Month: December 2020

Advent Beer #4: Zwönitzer Steinbier by Brauerei Zwönitz

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Here’s the thing: I don’t really drink this much.  I know it’s a 16 oz. beer a day I’m talking about here, but prior to embarking on this advent calendar of beer, I probably drank maybe a beer or two every two weeks, and that’s even if I had anything readily available to drink in the first place.

I’m a social drinker, so when we’re in a pandemic where it’s nigh impossible to actually get social with people, then I really don’t have much impetus to drink.  Frankly, prior to this advent calendar, the last time I really drank was like on, the day where Joe Biden was announced to be the winner, and my larger circle of friends all decided to get on Zoom to have something of a toast/celebration call.  I had four beers that night and was slightly tipsy, but I’m pretty sure I haven’t had any beer since just kidding I had another one beer like a week later when we had company come over for one night.

Point is, I don’t drink much these days period.  Sure I know one beer is never going to really hurt me, but I guess it’s a byproduct of having a tiny human to care for in the early morning hours on a regular basis, that drinking to inebriation and the ensuing fallout, has absolutely zero appeal to me anymore these days.

Anyway, day four of the Costco German beer advent calendar, and we have this beer called Steinbier.  The tryhards at Untappd declare its official name to be Zwönitzer Steinbier, and I guess the word Zwönitzer is there, but it’s much smaller and less prevalent for me to bother considering it.  Regardless, I’m going to assume it’s the name of the brewer, since “brauerei” looks like it would be pronounced something remotely close to “brewery.”

Whatever though, it’s labeled as “Dark Spezial” and Z’s are pretty big in Deutsch so I guess it’s a dark special.  Frankly, I was expecting this to be something like a stout when it’s touted as “dark,” but it was more of a really honey colored amber when poured into a glass.  Based on the color, I was really hoping that this would be a dunkel, since when mythical then-fiancé and I went to Munich, I discovered that I really liked dunkel beers, and they had a tendency to be this dark amber color.

Untappd users have classified this as a steinbier, to which now I think it’s super lame that this can is just called Steinbier.  This is like the equivalent of ornately bottling water, but then simply putting “water” on the label.  This is the second time in four cans in which a beer is classified as a “____ bier” with the kellerbier from day two.  I’m feeling like it’s kind of a cop-out, or just a reason to have more classifications than necessary, because Germans definitely take their beer pretty seriously.

Regardless, the beer was pretty good.  It’s a good rebound from yesterday, but at the same time I’m not sure if this would be ranked #2 or #3 out of the four cans had so far.  Ultimately my knee-jerk reaction is that it’s #3, that something about its flavor was a little intense, and that I favored the lighter tastes of the first two beers of the box.  Still, it was quite easy to drink, but if I’m being honest here, I can’t say that this is something that I’d probably drink more than two of these tallboys before wanting to switch to something not quite so bold flavored.

Obviously, my rankings are to be considered with a grain of salt, as I’ve said, I don’t know shit about beer snobbery, I just know what I like.  Regardless of how I rank these things, every single one of these has been as good if not better than the typical types of beer that are easily commercially available that I tend to favor myself, and I continue to enjoy and look forward to the next day’s brew.

Advent Beer #3: Käuzle by Kauzen-Bräu

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Man, that episode of AEW Dynamite sure was whack.  A 61-year old Sting showing back up, and then that turrible finish to the main event where it turns out that there’s some cross-promotion going on with Impact wrestling?  I thought AEW was serious about trying to compete, but by intertwining themselves with Impact, they’re a few weeks away from doing some bullshit cup tournaments with no meaning, and having battle royales where eliminations occur when a guy is thrown into the ring.

AEW doing business with AAA and the NWA is kind of cool.  The few guys they have that are allowed to do dates with NJPW make it seem like they’re crossing over.  But working with Impact, which is the hollowed out bones of what used to be TNA, feels like when Sears merged with K-Mart, and it was a pretender with a modicum of reputation, teaming up with a dying animal and in the end both start to sink as a result of the union.

Somewhere, I suspect that the impetus of this joint venture is to ultimately bring together some of the core members of Bullet Club, since Omega and the Bucks are AEW, but Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows are in Impact.

Either way, it’s going to be lame, and whatever equity that AEW might have built up over the last year might seem to be on its way out, and considering the entire promotion loves to use gambling lingo in their ppv names, they’re definitely on the path of cashing out, especially now that that the first year has passed, so the Bucks and Omega are now booking themselves as the promotion’s champions, and they’re getting into bed with a jobber fed like Impact.

Oh wait, this was a supposed to be a post about my German beer advent calendar, right?  Yeah, so today’s brew was Käuzle, a pilsner with a cute little owl on the can.  Because what I do for a living is visual, I most certainly judge books by their covers, and if I were at the store, I’d probably pick a beer like Käuzle, because I like minimalistic designs with animals on them, especially when I can’t make out the German text on it one iota.

However, pictures and can designs don’t always have much bearing on the contents of said cans, and Käuzle, wasn’t necessarily terrible, but of the three beers I’ve had over the three days, this was most definitely the weakest of them all.  Untappd classifies it as a pilsner, and it apparently only has a 3/5 rating, which I’d say is pretty accurate to how I felt about it, if not a little generous.  The flavor is weak, abruptly ends, and is pretty forgettable.  At 4.8% ABV, it’s a little on the weak side, and I liken this to like a German equivalent to PBR or some low-end beer that is mostly good for keeping your buzz going once some other beer has gotten the party started.

Anyway, there’s no way there were not going to be any stinkers in a case of 24 different beers.  And I’m not saying that this Käuzle is that big of a stinker, but it’s definitely the bottom of the rankings after just three days.

New Father Brogging, #028

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Originally, I thought about writing about how teething was the worst thing ever when it came to raising a baby for the first time, but I’m pretty sure my new dad brogs #28, 27 and 26 were probably about the subject of teething, so I figured I’d lay off that topic for a minute.  But it was going to lead up to how parenting for the first time genuinely feels like a bell curve of difficulty, as so many other parents have told mythical wife and I that “it gets easier!” in time, but I’m pretty sure that the people telling us this had long forgotten what the teething experience was like.

Frankly, the first two months or so of parenting weren’t really at all that difficult except for knowing that your sleep habits become more like fragmented shifts, and that your entire life is spent on your tiptoes making sure that your baby is breathing, eating and alive more or less.  But during the daytime, my kid was mostly asleep in the Mamaroo next to me while I worked remotely, and I still have fond memories of simply turning my head and seeing my pride and joy blissfully sleeping while I was trying to maneuver through my work days and pretend like I give a shit.

Once the first sleep regressions hit, the stress ramped up, but settled down fairly soon, once new routine had been established.  As I often say, routine and repetitions are the lynchpins to success, and it very much applies to parenting as well, because once you establish and reinforce, things get easy, that is, until it’s time to scrap everything and start all over again, which I’ve learned is basically the basis of raising a child.

Teething though, that’s stuff of nightmares, made worse by the simple fact that the timeline of it is basically several years, based on the pace in which a child’s teeth begin to come in and grow.  Sure, as they age their pain tolerance begins to develop, but man those first few teeth, and the pain and suffering they put my child through, lord almighty, I’d do just about anything to take that kind of agony away from my kid.  And that’s only four teeth out of the estimate 20 that kids usually have.

But we’re not going to talk about that kind of minutiae of new parenting, as recently was something of a high stress point in my life as a new dad. 

A few months ago, we introduced my daughter to eggs.  It was not a particularly good introduction, as we were met with projectile vomiting, runny diarrhea, and all sorts of skin breakouts.  Embarrassingly, it took more than a day for us to realize the outlier in her diet that suddenly caused all of this, but once we identified that it could potentially be eggs, we immediately took them off the table.

Continue reading “New Father Brogging, #028” →

Advent Beer #2: Fürst Carl by Schlossbrauerei Ellingen

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I don’t really care how it’s actually pronounced in Deutsch, it’s “First Carl” as far as I’m concerned.  Which then makes me think about Carl from The Walking Dead and how Rick always called him “Coral” because his mouth was trying so hard to overcompensate for his cockney accent and go full Georgia southern instead.  So First Coral this was.

It’s called a kellerbier, which I don’t really know what that actually means, but when I visited Germany, mythical then-gf and I went to a few wine kellers, which I suppose is the English equivalent to “cellar” so if I had to make some sort of assumption First Coral is what the Germans would call a celler beer.

Whatever though, to cut to the chase, this was a very pleasant beer.  Definitely better than the one from yesterday, and good to know that the too-short trend after just two days is that things are going upwards in terms of quality.  A nice amber color, pleasant aroma, and a full flavor that didn’t feel as abrupt as the one from yesterday, nor does it have too much of a powerful aftertaste that I have to stop for a full minute before I take the next pull, so I can enjoy every gulp of it.

Also, a nice spicy flavor if that’s a description worth sharing.

I also just so happened to be having a slice of leftover pumpkin pie from Thanksgiving, and it just so perfectly paired up with First Coral, because of their common general spiciness about them.  Maybe that’s a little bit of a stretch just so I could use the words First Coral again, but no really, this actually did go pleasantly well with pumpkin pie.

Overall First Coral was pretty good, and definitely keeps me motivated to keep writing about beer like the who-gives-a-fuck novice to the scene that knows what he likes and isn’t all about caring about the granular ratings people like the ones on Untappd give them.

Advent Beer #1: Hell by Flötzinger Bräu

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

What’s I’m hoping is that every single beer in this advent calendar is a 16 oz tallboy, and that I don’t get any sissy 12 oz coke cans, because then I might actually feel like I’ll have gotten my money’s worth.

But the first beer in the calendar was this beer I guess is called HELL by Flötzinger Bräu.  Because I do not read a lick of German other than phrases that might’ve been spoken in Wolfenstein 3D or Inglorious Basterds, I have no idea what is actually written on the can, and no idea of what kind of beer it actually was.  Regardless, as I’ve stated before about how I typically haven’t found a German beer that I didn’t like, I figured it probably wasn’t going to be bad.

I cracked it open and poured it into a pint glass, and I suppose that’s going to be my plan throughout the entire month because I tend to think that beer tastes best when it’s in a pint glass, and it was a nice golden color with a very light and subtle aroma.

The taste almost reminded me of an Asian beer, based on the fact that its flavor was about as intense as its aroma, which is to say it was kind of light, and the flavor kind of ends abruptly.  It’s a good flavor, and easy to drink, and I found it to be quite enjoyable.  Like if I were at a party or a wedding reception, and this was the only beer available versus drinking shitty wine or low-shelf spirits, I could easily see myself crushing 3-4 of these without much problem.

According to the snobs at Beer Advocate, this was a lager with an ABV of 5.2%, which makes it a little higher than a Budweiser, but tasted way better.

Either way, this was a good start to the advent calendar.  I wonder if Costcos in other countries are getting the same advent calendar as we are in the United States, or if they’re doing some kind of trading of regions, because I can’t help but feel woefully sorry to whichever country drew the USA advent calendar.  I’d have to imagine it would be the Costco in Shanghai, because they tend to think American shit’s shit doesn’t stink, and would probably tolerate 24 days of Bud, Bud Light, Bud Select, Miller High Life, Miller Lite, MGD, Milwaukee’s Best, you get my point

Holiday writing exercise: Reviewing Costco’s Beer Advent Calendar

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I’m not entirely sure why I decided to turn this into a writing exercise, but here we are.  Mythical wife heard that Costco was doing a wine advent calendar and being the lush that she is, we basically had to drop everything and head over to Costco, despite the fact that they’re always a madhouse these days because they’re a safe(r) place that mandates masks and the de facto place where people go to hoard and amass supplies, whether they need them immediately or not.

So we go to Costco and surprising nobody, they’re flush out of wine advent calendars.  There’s not even a space where the pallet used to be, because according to employees, they were bum-rushed so quickly and cleaned out that they had ample time to repurpose the floor space and make it look like it had never existed there in the first place.  However, at the entrance of the store, we spotted these beer advent calendars, and as a consolation prize, mythical wife picked one up.

During dinner, out of curiosity I scoped theFacebook Marketplace to see if any shitheads were re-selling the wine advent calendars, and lo and behold, sure enough, there’s someone selling them, for a surprisingly modest $20 markup.  Mythical wife doesn’t even hesitate to tell me to take them up on it, and the following morning, I’m traversing a suburban jungle, find the seller, and make a quick transaction.  Apparently, they had purchased several of them, anticipating the potential resale capabilities.  As I said, shitheads.

Long story short, with the wine advent calendar in tow, the beer advent calendar has been bequeathed to me.  And because  I often find struggles with content to write about, I’ve decided to use this as a means to exercise my writing chops, and write about daily beers, and it should be quite well established that I am the furthest from a Beer Advocate beer snob there could possibly be: I loathe IPAs, I like sours, goses, hefeweizens, lagers, porters, and basically most things that aren’t IPAs.

But most importantly, it’s giving me a reason to write daily, and hopefully I’ll have the gumption and drive to actually follow through with 24 days in a row of reviewing beers that I’ve probably never heard of.  But they’re all German, to which I can’t really say that I’ve yet to encounter a German brew that I didn’t enjoy to some degree.