Tag: comparison

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 #5: Kirta by Graminger Weissbräu

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the last four days, I’ve had leisurely time alone to sit down and get in my own head and then write whatever comes to mind when drinking these beers.  Tonight however, I’m playing games online with some friends.  We’re playing Mysterium.  This is a table top game that we’ve played numerous times back in the days when we as human beings conglomerated for evenings of camaraderie, junk food and conversation, while playing board games.

That being said, because I have a self-imposed daily deadline to review these beers before the day is over, I’m multi-tasking and writing while we’re playing games, and I just finished watching Clemson slaughter Virginia Tech, which was the expected result, in spite of the fact that the A-squads for both teams played a fairly competitive game until the end of the third quarter, until the wheels fell off, and the game blew up to the score I figured the game was going to result in. 

The best part was that a commercial for the eventual ACC championship game between Clemson and Notre Dame aired while there were still five minutes left in the game.  I mean, what if something like that Texas high school game where one team wiped out a 20+ point deficit in two and a half minutes happened, and Virginia Tech would upend and upset Clemson??

Anyway, as for the beer itself: I thought it was called Graminger Kirta, but apparently Graminger is the name of the brewery, and the name is just Kirta.  Either way, the design features a devil holding up a glass while holding onto a pretzel, which is alright by me, and the type of can that I would snap-judge and go ahead and pick, because, I see that this is most likely a dunkel beer, one that I’d hoped I’d run into eventually, because as I’ve stated in the last few days I discovered that I really liked dunkels whilst visiting Germany in the past.

The snobs at BeerAdvocate classify this as yet something else I’d never heard of again, this one being a dunkelweizen which I didn’t even know was a thing but whatever, I don’t know if all dunkels are dunkelweizens or if they’re two different things, all I know is that Kirta was a pretty good beer, and I think one I’d be comfortable in calling the second best beer that I’ve come across after five days.

I’m not sure how much accuracy there is to this theory, but I feel like dunkels are good cold weather beers, and that could very likely be the case because it was the middle of winter when I visited Munich in the past, but they’re just rich, hearty beers, with a lot of spicy flavors that I enjoy a lot.  Ironically, it’s this description that also means that I don’t feel like I could drink a lot of, because like other dunkels, Kirta feels heavy and I feel like I could probably drink two of these tallboys max, before I’d feel the need to move onto to something else or just stop drinking outright.

Either way, Kirta gets high marks in my books, and as of right now, I’m rating it #2 of the five beers that I’ve tried.  Hopefully there are more dunkels that show up over the next 19 days, and I’m still enjoying reviewing all these new-to-me beers that I apparently know jack shit about.

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.

Advent Beer #2: Fürst Carl by Schlossbrauerei Ellingen

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

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

I want to like this more, but the jokes

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Impetus: Thirty years after WWF Wrestlefest is released in arcades, some company announces the release of RetroMania Wrestling, the “official” sequel to WrestleFest

As the title of this post says, I really want to like and be excited about this game more than I am, but there are just so many jokes and snark to unleash and get out of my system before I can resign myself to the fact that I’ll still probably impulse purchase this on Steam so that I can play with my brother and my bros.

When I was a kid, I loved Wrestlefest.  I almost always picked the Ultimate Warrior despite the fact that by then, I was already well on my way to being one of those contrarian mark types of wrestling fans and was a by far bigger fan of Mr. Perfect than I was the Warrior, but the cheapskate cheesing kid with very limited quarters didn’t like the fact that Mr. Perfect lacked many power moves, but most importantly the ability to drop a body slam, so there was no way to get cheap easy eliminations with Mr. Perfect when playing in the Royal Rumble mode.  One of my fondest memories of this game was being a such a master button masher, that no matter the fact that I had zero health in a Royal Rumble match, I would still kick out of every pinfall attempt, and I ended up outlasting two other human opponents, with me winning the rumble after back dropping the last human player out.

Hell, even as an adult, I loved Wrestlefest, and I installed Mame and got a rom of Wrestlefest, it was basically the greatest thing on the planet, that I could now play one of my favorite arcade games ever, with basically unlimited quarters, since credits could be added with the press of buttons.  I dabbled with all other characters I didn’t want to waste money with when I was a kid, and realized that the best player in the game was Sgt. Slaughter, who not only had good power moves, but an automatically initializing submission move in the cobra clutch, that anyone slapped into it had like a 20% chance of actually not tapping out of.

Needless to say, you’d think I would be over the moon that when a “sequel” was announced, I’d be more excited about it, especially since at first blush it’s basically the same game, just with different characters, settings and some modern polish.  But you hear the title, you see the roster, and realize that there’s obviously no legal affiliation with the WWE, and it kind of feels like something is missing, and the whole thing kind of comes off like a non-canonical fan-fiction of a production.

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