Devil’s Mother 2023

This year, it’s carbonated! Which is good, since last year I thought I could get away without adding bottling sugar.

The nose is strong; has a very roasty quality to it, with an undercurrent of chocolate. That’s promising, for sure.

The flavor…well, that’s a little sharp. There’s enough sweetness to keep the chocolate in the mix, but there’s also an alcoholic warmth when I drink this beer which seems odd. Most importantly though, the milk element of the milk stout is really lacking here. That’s a surprise to me, since I didn’t change the amount of lactose in this batch.

The other surprise was the ABV. That just doesn’t seem right, and I don’t know why. When previous years has me hitting double digits, and this year with a different yeast, I fall 3% short? That’s odd.

And I want people to know that it isn’t about the strength of the beer; it’s about consistency and flavor. This beer has a harshness to it where it should feel rounded and a bit sweeter.

In addition, drinking it doesn’t feel like a 7% beer. If you have enough ale, you get a sense of how your body reacts to these things and I’m not sure if I recorded my data wrong, or if I just feel weird!

Not a flop but not a hit, either.

Brew date: 10/29/23

Steeping grains
1.5 lb Chocolate
1 lb Carafa 2
6 LB pale 2 row
2 lb Crystal 75
1 lb Caramunich 3

Fermentables: 7 lb Ex LME

Non-fermentables 1.5 lbs Lactose
1/4. Tsp Calcium carbonate (chalk) (for mouthfeel)

Hops
@60 1 oz Northern Brewer, .5oz Kent Golding

Yeast: Imperial Darkness

OG: 1.104

FG: 1.05

ABV 7.3%

The Residency #12

The refrain of the day is: GET FUCKED, YOU GRIFTING SCUMBAG.

(get fucked, you grifting scumbag)

I went on a walk today to get new gloves; my old ones were fine unless they got wet and then they weren’t as awesome. So I pick up new gloves and I see a homeless person without gloves nearby and I offer my old gloves to them. I have new gloves, they have no gloves, I should feel good about this.

Except I don’t, because when we cut off social services back in the 80’s, we were promised by Ronald Reagan (and his pack of slimewolves) that the private sector and other services would “take up the slack”. They didn’t and now we have an epidemic of poor, suffering, and homeless people.

So to Ronald Reagan, wherever his entity is, be it being roasted slowly black, frozen red and brittle, or having his dick bitten off by snakes, only to have it regrow so that it can be bitten off again, a penis Sisyphus, we say:

Get fucked, you grifting scumbag.

As I’m headed back to work, a truck runs through a puddle, soaking my jeans. This fucking truck is too goddamn big; the cab of a non-commercial pickup should be big enough to hold two people and a dog, or a third person if they want to get real cozy.

If you need to haul more people then you need a van, dickhead, and if you need more equipment than a van can carry then what you really need is a crew and if you have a crew then you are doing a job which means you shouldn’t personally need a vehicle that fucking big.

And the only reason trucks are that big is because back in the 80’s when the regulations were being made, the car industry convinced the gov’t to regulate those vehicles less, making them less safe, sure, but also cheaper to build. So we get a market flooded with unsafe, inefficient vehicles and people wanting bigger and bigger ones so they can see-and can say things like ‘well if I get into an accident at least I’M walking away (you gross fuck)’ all so that the shareholders can get rich.

So we say unto them:

Get fucked, you grifting scumbag.

Speaking of; I don’t know who decided that LEDs the brightness of a tiny sun were a good idea for headlights, but they aren’t. It is actually dangerous to blind people who are trying to drive a car! I realize this might come as new information for some people, but trust me: driving blind is a bad thing.

And so we say unto whomever made this decision:

Get fucked, you grifting scumbag.

When I get back from my walk, a friend informs me via chat that Ben Shapiro has a rap song out. This alone should make anyone who loves music take pause, maybe even have to do that thing where you prevent yourself from puking. There are so many people with a true song in their hearts, and HE has the resources to put together a song that people will actually pay attention to. Money for.

And because it’s Shapiro, it’s an anti-trans song. Of goddamn course it is; the man cannot know peace until everything in this world is as sanded down, dull, white, and stupid as he is. He just doesn’t understand the hatefulness that also comes with it will be coming for him. Someday.

And so we say unto him:

Get fucked, you grifting scumbag.

Speaking of tiny men with hateful agendas, I soon found out from another friend that TFG is having to pay 83.5 million to E. Jean Carroll 83.5 for… well being who he is. I mean, personally I feel like being a traitorous rapist should cost more. Are the penis biting snakes available?

I’m being told they are on hold for now. Modern problems apparently require modern solutions.

And so we say unto him:

Get fucked, you grifting scumbag.

Vice brewing has a Breakfast Club-a breakfast sour ale with cranberries- on offer today and usually this isn’t my jam. Today though, it’s working! The cranberry is softly present in the nose, and the beer itself is pleasantly tart. I’d say this beer is trying to emulate a mimosa, both in tartness and with the effervescent to dry finish.

At 5%, this is also a solid breakfast beverage, not that I would recommend drinking before noon. Nevertheless, this would provide an excellent contrast to any breakfast plate and I recommend it.

Hoplessness

Neat article on what a gruit is, including Catholic Church references.

The Interlude II

I’m up in the side room today; it’s remarkably warm in here. The Makeson triple stout on the table because going outside is balls.

The nose of the triple stout makes me think of coffee liquor, and…damned if it doesn’t taste a lot like that, only with a pleasing, mildly effervescent finish that cleans itself away. I guess if you’ve been doing this for over a hundred years, you get a lockdown on the style.

Last weekend, I lost power. Many in Portland did, and much of the state was wracked by a winter wind storm, followed by an ice storm. I was lucky; I only lost power for about nine hours.

But as night closed in, and I was scribbling in my journal by candlelight like some kind of mad druid, my breath becoming more and more visible and the decision to maybe start drinking whiskey and piling blankets on the bed more understandable, it felt increasingly lonely.

“The pluses of civilization start to look real good when you don’t have access to them,” my friend Noah later said, when I relayed this experience to him. He’d lost power for about the same amount of time, but overnight so the pipes in his house froze.

The pluses of civilization look real good when they work for you. I honestly believe that’s part of the reason that the MAGA crowd…all seven of them who aren’t cult-worshipping racists or just outright grifters…is angry about. It’s probably also at the root of why people get sucked into the grift-at least in part. I heard stories later about people in Lane County who were told to expect power to be down for a week. On a day when the high was 18.

Sure, some people were able to escape to a hotel but given that many Americans have maybe $500 in savings, if that, staying warm was going to wipe out that savings.

And shit happens, right? We are all subject to the slings and arrows of the world. But some of us have armor, and some of use have rags.

And there are a lot more of us with rags, yet somehow the people with the armor get to make most of the decisions. For what I feel are pretty obvious reasons, the ones with armor tend to think, ‘well they should just get armor’ as though it was just that easy, if they think about those with rags at all.

So, folks are angry. They’re angry because they feel alone, and they’re angry because things that ought to work, don’t.

Again: I was lucky. I saw a crew on my street fixing things and probably thirty minutes later the heat came back on. When I went to bed, I might’ve been drunk but I wasn’t cold. I know people who lost power for days, I have friends who had to be displaced from their homes, even for a short time, because of repairs that needed to happen.

Yet; someone I didn’t know set up power lines, Someone I won’t ever meet came out and fixed them. I wasn’t alone. People were out there, doing an important job and getting little thanks for it.

(Admittedly, going outside to thank someone when it is 13 degrees out without the wind is….not going to happen).

Which mostly reminds me that any chucklefuck who thinks that they can claim sovereign citizenship, or espouse any libertarian ideology is just a mook born on third base thinking they hit a homer. Because when you’re sitting in the near dark watching your breath come out, the advantages of the social contract in a society start to make themselves very, very clear.

Common Ales: Ladd & Lass-Deprived of Light

This is an imperial stout from Ladd & Lass. Their notes suggest Cacao, coconut and vanilla.

The coconut is readily apparent in the nose-very strong. It’s almost worrisome, since that is the only thing I really get, initially. After letting things settle I start to pick up some chocolate, which offers at least some nuance.

Unfortunately, coconut is also the strong finishing flavor. There’s chocolate and some coffee here but the can suggests vanilla and that flavor has just been swallowed up for me.

I wouldn’t say that this stout is bad. It’s doing something interesting! According to the can, they were trying to make a pastry stout without it being cloying and I’d say they succeeded. The coconut is quite strong, which makes the beer a bit one dimensional.

However the finish is very oriented towards coffee-well after I’ve swallowed, there’s coffee in the sides of my mouth. But it doesn’t all come together well.

He’s Not Wrong But…

Building off what I was talking about Monday, we have this article about the revolt against $16 pints in Chicago.

And this just validates what I was saying! The author talks about everything surrounding the production and marketing and relationships around beer.

Everything but how much we get paid having an impact on how much we can afford.

It isn’t rocket science.

The Residency #11

In the chill of a night before our winter storms are supposed to show up, I’m taking on a Friar’s Festivus winter Belgian quad from Monkless brewing. It’s an interesting beer-I get the scent of cherry cordial in the nose, but it doesn’t offer me much in that flavor. There’s something close to a dark maple syrup sweetness.

I’m giving the Festivus a tentative thumbs up. I can’t pin anything down that has me resisting, but I also don’t know that I’d want another glass of this.

Speaking of something I don’t need another of: some monkey wrench wondering why “the economy seems to be great but people aren’t happy”. Seems like I’ve been hearing about this for weeks now.

I can’t be the only person stating the obvious here: just as we have two justice system, we have two economies too. We’ll say that there’s one for the shareholders, and one for the gig workers.

Suffice it to say, if you’re reading this, you’re probably one of the gig workers. The economy isn’t working for you.

But when the media talks about the economy, they talk about the price of gas, inflation, the number of jobs added, interest rates and the stock market. Always the stock market, where the shareholders keep their money.

They don’t talk about how much debit we’re in, how we’re getting less, how little we get paid for the jobs we have, how much housing costs regardless of interest rates, how little we are able to participate in the shareholder economy…and how much friggin’ money the shareholders have in comparison to us.

I just wonder when someone on a big enough stage is going to be bold enough to say what we all know; the game is currently rigged, and no, we don’t like it.

More importantly, I wonder if we will be brave enough to refuse the call of fascism when we look at the rigging. I hope so. I want to build the world where the hopes triumph over the fears.

Gonna be a long year folks. Buckle up, and wear your helmet. First your oxygen mask, then your neighbor’s.

Rye Amber

The nose here has a lot of that amberesque quality; malt forward, a little chocolate. But there is just a touch of the rye malt spice. it isn’t easy to detect, but if I really get into the beer, I can pick it up.

The flavors are…interesting. This is a moment when I wish someone else was here to give me some feedback.

I will say that I like the viscosity of this beer; it’s just thick enough to lay on the tongue well, but the carbonation is sufficient to clear the palate. When the beer isn’t overcarebonated which has been a problem with multiple bottles. Nothing tastes infected, but some bottles are just gushing and I don’t know why.

Getting back to how it tastes though: it’s malty, but it isn’t grainy. I don’t have a bread analog for this, but there’s definitely a malt quality that has a hint of spiciness. It’s an interesting beer, and one I’d like to try again. I deliberately wanted to see what the Tritcale Pale malt was like and so far, I dig it.

Brew date: 9/3/23

Steeping Grains
7 lb Weyerman Pils
1 lb C 15
1 cl Tritcale Pale (wheat rye hybrid!)

Fermentables: 4 lb LME

Hops
@60 1.5 oz Centennial, .25 of Cascade
@30 .75 oz Centennial, .25 oz Cascade

Yeast: Imperial Pub (3rd)

OG: 1.07

FG: 1.013

Bottled 9/9

ABV: 7.7%

The Residency #10

I’m hard pressed to resist a milk stout, so I picked up the Shazoo, an imperial milk stout from Gigantic. It’s on nitro, too so I’m really expecting some lush textures and soft flavors.

Oddly, the beer feels thin on my tongue and the flavors muted. Some coffee, enough chocolate to keep the coffee from being bitter, and maybe a nudge of milk sugar. It’s marked by mere adequacy, a beer that I could maybe brew myself. From professionals, my standards are a little higher and this isn’t meeting them.

I’m at Workers Tap early on a Friday and I appreciate that right now it’s populated, but not crowded. With Covid cases on the rise in an extreme way, I might change up themes for a little bit, at least until cases start to go down. But for tonight, I am happy to be out.

I can sense it though, the time for curmudgeons to be out is going to end. Too many people coming to the pubs. The low key hostility towards humanity that curmudgeon has is only good in places that aren’t present to the jovial nature of many crowds. Dive bars, usually but anywhere that you can sit and have a drink and not have your elbow bumped could work.

I wonder if I’ve become a full on curmudgeon; the pandemic offering me the luxuries of drinking alone, or with a small, select group who is far more entertaining, could have skewed my desire to be out. Certainly, I feel a small sense of unease now, even though there’s nothing to be uneasy about. It’s just people and a lot of them.

You know the old refrain; it’s not you, it’s me.

Or, maybe I’m just disappointed in my beverage and it’s skewing my evening. There’s no sense in being grumpy, when I could just have a better beer.

Maybe I’ll try that, next.

Happy New Year (2024)

Priestly Cave Complex, an imperial blueberry stout is on the table. It’s a pricey number from Bottle Logic brewing, which I specifically picked up for a New Year’s Eve drink.

The nose offers me a lot of chocolate, but not much fruit. The flavors, though…this like like drinking dried, chocolate covered blueberries. While I wish the nose offered me more, I’m hard pressed to complain about the flavors. This is damn good.

In a few hours, I’ll step out, and go for a small pub crawl, walking to places, having a beer, writing a bit, and then walking on. A bit like Kane, only with less kung-fu and more ‘the pen is mightier’. I’ll be by myself for this trip and I’m OK with it-not every beer I drink should be documented.

Usually I get Pensive this time of year, reflecting back on what was or could have been. But this year, more than previous, I feel that I’m on the continuum. Tomorrow isn’t a revolutionary day-except in the way that every new day can be-and I will get up to greet it not as a new man, but as an iteration of the current one.

Not the same…but my mom wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

So it feels less important to reflect on the past 12 months, and more relevant to keep my eyes on the next sunrise. Today matters, and I should live in it while I can.

I can honor the past by being in the present, so that’s what I’m going to do.

Happy New Year, folks-wherever you hail from. Thanks for reading.

I’m taking the next week of; I’ll catch everyone next Monday.