Tag: holidays

Advent Beer #7: Jubiläumsbier 333 by Schloßbrauerei Rheder

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Full disclosure: I copied and pasted all that shit in the headline from Untappd.  Like hell was I going to bother to try and typeset all of those special characters.

While I was drinking this beer, one of my friends and I were texting about the state of the Washington Redskins Football Team and Pittsburgh Steelers game.  The Steelers were 11-0 undefeated going into this game while Football Team was a woeful 4-7 but still were still basically in playoff contention because they happened to be in the worst division in the history of the NFL apparently.

Naturally, this had every recipe of a classic trap game; the undefeated juggernaut, versus the team with literally no name who was slogging through the season, and the Steelers were undoubtedly thinking about next week’s game against the Buffalo Bills.

Of course, Football Team would upset the Steelers, and despite the fact that I really don’t give two shits about the NFL much less most other sports this year during a pandemic while I’m raising a baby, I can still take satisfaction at a historically overhyped franchise like the Steelers meeting their demise against a woeful franchise like Football Team, and this is where I hope Football Team wins the division with a 6-10 record, gets a home game against like the Wild Card Seahawks who have maybe 10 wins and then embarrasses them, as well as everyone else en route to a Super Bowl where a team called “Football Team” is Super Bowl champions.

Anyway, all the while my friend and I were bullshitting, I was enjoying today’s bier, which I have no earthly idea on how to pronounce nor do I really even feel like trying.  One of the things I’ve enjoyed doing every day is ritualizing the pour into the pint glass, and taking stock of what color comes out of each can.  333 is a nice red color, that didn’t have a tremendous amount of aroma to it, and I found it to be quite delightful to drink.

There’s a kind of a smoky flavor at the end, and overall it kind of reminds me of a Killian’s Irish Red, but that is a beer that I like, so that is meant to be a positive comparison.  As has been the case over the last few beers, it was kind of medium bodied, and I’m not sure if I’d have the desire to drink more than 2-3 of these if I were ever in a night of drinking, but it’s still a decent beer.

If I’m ranking these, this falls into #4 out of 7, which is dead middle of the pack.  If I’m a betting man, I have to wonder what my chances are that I’ll actually be able to accurately maintain a ranking order of my picks, unless I start tabulating them onto the tail ends of every single one of these posts?  I feel like I’m already starting to lose track, and am forced to go refer back to my older posts to refresh myself already.

Advent Beer #6: Turbo Prop by Propeller Bier

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the last few days, what I’ve been doing is that I pull the can from its respective day’s spot in the box, and without actually looking at the can, I place it into the fridge, so that it’s nice and cold by the time it’s time to drink it the next day.  I want the whole thing to be a fresh and new experience, encapsulated in a single evening, with no time to anticipate or know what’s coming.  I’m weird like that.

When I pulled what’s called Turbo Prop out of the fridge, and saw that it was a design with a lot of green, I didn’t need to read anything to know that this was going to be some sort of pilsner, and probably contain some bitterness.  I kind of grimaced because I typically tend to shy away from bitter beers, as I think IPAs especially are basically like piss in cans, but I know enough about pilsners to know that they too often times can carry some bitter notes.

Pouring it into a pint, I’m met with a hoppy aroma from the onset, and I’m kind of wincing at the thought of having to drink a bitter beer, especially when all the five before it were mostly lagers or keller or dunkel classifications.  But regardless, the journey must continue and I wasn’t about to be derailed by anything other than simply forgetting to do it.

Taking the first sip, I’m actually pleasantly surprised to find that it’s actually quite good.  Kind of sweet, not nearly as bitter as I thought it would be, and the hops not nearly as intense as I would’ve imagined a can with so much green to be.

And I say this entirely intentioned to be a compliment, but it reminds me a lot of Sam Adams’ Noble Pils, which is one of the few exceptions to hoppy bitter pilsners that I actually like.  I will disclaim that such should also be served from a tap, as the canned equivalents did not bring me the same enjoyment that my first exposure to it was, at an old college pub near my dad’s house.

But overall, Turbo Prop was pretty good and enjoyable, and wasn’t disappointing at all, contrary to the belief that it might be based on the can design alone.  Admittedly the artwork wouldn’t be nearly enough to catch my attention if I were to come across it in a store, but now knowing what it’s actually like, I might actually suggest this as a suitable substitution for a Noble Pils whenever my one friend who also was a huge fan of Noble Pils and I ever have a discussion about how we both miss Noble Pils so much.

A good enough beer to keep me on topic tonight, because I was also watching NXT War Games, and was also considering writing about how belching could be akin to martial arts.  But there are still 18 more days to go, so that latter topic might just come up yet.

Knee-jerk rating so far: #3 out of 6

Advent Beer #3: Käuzle by Kauzen-Bräu

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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.

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

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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.

I shouldn’t be stressed out about this

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This is the time of year when the thought of buying gifts is swirling around in the heads of many.  I know that I should really start getting ready to purchase things for the numerous people in my life that I’d want to give gifts to, and at least I can say that I’ve already started drawing up battle plans for things I think I’d like to try and get for others.

Conversely, I’ve been asked by several to provide a list of things that I’d want as gifts.  But no matter how much I try and think about things I want or even try to put together lists of things that I want, I simply can’t, and I struggle tremendously; mostly on account of the fact that when the day is over, I’m just a person who doesn’t have much of want, for well, things.

However that doesn’t change the fact that I’m still pressured to put together a list anyway, because I’m fortunate enough to have people in my life that care about me enough to want to get me things for the holidays, which puts me in a position of where I struggle and get anxious and stressed out because I just can’t think of reasonable things that I want, that aren’t like expensive $400+ power tools or wrestling belts.

Like, I can’t really think of a more stupid reason to get stressed and anxious about, oh, people want to buy me shit, why can’t I think of anything??

And yet, here I am, sitting in front of my computer when I should be working, with like 15 tabs open to various eCommerce sites, trying to think of anything at all that I’d really want.  It’s getting to a point where I try and delve into the things that I still do on a regular basis like run, and then I get choice paralysis, because there’s like 50 gozillion options of compression gear, socks and other things, and then I get frustrated and end up with nothing at all.

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