None blacker? I don’t know, but the blackest beer I’ve had in a while. I’m not beating around the bush either, couldn’t pierce this brew with a good solid burst from a torch let along holding up to light to gauge colour. Need to view solar events? Fill your glass matey.
Light head, mocha crema in colour, clings tenaciously to the glass.
Strong initial nose of chocolate, switching more to coffee as the temperature increases, palate of coffee and cork. Om nom nom!
Bit less black, though still pretty black (contrast perhaps Megadeth and Black Sabbath?) Very strong nose of chocolate, faint smokey odours reminiscent of an octogenerians favourite chair (minus the sharp pangs of incontinence)
Strong espresso palate, silky and smooth with a good mouth coating ability marching mercilessly towards a long and strong lingering bitterness. Would go down a treat as a dessert beer, served with a good tiramisu!
I had a breakthrough today; you may now panic. I present to you a simple recipe for a snack I will refer to simply as Hamlet.
Ingredients
100g Cubed Ham
75g Chocolate, preferably 70% cocoa
Dash of chili powder or superfine dice of real chili
Method
Melt chocolate in double boiler or gently in microwave
Add chili to add a slight fireyness
Pitch in the cubed ham, and coat well
Place coated cubes apart from each other on tray lined with baking paper
Chill to set chocolate
I do not advise keeping these much longer than, oh say the first 30 minutes after their manufacture. Probably not suitable for those without an iron constitution or a healthy dose of risk taking behavior.
Frailty, thy name is meat products mixed with chocolate!
I’m lumping these two breweries together as they are both much the same in terms of product and pretty much everyone has tried their wares; I’ll be remarkably concise.
The Cascade tour is less than thrilling, without doubt the best part is getting back to the restaurant to cash your provided tokens for beery goodness. Take some time to look around the gardens as they are quite pretty, couple the stout with the scallops for the win. Available at the shop are a selection of beers not available on the mainland, you are not missing too much.
The limited edition First Harvest is worth a bit of attention if you only have time for one, using fresh green hops it is a crisp acidic mouth feel with quite a noticeable green-apple palate. I’ve heard some call it somewhat subdued for a beer with such fresh hops, but never-the-less, quite tasty.
Boags is almost entirely the opposite situation, held in a plant that provides a better tour experience. It does not however provide anything other than the tour and tastings. Try the Wizard Smith ale, take the 1.5 hour tour for the cheese at the end. Mmm cheese.
It’s a shame that Boags tour and Cascades restaurant cannot be congealed into one pleasant experience.
I’m not sure if I was actually looking forward to this or not as whiskey and my palate have never been on speaking terms. The only times they have had reason to converse, it would result in very colourful language; in a nutshell, I hate the stuff. The way I saw it however, there are considerable shared processes between brewing beer and distilling whiskey, one resulting in the nectar of gods, the other in something I’d clean car parts with, so part of me felt that the tour would be worthwhile.
So after a delightful lunch of cured salmon, and assorted cheeses, and following some admiration of the extensive range of whiskeys (second largest in the country so they tell me) the tour proper begun. It’s not exactly what I had in mind, and is more of an exposition than tour, there are no workings to look at and no guys in lab coats to be seen, in fact if you were to walk around the building and look at the little informational displays, that basically is the extent of the tour. The value comes from the host presenting a well delivered and paced talk that covers the digging of the peat, the cask types and their affects on the liquor.
It is actually quite impressive the amount of character that can be generated by water, malt and wood.
Tasting involves different stages of the liquors life, from the earliest pre-wooded spirit (also known as “Hooo, Petrol, Gasoline and Ol’ Suicide) through to the final bottle ready stage (which, whilst still diabolical to me, does have some redeeming points)
I think this was a worthwhile diversion from my beer based touring.
No, I promise i wont start every one of this series of brewery notes with a lame headline.
So as I mentioned, I’m off on a brewery tour and as of yesterday, the first one has been knocked over. The decision to kick-off with this brewery was made using the time-honoured method of “It’s the damn closest”
Located in what is (especially come autumn) a very pretty little town on the edge of the Australian alps, signposted with a large stainless steel vat (with a “well I guess we could make a sign out of it” grade ding in the side), this brewery produces a quintet of beers.
I should probably say something about the recent successful touchdown of the Phoenix lander on Mars. I haven’t been able to get the time, however the following picture goes immediately to my “Greatest Scientific Images Ever!” mental folder.
As an aside, I’m off on a micro-brewery touring holiday next week; this is something that I will be sure to write about!
Laughing Squid suggests that this video about a day with no news is thought provoking. Cool video, however perhaps not as unrealistic as it seems.
If you remove all the human interest stories, celebrity deaths, minor car accidents and other things that are not really relevant outside a local news broadcast; how much is left? Does any real news happen more importantly, does anyone actually care about it when it does? Mass media obviously realises that no-one does, otherwise their would not be such a gooey mess of inane drivel on at 6:30.
The signal to noise ratio of mass media has been steadily becoming worse for many many years, contrast that to the slow (but equally as steady) improvement of new media and it becomes an increasingly hostile world for a news anchor.
Should we already put them on the endangered list?
I’ve spent the good part of the last two days downloading from Channel BT the lumage/stop-motion masterpiece Twice Upon a Time. The Wikipedia article shows that this film has quite a unique release history, with several edits (similar to Brazil; another awesome film)
TUAT was released 1983 and therefore quite ingrained in my mind at a base level (up there with Warriors of the Wind, which bad as it was lead me to Naucicaa, so it gets a point) but I cannot say I have seen it anywhere for some time. Judging by the films history, I doubt it will ever be seen on DVD.
Ah for the good old days when the word “shit” was to be found in a PG production; this removal of adult humour and concepts from children’s TV is what destroyed Sesame Street as well.
Sadly the version is only findable in the very best quality VHS had to offer *sobs*
My vid-fu is weak, but fortunately animation cleans up well with filtering.
The guys and gals over at Common Craft have produced some excellent videos explaining technology concepts and products such as RSS, Wiki’s and Twitter. Their “Podcasts” explanation will be something I direct Teachers not grasping the concept towards on a daily basis.
Check them all out, as they are well worth the time.
