Winter Beers

Ok, after a nice little break to get over my blog fatigue brought on by my Halloween horror movie insanity, I decided to come back and write about something I don't think I have written about yet: BEER!  Winter beers to be exact.  Much like the Christmas holiday season, winter beers seem to show up on the scene earlier every year.  However, unlike the seething rage I experience whenever I first see the Christmas decorations at Target in the next aisle over from the Halloween decorations, the appearance of the first winter beers in October this year brought me joy.  Here are a couple of my favorite winter beers.  This is by no means an all-inclusive list - they are just the beers that I have already had this year that came to mind when I decided to write this post.

Columbus Winter Warmer
Lets start things of with a local brew from the Columbus brewing company.  This beer is an English style winter warmer with caramel malts, ginger and cinnamon. The best winter warmers do exactly that - on a cold night the spices help warm you up from the inside out, and this is a pretty good warmer.  The best part is that it is usually only $8.99 a six pack, and you can find it in most stores. 

Goose Island Mild Winter/ Christmas Ale
Goose Island is one of the few breweries that does more than one winter beer each year.  The Mild Winter is, unsurprisingly, an American mild ale.  It's in the lighter side of medium bodied, which helps mellow out the rye spices a little bit.  Mild Winter is a good starter winter ale for people who are not quite sure they can handle the spices that are in most winter beers. 

The Goose Island Christmas Ale follows a tradition used by many brewers with their holiday beers - they change the recipe up every year.  Goose Island always brews a brown ale, but they use different hops and spices each year.  With the 2011 version, you get hints of molasses, brown sugar and gingerbread, but not too overpowering.  I found this year's offering to be pretty tasty.

Bell's Winter White/Christmas Ale
Like Goose Island, Bell's Brewery has 2 winter offerings.  However, unlike Goose Island, whose 2 beers are similar in style, Bell's brews two radically different beer styles.  The Winter White is a Belgian style white ale, very light in color and lower in alcohol (5%).  While they do not use any actual spices, it still has a nice clove flavor that reminds you it is a winter beer.  Incredibly flavorful.

Bell's Christmas Ale also does not have any spices.  They instead opt for a toffee-like flavor and a toasted barley hint that add up to a delicious combination.  Bell's is one of my favorite breweries and I really like the direction they went with their 2 seasonal offerings to set them apart from most other winter beers.

Anchor Brewing Christmas Ale
Anchor is another brewery that changes the formula of their Christmas Ale (also called "Our Special Ale") every year.  However, unlike most breweries that have been playing with their formulas for just a few years, Anchor is on their thirty-seventh different version!  I discovered their Christmas Ale in 2009 I learned that many people cellar this beer to compare the different vintages.  I made sure to set some aside each year since, so this Christmas, I will be able to compare the 2009 and 2010 to the excellent 2011.  This year's version tastes of dark fruit (cherries and raisin I think) and there is also some nice piney flavors from the hops.  Absolutely delicious.

Great Lakes Christmas Ale
Finally, for this part of the country, we have the Holy Grail of winter beers.  As in, good luck finding much of it.   The demand for it is so high that there is little chance you will find any of this in the stores (although some places will have it on tap longer) much past the beginning of December (unless you are like me and you buy and extra sixer of it as soon as you see it and sit on it until Christmas). Great Lakes' beer is the same formula every year - its a winter warmer style brewed with honey, cinnamon and ginger.  Now, I think this beer is pretty damn good, but the hype for it has gotten out of control: some stores are limiting you to 1 six pack at a time.  Luckily, like I said, I have a sixer in the cellar for Christmas day.

Thursday Night TV Roundup 11/3/11

One day late but better than never...

Community
While not quite as good as the last 2 stellar episodes, this was still very funny.  I always appreciate when they give Chevy Chase the spotlight, and he doesn't disappoint.  His condemning, then embracing, then condemning of the gay popularity of his family's Hawthorne wipes was hilarious.  Probably my favorite Pierce line of the night came when he was asked by the organizers of the Greendale "Gay Bash" what kind of cookies he wanted (chocolate chip or peanut butter) and he responded, "Rainbow, bitches!"

I also really liked the subplot with Troy and John Goodman's air conditioner repair school dean.  I had a feeling that Goodman was going to reappear once Sweeps month started.  The air conditioning initiation ceremony was as ridiculous as you would expect from Greendale.  I hope that Troy and the Vice Dean's cat and mouse game continues the rest of the season.

Overall, my two favorite moments were both Troy and Abed related: when they did impersonations of each other and the credits scene where they were attacking Jeff as Inspector Spacetime characters (I love that they continue to be obsessed with that show).
Grade -> B+

Parks & Rec
I love episodes of Community that showcase how insane most of the town is.  Throw in an off the hook final Tom and Jean Ralphio party and you have a very funny episode.  I will miss Entertainment 720, but I am sure they will find other ways to allow Tom to showcase his ridiculous party sensibility. 

Since the crazy Reasonableist cult (followers of Zorp, who was coming back to melt their faces off) was proclaiming doomsday, the Parks characters spent a lot of time contemplating the end of the world even if they knew the cult was wrong (they make a habit of this every few months).  The best was Andy, who decided to do everything on his bucket list in one night.  The 2 highlights: his chance to be an action hero in his own home (with the expected appearance of Burt Macklin, FBI and Janet Snakehole, and the unexpected appearance of Jerry!) and, upon arriving at the Grand Canyon, Andy remarks "Where all all the faces?  You know, the presidents?"  Classic Andy...
Grade -> B+

The Office
There were things about The Office that I liked, and things that I didn't.  I guess at this point that is about all I can hope for at this point.  The things I liked: once again, pretty much everything involving Robert California, the staff's struggle not too make any mistakes (and the way that Erin marked off each mistake with an "X" on her desk, Jim's futile attempts to play squash.  The things I didn't like: the whole idea of Dwight's "doomsday" device (why would Andy ever agree to that?  why would Dwight want everyone to get fired, including himself? - he loves working at Dunder-Mifflin), how ridiculously stupid they made Kevin seem once again (really? he thinks paper is made by the man trees and their penises?  SIGH).
Grade -> C+

It's Always Sunny
The return of Dr. Mantis Toboggan!  Even if it was only for a second or two, that was a nice call back to the "D.E.N.N.I.S System".  I didn't enjoy this episode as much as last weeks, but I think "Chardee MacDennis" may have been one of the all time classics, so that's no knock against this episode.  Frank's inability to grasp that the Gang wanted to make a viral video and not a virus video was really funny, as was Dennis and Charlie's half of the quest to find the shusher.  Mac and Dee's half of the quest wasn't as funny, but it still had its moments (Mac's attempts to find out the right "Ex-Girlfriend" porn site and the revelation that Dee has sent her hair to  man online who turned out to be a woman were both highlights).
Grade -> B+

Beavis & Butthead
I enjoyed the season premiere more than this episode, as I thought it was more consistently funny.  This was still a good episode though.  I particularly enjoyed B&B's takedowns of "16 and Pregnant" and whatever that other show was involving the "psychic".  I continue to be surprised how MTV allows this show to so savagely mock its other programming.  Maybe the network executives actually have a sense of humor (unlike at the E! Network, where Joel McHale is expressly forbidden to make fun of Kim Kardashian's sex tape on The Soup, although maybe that will change now...).
Grade -> B

New feature - The Winner of the Night (I will pick which show was my overall favorite):

Based on how much I had to say about it compared to the rest, the winner is... Community!

2011 Horrorfest - The Finale

In order to get this wrapped up today, I am just going to list out the remaining movies about which I had not written in order to get to the finale:
Claw of Terror (1973), Madhouse (1974), Don't Torture a Duckling (1972), Unhinged (1982), Dementia 13 (1963), Black Belly of the Tarantula (1971), Mark of the Devil (1970).

As usual, I stuck to classic films for the finale:


The Wolf Man (1941)
I have seen this film a few times - I thought it would be good to start off the day with a classic black and white monster film.  The one thing I can never figure out - why did Lon Chaney, Jr.'s character always change his clothes into the same outfit before he became the werewolf?



Creepshow (1982)
It has been a long time since I have seen this.  The mix of horror and humor still holds up pretty well after all these years, in 3 out of the 5 segments at least.  "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verril" and "They're Creeping Up On You!" both still aren't very good, but I liked the other segments.  The particular highlight is Leslie Nielsen's portrayal as the psychopath in "Something To Tide You Over".



Cannibal Holocaust (1980)
This is the most disturbing film I have ever seen.  I expected that going in, as this is one of the most notorious horror films of all time (the director was arrested after its release, as it was thought this was an actual snuff film).  However, it wasn't any of the human violence depicted that disturbed me so much (I have become pretty desensitized to that in movies).  It was the fact that they actually kill several animals in the film (the giant turtle was the worst) that bothered me so much.  This was a film that I felt I had to see as a film buff, but I will never watch it again.



Suspiria (1977)
After about 40 minutes, the disc wouldn't play anymore (it was scratched all to hell).  Thankfully I have already seen this great film.  I should probably look into get my own copy.  To fill the whole in  my schedule, I decided to watch 3 episodes of The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror: season 2, 3 and 5.  All classics (I needed to make up for how bad this season's episode was).



Alien (1979)
I have of course seen this film many times, but for this viewing I chose the 2003 Director's Cut, which  hadn't watched since I bought the blu ray earlier in the year (by the way,  the blu ray for this and Aliens looks FANTASTIC!).  The main difference with the Director's Cut is the inclusion of a new scene where Ripley stumbles upon two of the characters cocooned by the alien on her way to the escape shuttle (which was something that we originally didn't learn they do until the sequel).  One of the all time great horror films.




Night of the Living Dead (1968)
After watching 2 of Romero's later zombie films, Survival of the Dead and Land of the Dead, I decided it was time to rewatch the original.  I started this one right after Trick r Treating was done.  It was a good choice.



Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
The almost silly way Freddy was portrayed in the later Nightmare movies (he even did a rap song with The Fat Boys, for god's sakes) has obscured for a lot of people just how great and creepy he was in his original appearance.  Freddy was truly scary.



Halloween (1978)
The best of them all...





And... we're done.  That was a lot of horror films over the last month.  Time for a break...