: MACRO Brew – The biggest of the big
• Taste (20): 5 – Meh. It’s beer.
• Ad Campaign (10): 10 – Because of Duff Man alone
• Realism (10): 10 – Sad, but true
• WNI (10): 1

Final Meaningless Score – 26 -Average, just like Duff.

More Info

Duff on Wikipedia
The Simpsons Wiki

I would like to note that some brewers have made and sold real versions of Duff from The Simpsons. Also there is a canned energy drink made to look very similar to Duff beer.

Upcoming Reviews

I’m reserving Duff Dry and the many other Duff micro brews for another article. Anything that asks you to “Tap into the peppermint glacier” has got to have it’s own moment.

Assessing the Unassessable (and other things you can’t say after too much beer)

How This Works

To judge and assess beers that don’t exist in reality I had to come up with some criteria. There’s the obvious ways of imagining what the beer would taste, smell, or look like, and then applying real world results. But before we get that far we don’t have advertising, store displays, and drinking buddy’s-uncle’s-friend’s second-hand opinion to bias our judgment before the first swig of mead. For better or worse, this does affect the real beers we choose and love to swill.

Categorizing Fictional Beer

???

First off I’ll put every beer into one of three categories: macro brews, micro brews, and “ad campaign brews” . The first two are obvious, but the last is reserved for those beers produced by the big companies, but given a micro brew advertising blitz to make you think it’s special. This isn’t far off reality.

Traditional Measures

I’m not a pro-beer taster, but I’m above average at drinking it. I don’t know all the little subtleties brewmasters seek, but there are some clear elements to judge in any beer. Therefore I’ll imagine what the beer looks, smells, tastes, and finishes, as well as food pairings.

Untraditional Measures

Since I’m looking at fictional brews there are some things that are taken for granted in reality that I will need to assess.

• Closest to what real beer(s)
• Target demographic
• Could this beer be real?
• Would we drink it if it was real?

Meaningless Points System

Four stars, 12 thumbs up, five point seven-three, A++++

Here’s my meaningless system of scoring things that don’t exist.

• 20 possible points for Taste.
• 10 possible points for advertising and marketing strategy
• 10 possible points for Realism
• 10 possible points for WNI

Taste is determined by figuring out what the beer tastes like based on what can be surmised from its appearance in media.

Advertising and Marketing usually doesn’t mean much to beer purists (like myself), so I’ve included it in my reviews.

Realism is a carefully calculated algorithm that measures the beer’s similarity to real beers.

WNI is an estimation of the real world’s need for this product.

A score of 50 means the universe cannot progress until this is brewed. Zero means the universe may end if someone brews this up. Oddly enough though the most realistic beers score around 25.

Beer = Life + 1 Louder

What’s more fun than beer?

Well, many things really, but beer sure does put an exclamation point on whatever you’re doing. It makes happiness happier, parties party harder, sadness sadder, and unemployment less dignified.

Beer has been a part of human society since Ephrates and the boys knocked off after another day of slavin’ on the Pyramids. Ancient Greeks, Romans, Shakespeare, Sir Francis Bacon, and America’s founding fathers all had comments on beer. It’s been in the middle of social change from Martin Luther discussing the Protestant beliefs late on Saturday evenings (That’s why Protestants go to church later than Catholics), to Hitler building the Nazi party.

Beer is tasted in all sorts of literature. Beer is chronicled in periodicals, and studied in doctoral thesis, and reviewed in foodie sundries around the world and now on the web. But has anyone ever tasted, tested, chronicled, reported, and discussed the finer points of imaginary beer??!! Yep. I’m doing it now.