If Vengeance Be My Destiny is The Cincinnati Man’s Sunday comic. This is installment #14. You can catch up with past comics here.
Just wanted to drop this quick post to say congrats to JasonB, who’s out of town this weekend getting married. So, from the rest of the TCM family to the now-slightly-larger Bailey clan: may your lives together be happy and long. Like, super-long. But not so much so that it’s annoying or anything.
Aw, hell.
Congrats, guys.
Every Saturday afternoon, TCM brings you the rock. This week, a band that I totally missed the boat on: Bear vs. Shark. I’ve got their Terrorhawk record in my man toolbox and it’ll stay there for a good, long time. Enjoy.
Every Saturday, The Cincinnati Man brings you everything that was awesome on the Internet during the week previous. You can check past Dump Festivals here.
I mentioned not too long ago how much I like Crappy Taxidermy (the website). This post demonstrates why.___________________
Photo credit:http://www.flickr.com/photos/37442197@N03/ / CC BY 2.0
I haven’t been shy about the fact that I’m still pretty much a novice about APA’s and IPA’s and, you know, liking them. It took me a while to wrap my head (and tongue) around hoppitude. It pleases me to report that I’m getting there. I’ve found a few hoppy beers that I like, and it’s broadening the ol’ landscape, so to speak, when it comes to Pale Ales.
Schlafly’s Dry Hopped APA is a good example of the APA style, though the dry hopping adds a little extra flowery scent to the beer’s nose; this is, I think, the primary function of dry hopping a beer (thanks, Beeriety!). The flowery scent present in this APA is typically what you’d find in a strong IPA or double IPA, which for me made it a little intimidating before my first drink.
Schlafly’s DHAPA pours a nice golden, almost orange color (Crayola would call it yellow-orange) that’s a bit cloudy with a nice fluffy head sitting atop. The strong flowery scent dissipates a little after a while, for the record, and the beer, while definitely hoppy, isn’t so much that it overpowers the standard citrus flavors and the overall refreshing nature of the beer. It’s nice and light, the carbonation is pretty close to perfect, and is definitely a good, solid, end-of-the-summer Labor Day weekend beer. Oooh. That reminds me. I’ve got some Labor Day shopping to do.
On TCM’s CTS scale, Schlafly Dry Hopped APA scores an “Extra Strong.” You should be able to find it at just about any reputable beer haunt.
The first thing I noticed when I cracked open Anderson Valley Brewing Company Barney Flats Oatmeal Stout was that reading the label appeared to be akin to trying to fucking finish Anna Karenina. There’s a lot going on, and in order to understand the whole thing, you have to pay really close attention. It’s not been that kind of week, so I just went ahead and poured.
AVBCBFOS has precisely the nose that you’d expect from an oatmeal stout: a strong sense of roasted malts, overtones of coffee, and a somewhat “breakfasty” character to it. It pours a pleasant almost-black with a quickly dissipating tan head that didn’t stick to the side quite as much as I hoped it might.
As silly as the name is (and Jesus H., is it silly), AVBCBFOS is a damned good beer, as Oatmeal Stouts go. It’s a dry stout, not unlike a good Irish, but it’s got a nice round quality to its flavor, and there’s not much aftertaste to speak of. It’s thick enough, but not so much so that it’s distracting. Like any good stout should be, oatmeal or otherwise, AVBCBFOS marries the sweetness of roasted caramel and subtle vanilla flavors with the bitters of coffee-like beery goodness. Its oatmeal flavor is definitely a staple to the beer and the roasted caramel flavors bring a nice underpinning that helps tie the beer together.
Yeah. I just described a beer the same way one might describe interior design. Gay? Clever? You decide.
Like I noted before, the only (ONLY) problem I have with AVBCBFOS is that the name and label ae a bit too complicated to really understand what’s going on. I had to look it up to make sure I was getting the name right (and even then, I’m still sketchy). If I can manage to learn the name, I’ll definitely be ordering this at a bar sometime soon. On TCM’s CTS scale, Anderson Valley Brewing Company Barney Flats Oatmeal Stout scores a “Very, Very Good.”