Deep Thoughts #157

There is no valid reason it should pain me to include Joseph-Beth in my emporia, just because they exist in Lexington, Kenucky; but it does.

Deep Thoughts #156

This monkey is so ignorant that she is sure to be appointed to a senior Republican leadership position before the end of the weekend. Right?

Deep Thoughts #155

Fake President Donald Trump signing that bill and holding it up for the cameras is like Harvey Weinstein asking you to watch him masturbate.

Deep Thoughts #154

It would be nice if the hillbillies stealing my yard signs would bring them all back. I’ll buy you tickets to the next Jason Aldean concert!

12. Horny Goat - Hopped Up and Horny

“We crafted this unique and refresing IPA using four different varieties of hops to impart citrus zest, pine notes and a refreshing floral aroma. We then dry hop the beer after the boil to complement the subtle malt backbone creating a complex and balanced beer that isn’t overly bitter like most IPAs on the market today.”

Also, I get a vague hit of Dark Eyes cherry-flavored vodka on the nose—and that just screams college. The malt backbone isn’t especially subtle, but it isn’t overwhelming, either. Hopped up just enough to keep that malt from being too bitter—but not nearly as accomplished as they would have you believe in the blurb on the side of the can.

11. Flat 12 - Hello, My Name is Amber

“Hoppier than its English cousins, this American amber ale’s matiness rolls across the palate and locks fingers with the spicy hop finish. Centennial hopped to the top end of the style, it maintains its composed American character throughout.”

I got a six-pack of this in 12-ounce cans, but didn’t pour any of them out into a mug until the last one; and that’s unfortunate, because this one is vastly more approachable when it has had a chance to breathe. It’s still pretty bitter, because of the heavy malt profile and the Centennial hops, but not quite as squirm-inducing as when experienced straight out of the can.

Deep Thoughts #153

Shut up, Donald. Shut your uninformed pie hole. You are a white supremacist. You are a Nazi. Most of all, you are a bad American. Apologize!

Deep Thoughts #152c

And people are still appeasing this jackass. People are still being duped by Fox “News”. The terrorists won on 9/11. They are still winning.

Deep Thoughts #152b

He lies more than actual politicians, yet has the gall to call out ESPN for an “untruth” that is truer than most of his own verbal diarrhea.

Deep Thoughts #152a

Fake President Donald Trump stole the election from Hillary Clinton largely because uneducated assembly-line workers believed his many lies.

Deep Thoughts #151

Maybe the only way men in Boston can get erections these days is by watching their “sports” teams cheat their way to “victory” all the time.

Deep Thoughts #150b

Texting is missing from contemporary fiction because texting makes people ridiculous, and you can’t have sympathy for ridiculous characters.

Deep Thoughts #150a

With the exception of a few terrible novels like Gone Girl and Fifty Shades of Grey, characters must be sympathetic to at least some degree.

10. Sun King - Dragon's Delight Belgian Style Golden Ale

“Dragon’s Delight is a legendary Belgian-style ale formed over the flames of the golden dragon, with grain raided from the Drundag Ridge, and hops foraged from the Askrean Plains. Hoard this glorious golden ale while this dragon sleeps.”

This is the beer that Sun King brewed especially for the 2017 edition of Gen Con, and it’s all right. I guess. It’s bready and almost sweet, which is maybe supposed to disguise its high alcohol content—but it’s not my thing. Browsing the interwebs tells me the alcohol is 7.3%, but that’s either wrong, or my system metabolizes this brew in such a way that I don’t feel it. Not even a little. Maybe if I drank more than one at a time, but I didn’t like it enough to drink more than one—and it’s a limited edition, so I guess we’ll never know.

Deep Thoughts #149d

They can forestall embarrassment next time by voting less like uninformed retards and more like humanoids who stop to think before they act.

Deep Thoughts #149c

They own this racist old white man. The world would be a better place if they had not voted. Hopefully they all use effective birth control.

Deep Thoughts #149b

To paraphrase George Carlin, “Fuck [them] in the asshole with a big rubber dick. And then break it off and beat [them] with the rest of it.”

Deep Thoughts #149a

The people of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin are embarrassed? Their aggregate 77,744-vote margin gave us a fake President. Fuck them.

8. Daredevil Brewing Co. (Indianapolis, IN) - Lift Off

“A bounty of American hops deliver the signature clean and crisp finish of a perfectly balanced West Coast style IPA.”

Aggressively hopped and punchy, like a spicy grapefruit wearing boxing gloves. I’m beginning to realize that it’s probably not a good idea to day drink this one if you still have things to do later. Sixteen ounces at 7.2%…yeah, you do the math. This is an aggressive and lovely West Coast IPA that would go toe to toe with Sun King’s Osiris. On the other hand, it’s exactly what it is, and nothing more. The finish is a little too bitter for my taste, and that bitterness tends to linger; but the citrus and spice up front are pretty good. A very good beer, but one at a time is probably enough. (Which for me is, indeed, damning with faint praise.)

Fifth Grade

Much more timely than last year, here is the fifth grade gallery. It's finally starting to look like we actually feed him. (Which we do. Seriously, nearly every day. Please don't report us.)

2012 - Kindergarten

2013 - First Grade

2014 - Second Grade

2015 - Third Grade

2016 - Fourth Grade

2017 - Fifth Grade

7. Daredevil Brewing Co. (Indianapolis, IN) - Slipstream Pale Ale

“An exotic blend of hops provide a blast of flavor and break away aromas in a golden ale built for maximum momentum.”

Nice balance and strong hops, but more refreshing than aggressive. Feels to me like it might be a bit heavier than the 5.5% they advertise on the can. Approachable and uncomplicated, this is another one that would be good to talk about, if perhaps not quite as much as the One Night in Bangkok at Cannon Ball.

6. Cannon Ball - One Night in Bangkok

NUVO posted a list of 10 Indiana beers you should drink this summer, and this was the one that caught my eye—not least because I knew that Erin Kem is the chef at Cannon Ball. Before that, she was the sous chef at R Bistro. If that name doesn’t ring a bell, it should. R Bistro was the first important local and independent restaurant in Indianapolis. Long before words like locavore and foodie were fashionable, Regina Mehallick was dishing up a new menu every week at the far end of Mass Ave. She ran that show for fifteen years before closing the restaurant in early 2016, but she had been easing herself away from the day-to-day grind of the business for some time before the restaurant closed. That’s a long way around saying that the chef at Cannon Ball today was previously, in all but name, the executive chef at what was arguably the greatest restaurant to ever open its doors in Indianapolis.

So after our last brewery get-together fell through, I suggested Cannon Ball for the next one. To my surprise, everyone agreed. I did a ride-by on my bike a few days beforehand, to see if it was workable; and since I found that it was, I arrived ahead of the group and wrote for a little bit while working on my first beer—the aforementioned One Night in Bangkok, which is a golden ale with Thai basil and ginger. It’s a light, easy-drinking ale with very subtle notes of Thai basil and ginger. Reminds me a little of how subtle the flavors are in the brews at Black Circle. If the words basil and ginger weren’t in the description, you might be hard pressed to guess that they were there. I missed the ginger in the first beer, (during which I might have been a bit off from a 20-minute bike ride in the heat and humidity) but picked it up on my second. Just a hair lighter than I prefer, but eminently drinkable and very fine for conversation.

Oh…and did you want to know about the food? The only thing I tried, apart from a bite of the potato salad that came with Dione’s sandwich after she threw in the towel, were the deviled egg tacos, which I had been lusting after since I first looked the place up and read the menu. And I just want to stop you right there. You’re either in or you’re out. Nothing I can say is going to change your mind. You’ve got deviled egg, beets, and beet greens salsa verde all piled on—wait for it—a beet tortilla. You get a little sweet in the deviled egg and beets, and a little savory in the cumin and chile in the salsa verde, and just…you know…holy crap. You can’t even believe it until you taste it, because it takes everything you thought you understood about the concept of a taco, and subverts it. It even made me slip into second person for a minute there.

Deep Thoughts #148

Fake President Donald Trump is a piece of shit. Jeff Sessions does the right thing and recuses himself, and that’s unfair? Fuck you, Donald.

5. Black Acre Brewing Company - Saucy Intruder Rye India Pale Ale

“American style IPA with large amounts of rye malt & Falconer’s Flight hops, creating bold notes of citrus and & earthy spiciness.”

The large amounts of rye malt are very evident in the dry, almost bitter, finish; but the strong citrus notes in the Falconer’s Flight hops bring it almost into balance. They probably want it to be a little bitter so you recognize that earthy spiciness. Or I just like to make fun. Who can say? I’m not really making fun—at least, not of the beer. Sometimes the descriptions get a little precious, though, don’t you think? My reading and research into beer has not yet yielded hints as to what makes rye malt so freaking delicious, but I hope one day to find out. The only con to this one is the high alcohol (7.2%). I don’t enjoy a hard buzz anymore, and that’s sort of what I’m feeling after drinking two of these. Then again, I haven’t eaten anything today, either, so.

Deep Thoughts #147

If Melania Trump wants to end social media bullying, she should start by telling the ignorant liar she married to shut his fucking pie-hole.

3. New Belgium Brewing Company - Citradelic Exotic Lime Ale

“A crisp, refreshing golden ale bursting with juicy Persian lime, freshly ground coriander and a hint of cracked black pepper.”

Aren’t we ambitious? I’m not too proud to say that the hint of cracked black pepper escaped me, but I did taste the lime and the coriander. “Crisp” in this case tasted more to me like “dry to the point of being bitter,” though not necessarily in an off-putting way. This one just didn’t work for me. (If I had two or three on a hot day while mowing the grass, that might be another story.)

2. 3 Floyds Brewing Co. (Munster, IN) - Zombie Dust Pale Ale

“This intensely hopped and gushing undead pale ale will be one’s only respite after the zombie apocalypse. Created with our marvelous friends in the comic industry.”

I’ve never been bowled over by 3 Floyds, but as a collector I appreciate scarcity—so I was always going to covet Zombie Dust until I had the chance to try some. The “intensely hopped” part is entirely accurate, but it’s Citra hop, so there is less bitterness and the illusion of balance. That’s not balance, though; it’s the moderate alcohol (6.2%) kicking your ass. Entirely enjoyable, but I’m sorry 3 Floyds, I’m just not that into you. It’s me, not you. Okay? Can we still be friends?

1. Urban Artifact (Cincinnati, OH) - Phrenology Wild Style IPA (Batch #5 March 2017)

“An IPA with the wild yeast Brettanomyces can be drank young or old.”

And then below the tagline is a timeline indicating that the beer will be hoppier right after it was brewed in March, becoming funkier as it gets older. March, of course, was three months ago, and there is, indeed, some of that funk beginning to develop. The foamy head lingers after the pour, and the first taste is all Brett, with a dry, hoppy finish. Oddly drinkable for a dry, high alcohol (7.3%) IPA.

Beer Run

So a few of us from the old juke joint went out to Big Lug Canteen a few weeks ago for the third stop on our local brewery tour, and we were joined by the lovely and beguiling Shane White, who has a whole blog devoted to his quest to quaff one thousand different malted grain and hops concoctions. We discussed the pros and cons of pouring into a mug versus drinking from the container, whether said mugs should be frosted or not, and the quality of the brews they’re tapping at Black Circle. Alas, Shane and I did not agree on much—except that Black Acre’s Cherry Ol’ Fritz is freaking awesome—but that’s okay, because lively debate is good for the soul. Plus, sharing one’s experiences with the metastasizing phenomenon that is craft beer can, I think, lead to only one thing—discovering and enjoying more fine craft beer.

Naturally, I decided to steal Shane’s idea, but with a couple of differences. (Those of you who remember Vanilla Ice explaining how the bass line in “Ice Ice Baby” differed from the bass line in “Under Pressure” because of a single one-eighth note will likely see where I am coming from with this argument.) I’m not shooting for a thousand, and I’m not making a whole new blog. See how different it is? So yeah, I’m stealing Shane’s idea. And I’m going to post pictures of beer I poured into frosted mugs.

Deep Thoughts #146

Does anyone happen to know the odds of randomly stumbling across a reference to the musical group Limbomaniacs while browsing the interwebs?

Deep Thoughts #145

So according to Paul Ryan, if you’re ignorant and unqualified, it’s okay to commit a federal crime. What the fuck is wrong with Republicans?

Deep Thoughts #144

How long will it be before Mike Pence starts to feel like one of the musicians on the Titanic who kept right on playing while the ship sank?

There Are 10 Kinds of People in the World: Those Who Understand Binary, and Those Who Do Not

Jackson is ten years old today. That's really all I have. I don't have the strength for anything else.

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

Deep Thoughts #143

Supporting Herr Trump is enough reason to bash someone, but the carnival scrambler that is Scott Baio keeps talking and giving us even more!

Deep Thoughts #142

Someone should conduct a study so that we can prove empirically that Scott Baio’s brain was more addled than Erin Moran’s this past weekend.

Deep Thoughts #141

Republicans do not believe in government, yet ask you to vote for them to work in…government. Can these monkeys please fucking die, already?

Deep Thoughts #140

I got to thinking this one should be more meta than deep; but since this is all there is to it, maybe neither of those qualifiers qualifies.

Deep Thoughts #139

To Mike Pence: Take your pretentious “Christian first” shit and go back to Columbus where you fucking belong, you cocaine-haired misogynist.

And Even Another Way is, He Was Thrown Out of a Window, by Marsellus, Because of You.

I don't regret supporting Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. Like most folks, I never really believed that a half-melted Cabbage Patch doll* could win the presidency; but I also had a hard time believing that a real liberal like Bernie Sanders could drive more than his wing of the Democratic party to the polls. I don't think the lesson of hindsight is that Bernie should have gotten the nomination; I think the lesson of hindsight is that we should have recognized the danger of Trump's insurgency and done more to shore up support for Clinton in the Rust Belt states that turned the election for the Nazi dumpster fire - Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

Still...every now and then...I guess you can't help but wonder...

"I"ll never hold what could've been...on a cold...and lone-LEE NIGHT!"

(You know you belted the part from the end of the song. So did I.)

Whence this bizarre outpouring of affection for Senator Bernie Sanders? Heather included a link to the following tweet of his in a comment to one of my previous posts:

*—I love you, Sadie Stein!

More Inauguration Photos of the National Mall

One is from Reuters, and I don't remember where I got the other one. It was on a flash drive I use for collecting evidence against the evil empire at the old juke joint. If I've breached someone's copyright, go fuck yourself. (If you're a Republican and you voted for the Nazi in the Oval Office. If you are otherwise, just give me a shout out, and I'll fix it.) Posting as many pictures as I can find of the difference in crowd size at the two inaugurations isn't going to accomplish anything; I am well aware of that.

Uncredited, due to journalistic ineptitude of blog author.

Reuters

But I don't know if I am going to survive the next four years. I haven't been able to think of how to affect this disaster in a positive way. I wrote in a previous post about how I was on the fence as to whether apoplectic rage or constructive criticism was the appropriate response to a Cheeto-hued despot (which description I first saw on the unofficial Twitter account for Badlands National Park, but which has since been removed), and I am leaning toward constructive criticism - though I don't believe either one is going to have much impact. If a Senate committee can endorse the nomination of Betsy DeVos, possibly the most ridiculous upright speech-capable organism with opposable thumbs ever to be nominated for a Cabinet-level position, then I mean what the fucking fuck?

Grizzlies? Really?

Fake President Donald Trump is a Fucking Liar

There were more people on the National Mall to watch the inauguration in 2009 than there were in 2017. People who claim otherwise, including the illegitimate Nazi currently occupying the White House in direct contravention of the will of the people of the United States, as well as the mental furball he appointed as Press Secretary, are liars. Even Fox News posted a story confirming that Trump had lied. (They didn't say he lied, or call him a liar, or post the widely-shared comparison photo - but they're spineless weasels who think Sean Hannity is a good idea. What can you do?)

The New York Times, a real journalism operation, actually posted two shots of each inauguration, as well as an illustration of the areas on the mall with the highest concentrations of people. They hedge just a touch by noting that it was cloudy for the inauguration of the dumpster fire, a condition that would impede a more empirical illustration of the difference in crowd size.

But give that one a second. It was sunny for the inauguration of Barack Obama and cloudy for the inauguration of his illegitimate and unwanted successor. Even the weather knows this fucking turd is a bad idea.

What follows are some of the versions of this photo that I have so far collected.

The Guardian

New York Times

The original National Parks Service tweet that made the unwanted President want to cry.

Deep Thoughts #138

Meet the dishonorable retard Lamar Alexander, the latest Retardlican to be confirmed by his verbal diarrhea as a dumbfuck piece of ringworm.

CUBS WIN! CUBS WIN! CUBS WIN!

On November 2, 2016, the Chicago Cubs won the World Series for the first since 1908. Six days later, a Nazi dumpster fire was elected President of the United States. Many of the teams that win sports championships are invited to the White House to meet the President, and I began to worry that the Cubs would not be invited to Washington until after President Obama had left office and the Nazi dumpster fire had taken over. I can't even imagine how disappointing it would have been for the Cubs if they had been forced to shake hands with a shit stain like Don Führer, after having accomplished something as momentous as winning their first World Series in 108 years.

As luck would have it, though, they were invited to Washington this past Monday, and they got to shake hands with the greatest President in my lifetime, Mr. Barack Obama - who also happens to be from Chicago; and President Obama, of course, delivered some thoughtful and eloquent remarks on this historic occasion. We will miss President Obama and his strong leadership and poetic words, but I am so happy that this World Series championship in particular (as good as the Cubs are right now, it probably won't be 108 more years before another one) came while President Obama was still in office.