Ole and Sven went fishing one day...**: Outboard by Milwaukee Brewing Company

I've known of Evinrude outboard motors for a long time as my father had one when I was a boy that powered the boat on our ventures on Sissabagama Lake during our summers up north. But I had no idea that the brand was named after one Ole Evinrude until c. 2009 when I saw Bob Jacobson's book Ole Evinrude and His Outboard Motor for sale at the Wisconsin Historical Museum. I was also unaware until just a few minutes ago that this Bob Jacobson is the same Bob Jacobson who plays trumpet in Madison's finest Herb Alpert/Al Hirt tribute band, Hirt Alpert. Go see them at the Orton Park Festival this weekend for the rockingest version of "Java" around.

Evinrude was a Norwegian immigrant who spent some time here in Madison before making his way to Milwaukee where he would invent the outboard motor or, at least, the first one that worked well enough to go into production. It's no surprise that Milwaukee Brewing Company pays tribute to the man that fisherpeople and water skiers the world round venerate as they have a reputation for naming their beers after all things Milwaukee. See, for instance, Polish Moon or Increase Wheat.

Overboard is a cream ale and I took a tentative step into investigating the style back in June as the weather was getting hotter and I found myself thinking, "I wonder what other lighter beers would go well in this heat besides a Kid Kölsch or a Bubbler?" The cream ale was invented in the 19th century by American brewers who found themselves losing customers who were increasingly refreshing themselves with those new-fangled pilsners. Insofar as it mimics the pils by being light and crisp, the cream ale sounds like a good fit for summer drinking. The wild card for me is the corn.

We Americans put corn in some form or another into just about everything. And I don't mean just all types of foods either. It's even in our gasoline so we can support a monoculture at the same time we support global climate change. The cream ale generally has corn in it too. I am ambivalent about the use of corn in beer. It makes everything about a brew lighter – color, body, taste. But, to my tongue, it also gives a beer a slight sweetness that I don't care for the taste of. Maybe it's just some part of my brain overriding input from my tongue and brewers are able to put this flavor I don't particularly care for into beer by other means. I am not a supertaster who can detect a single corn kernel in a glass of beer and be sent into fits of apoplexy. Corn in moderation is fine but there is a limit the exact percentage of which is unknown to me that is just a step too far for my taste. 

It sounds like Outboard has been brewed for a while and has had its formula tweaked through the years. It became a year-round offering back in 2014. 

Outboard is a lovely hazy yellow although the head on my pour was lacking. Just a little loose white foam. Does corn do something to the proteins to subdue the foam? I spied lots of bubbles inside my glass. The aroma was dominated by a strawberry-like fruitiness with a mild grain scent behind it.

The first thing I noticed when I took a sip was that it was rather smooth tasting. I generally think of oats adding smoothness to a beer but perhaps corn does as well. As expected, it had a light body. There was a medium fizziness beside some light grain and that berry-like fruitiness that my nose caught earlier. I tasted just a faint bit of that sweetness that I, rightly or wrongly, attribute to corn. On the swallow there was a tad of lingering grain along with a mild hoppy bitterness that had a grassy kind of taste. A little dryness was to be had as well which seemed to largely be from the fizz.

As far as being a summer brew, Outboard really hit the spot with its overall light touch that balanced a smidge of grain here with a dollop of fruitiness there. While not as crisp as a pils, it still leaned in the direction of its arch enemy. I wasn't expecting that berry kind of taste but it was gentle and welcome. Plus I was pleased that I didn't get much of that corny flavor. Overall this is just a tasty, refreshing beer and a welcome addition to my Aestival Beer Arsenal™ .

Junk food pairing: I say go full Milwaukee with your Outboard and grab a bag of potato chips from the Milwaukee Chip Company, a new face on the local junk food scene.

**...in a rented boat and were catching fish like crazy. Ole said, "We better mark this spot so we can come back and catch more fish." Sven then proceeded to mark the bottom of the boat with a large 'X'. Ole asked him what he was doing, and Sven told him he was marking the spot so they could come back tomorrow to catch more fish. Ole said, "Ya big dummy, how do ya know ve are going to get da same boat tomorrow?"

The Corona Diaries Vol. 27: Even I Have Never Heard a Story As Horrible As This

Late July 2021

Now that I am regularly going into the office twice a week in addition to on an as needed basis, I am witnessing the growth of the corn by my bus stop. Earlier this week there was plenty of mini-maize as tassels were a-sproutin' everywhere.

I suspect this is feed corn or that it is turned into ethanol as I have never seen the crops in this field harvested before, say, mid-November. A couple years ago they didn't clear the field until December. Otherwise, I'd indulge my atavistic hunter gatherer tendencies and grab a couple ears here and there to score points with the Frau by bringing home exceedingly fresh corn for dinner.

The farm and adjacent disused cement factory are still for sale (~$9,000,000, I am told) and a non-profit continues to work towards buying it. They intend to keep at least part of the property going as a working farm. I am ambivalent about such a plan.

Maintaining a working farm would be novel, no doubt, and may have environmental benefits such as absorbing heat and allowing run-off to percolate into the soil. But my neighborhood suffers from a paucity of commercial space. It would be really nice to have a tavern or a coffee shop just a couple blocks from home. Or a decent restaurant or a pet food store or a hardware store and so on. Most of these things aren't that far away but they are well beyond 2 blocks. One of the great virtues of the Eastmorland neighborhood is that it's close to other neighborhoods that have establishments that I like to frequent. It just doesn't have such places in it. Eastmorland is essentially a bedroom community.

Well, soon we'll have fresh sweet corn and thusly Mexican street corn will be in abundance. And the first apples will be ready for harvest shortly. Our favorite orchard is advertising an opening date of 15 August. Summer is flying by.

********

I concluded my last entry chronicling a bike ride in media res so here's the finale.

After looking at all of the fancy schmancy homes in the University Heights neighborhood where the University big wigs from the days of yore lived or had streets named after them, I started my trek home. As is normally the case, I did not go straight home but rather took many detours. One of those was to check out a historic marker that I'd driven and ridden by many a time. In fact, I used to live a block away from it while in college and knew someone who lived next door to the house with the marker but I had no recollection of what it commemorated.

Well, it turned out to be the home of Robert "Fighting Bob" La Follette, a progressive firebrand during the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries who was governor of Wisconsin as well as a senator. He also founded The Progressive magazine. La Follette and wife moved into this house in 1881, I believe the marker said.

At about this point in the morning I recalled that my cats were on the brink of starvation and so I headed of towards my local purveyor of skipjack tuna & shrimp chow, MadCat.

On the way there I passed by a notable Little Free Library. Back in entry #2, methinks, I noted the bit of vernacular Madison architecture that is the Trachte building. The classic model was a steel-walled structure with a barrel-shaped roof. Well, I rode by what must surely be the only Trachte Little Free Library in existence.

It was a reasonable facsimile of the building that it stood in front of.

When I arrived at the pet store I found, as is normally the case on Saturdays, that one of the Frau's friends was on duty there. She always asks about our cats and is a reliable cat sitter for short vacations. I was soon flush with cat food wet and dry and was assured of being welcomed home like a conquering hero, by 2 cats, anyway. As I was unlocking my bicycle, I noticed that someone has modified the sign on the other side of the parking lot.

Poor hounds.

Soon enough I was riding for home once again. While going down a side street, I came across a first for me: a Lawrence Welk bumper sticker. And a polka one too.

I took another detour through an overgrown section of the Dixon Greenway. There's a trail on the south side of the park near some railroad tracks that leads to the West Branch of Starkweather Creek. It has always been a bit tricky with a small stump in the middle of it but it had recently become quite precarious with another arboreal peril thrown in. A couple weeks previously I discovered that a certain patch of tree roots had become even more exposed and that, unless you stick to the very inside of the path, your front bicycle wheel will plant itself up against one of them and you will get a look of surprise on your face which quickly becomes terror as your butt leaves your seat and it flies over your bike's handlebars with the rest of your body. Ergo I was walking my bike that day. As I was strolling along, I found a bee busy collecting nectar on a flower that I cannot identify.

I eventually made it home without incident.

********

An entry or 2 ago I noted that I had seen a poster for a theatrical presentation of Rashomon down at the University. Well, the Frau and I went to see a performance of it and we enjoyed it quite a bit.

According to the program, the play was written by Fay and Michael Kanin and was based on Akira Kurosawa's film. It opened on Broadway in 1959.

The set consisted of the Rashomon gate and a bamboo grove. Three characters were always at the gate while flashbacks of the action played out in the grove, which rotated. And, of course, the actors came to the front of the stage and faced the audience during scenes when they gave their accounts to the unseen constabulary of what happened amongst the bamboo trees.

There were a couple times that I felt the dialogue was too on the nose about the play's themes. Having the wigmaker blurt out the main theme should have been left in the rehearsal room, in my opinion, but what do I know? I'm no dramaturgist. Otherwise, it was very good.

I always tear up at the end of the movie when the woodcutter decides to take the abandoned baby home to raise as his own. This act restores the priest's hope for humanity which he'd lost after hearing the horrible story of what happened in the grove. And I did so during the play. That scene just kills me.

It was ironic that the theater department chose this play because, just days before I noticed the poster for the show, I had purchased the movie on Blu-ray - the Criterion Collection version.

Truth be known, Barnes & Noble has been selling Criterion discs for 50% off all month and I have been taking advantage of their generosity.

When it rains, it pours. A few days after seeing the play, the BBC Arts and Ideas podcast reposted their episode on Rashomon which looked that the film as well as its source material, the short stories "In a Grove" and "Rashomon" by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. The podcast can be found here.

********

The bonus photo is plural this time. Kind of. A friend of the Frau's found a reproduction of Thomas Gainsborough's c1770 painting The Blue Boy…

…and transformed it into a portrait of Prince.

Hefeweizen Time: Unshadowed by Ale Asylum

A few days ago when I ripped a page from my Cat-A-Day desk calendar and noticed that it was now August, I thought to myself what most people in the Northern Hemisphere were thinking that day: summer's really going by quickly. While the autumnal equinox swiftly approaches, there is still plenty of time for those days when simply walking outside leads to profuse swearing and the near instantaneous creation of a thin layer of sweat around one's entire epidermis. This being the case, I still have plenty of seasonally appropriate beers in my refrigerator.

At some point last year, I think it was, I came to the conclusion that New Glarus' Kid Kölsch and Bubbler from Next Door Brewing should form the core of my Aestival Beer Arsenal™. They are both lighter beers with some grainy taste complemented by a dash of hops and dab of fruitiness. A pilsner of some kind is also usually available. And this year I have been keeping Weißbier on hand more often than in summers past.

Looking at this blog's archive, it seems that I have never posted a review of a beer by Madison's Ale Asylum. They have the dubious distinction of brewing the beer that bears most of the responsibility for me becoming sick and tired of very hoppy beers. Their pale ale Hopalicious was everywhere and I drank it frequently. Eventually its hoppiness wore me out and I stopped drinking it which led me to abandon American pale ales altogether.

While Ale Asylum brews more than hoppy pale ales, they brew a lot of those. It seems like there's a new one out every month that can only be distinguished from its predecessor by the order in which hops are listed on the label. One month Citra comes first and the next it's Mosaic or Sultana. But once you dig past all of the beers that try to kill you with hops, you find some stalwarts that are more friendly to those of us with grain-loving palates. I've always enjoyed their malt forward brews like Madtown Nutbrown and Contorter Porter, though I honestly don't know if they are still brewed. Another non-pale ale which seems appropriate with more oppressive heat looming is Hatha-Weizen, er, Unshadowed, a Hefeweizen.

This was actually the first beer served at Ale Asylum back in the day and was originally called Hatha-Weizen in honor of co-proprietor Otto Dilba's wife, Hathaway, who apparently is a fan of the style. It was only available to those who checked themselves into the Ale Asylum taproom until 2014 when it was re-christened Unshadowed and put into bottles for the first time.

It's easy to see why someone invented the Weißbier glass: you get a ginormous, thick, white head when you pour Hefeweizen and you need the appropriate containment system. The foam atop my beer was pretty rigid and it barely moved when I tilted the glass. The liquid was a hazy lemon color and it featured lots of bubbles. This was volatile stuff as I could smell the beer even when my glass was several inches away from my nose. The aroma featured a big, bright lemon scent along with the style's usual banana and bubble gum. Oh, and there was wheat too.

I found that it had a light body with wheat and zippy citrus/lemon flavors at the fore. Those archetypal Hefeweizen yeast flavors of banana and bubble gum sat underneath. With all of those bubbles, I was not surprised at the beer's firm fizziness. The carbonation and that lemon tartness lent an astringent edge to beer that was greater than I am used to in the style. On the finish, the yeasty fruit and gum flavors faded to reveal lingering wheat and lemon tastes which were joined by some spicy/herbal hoppiness. Those hops and the tartness made for a pretty dry ending.

My glass was left with some very fine lacing.

In contrast to the last Hefeweizen I indulged in, Unshadowed is lighter with an emphasis on the lemony tartness that relegated the banana and bubble gum flavors from the yeast to supporting roles. This stuff has an acidic bite that is stronger than I've ever tasted in a Hatha-, er, Hefeweizen. Despite this deviation from the norm, Unshadowed is a great brew and a perfect fit for the sultry days of a Wisconsin August.

Junk food pairing: Pair Unshadowed with a bag of Andy Capp's Cheddar Fries. Let the beer wash away the salty, starchy goodness of the fries. Repeat.

Look not so deeply into ales and lagers; for this Mystery hath been hidden by Allagash: Truepenny Pilsner by Allagash Brewing Company

Having had my Allagash cherry popped recently, I was pleased to see another flavor by the esteemed Maine brewery on a recent trek to the liquor store: Truepenny Pilsner.

Truth be known, I didn't notice that A) it was a "Belgian pilsner" and B) it was canned back in March until I had opened the beer, poured it into my glass, and tasted it. There's something to be said for the element of surprise instead of researching something to within an inch of its life on the Internet prior to trying it. After reading the words "Belgian pilsner" I figured somebody in Belgium is making a pilsner, right? It wasn't a distinct sub-style that I'd heard of and figured that it was simply something Allagash made up. The label indicates that this is a blended beer, i.e. - a pilsner with an admixture of "wild beer, blended for balance".

Is a Belgian, blended pils something Allagash, or at least Americans, invented? I mean, there could be a whole network of brewers from Antwerp to Brussels to Charleroi adding wild ale to pilsner and I wouldn't know about it. Still, I very much suspect this is an American invention. But it's not like Belgian brewers don't blend beers. Witness the gueuze, a mixture of old and new lambics.

While the Belgians have the reputation of being the only makers of styles that feature a combination of beers, blending was more common back in the day and it was practiced outside of land of lambics. For instance, English porters used to be blended. As 70s punk rock aficionado and beer historian Ron Pattinson noted, "The porter you would have had in a pub in 1840 almost certainly would have been a blend of two beers — one aged and one fresh." In addition to Pattinson working with Goose Island to recreate an 1840s porter, here in the Madison area, Dan Carey paid homage to porter from the days of yore with his Old English Porter, a mixture of fresh and soured beers.

The blending of beers has a long and storied history and there's nothing wrong with adding a wild beer to a pilsner even if it is a categorical violation that would send most German brewers into apoplectic fits of Reinheitsgebot rage. I'll admit that it seemed gimmicky to me when I first read it on the label but that was more cynicism engendered by years of American craft brewing chicanery than genuine outrage.

My Truepenny pour produced a big, sloshy, white head that stuck around for a while meaning I got a decent photograph of it instead of one with just a few bubbles here and there on the surface. The foam was on top of a bright yellow and rather hazy brew. Despite the haze, I could see lots of bubbles rushing upwards inside. When I took a sniff, I caught the expected hay/grass scent from the hops and a cracker-like grain smell too. More on the unexpected side was a hint of lemon and a very faint funkiness. Had the beer gone bad?

Taking a sip, I found a cracker taste that was rather prominent along with some malty sweetness a bit like honey. There wasn't a big hop flavor here as I'd expect from a pils but there was some spiciness and a moderate bit of bitterness. I tasted a little fruitiness in the background and it was at this point that I read the label and discovered the true, bipartite nature of Truepenny. Presumably that fruitiness came from the wild ale but I didn't discern any funk. Spicy tasting hops and lingering sweetness stayed for the finish which was just a tad on the dry side.

Truepenny had a slightly heavier body than I'd expect from a yellow pils and I suppose this comes from the wild ale. And I think that fruity taste and the sweetness were also from the ale. Truepenny is like a palimpsest with a pilsner having been brewed over a wild ale. While I really enjoyed this beer, I do wish it had more hoppiness to it. The subdued hops here may simply have been a function of age. Only comparison with a fresh Truepenny would yield the truth. Unfortunately, the Allagash website lists Truepenny as a "Limited" brew so I guess I'll be waiting until next year. Or perhaps this was a one-off. Still, if you see some around, I highly recommend trying it because it is a wonderful beer. Fairly light and smooth with a fine fusion of pils and wild ale flavors where neither dominates the other.

Junk food pairing: Because this is a fancy schmancy blended beer, go upscale on your food pairing. Apply liberal amounts of cheddar Easy Cheese on Chicken in a Biskit crackers.

The Corona Diaries Vol. 26: La La Land

Mid-July 2021

In addition to a new kitchen floor, we have a couple new trees. You may recall from a previous entry I wrote last year that an autumn storm damaged the tree on the terrace out front and that the city took it down. Well, they finally replaced it.

It's some kind of new-fangled version of an elm that is resistant to Dutch elm disease which has devastated our tree population. I am looking forward to seeing it grow and perhaps live long enough to enjoy it throwing some evening shade on our house.

We here in Madison are blessed with trees nearly everywhere. It's something I couldn't help but notice since I moved here but it is also something I didn't really appreciate until 2003. That fall I visited a friend who had a penthouse suite at St. Mary's Hospital and, when I looked out of the window, I saw an arboreal landscape. Not just a city dotted with trees but I was peering down on green canopies wherever I turned my gaze. I knew Madison had a lot of trees but I didn't really appreciate the scale of our urban forest until that moment. Better late than never.

Back in 2019, the city removed another tree on a terrace which is on the north side of our lot. That one was replaced last October with a Kentucky coffeetree but it went into the ground completely bare and was, to all appearances, dead. Since it was autumn, I thought that perhaps it had simply shed its leaves already. But when this spring rolled around, nothing had changed even when all of the surrounding trees were beginning to bud. However, I am pleased to report that leaves finally began appearing in May and it is looking much better these days.

While not all of the branches sprouted, I am hopeful that it will flourish. Its predecessor didn't shade our house and made more raking work for me in the fall but I still miss the sight of a tree there. There's this empty space which I look forward to being filled. Plus I think it's only fair that other people get to park their cars underneath a tree on that block so that they too can have birds shit all over it.

********

I started a new work schedule earlier this month which involves going into the office two days a week. While I had to go into the office a handful of times since the pandemic began, I took my first bus ride there since March 2020. The corn near the bus stop was way past knee high by July and more like head high.

It felt a bit odd to be on the bus that first ride but it didn't take long before I got back into the commuter swing of things. In the morning there aren't many folks riding with me - maybe 8-10. My ride home in the afternoon is generally more crowded. Indeed, there have been a few times when there were people who had no option but to sit next to someone else and a few people could be found in the aisle.

The pandemic has wrought more transit changes than just fewer passengers. The bus I take had its route changed so my stops are now a block or a block and half farther away from the office than the old one was. Not a big deal, really. What's more annoying is that the bus' schedule has been tweaked and now I have a lengthier wait. Instead of a 10-ish minute wait pre-Covid, I now have one more like 20-25 minutes. Hopefully transit will continue to return to normal and I can get some time back.

The farm near my bus stop is for sale so I am unsure how much longer I'll be standing next to a field in the morning waiting for my ride. Presumably developers want to turn every acre into apartments but a group wants to save a good chunk of it for a working urban farm open to the public while the rest of the property that isn't wetland would have affordable housing built on it.

Only time will tell. Either way, I'd love to have a bus shelter installed because the wind really whips across that field when it's bare in January and makes waiting for the bus a chilling experience.

********

A couple friends and I recently hiked around the newly-opened Joyce M. Baer & George J. Socha Conservancy. It's east of Madison and east of Marshall, the home of El Poblano which I wrote about previously. Its namesakes donated the 140 acres that make up the park.

On our walk, we spied some grapes growing in a patch between the park/path and an adjacent farm field.

It is still very much a work in progress with more trails forthcoming as well as a canoe/kayak launch on the Maunesha River. I look forward to more walks there perhaps stopping in Marshall for a taco or two afterwards.

********

I have discovered a new musical genre: la la. It is black Creole country dance music and is reputedly the precursor to zydeco. I first heard it on an episode of Accordion Noir, a radio show that features music with the titular instrument. The song is by Goldman Thibodeaux and the Lawtell Playboys and is from their latest album, La Danse à St. Ann’s. Thibodeaux is in his late 80s and apparently he's one of the last La La players around. Wrap your ears around "Jolie Catin":

It isn't immediately apparent to me why it is referred to as a precursor to zydeco instead of zydeco. Perhaps I need someone with more knowledge about music than me to explain it to this dummy.

********

My latest bike ride was something of a grave matter, you could say, as I went west to Forest Hill Cemetery. It's a bit like the Madison equivalent of Graceland Cemetery in Chicago in that notable locals and city fathers are buried there. It is also the final resting place of E.H. Jefferson.

That would be Eston Hemings Jefferson, the youngest son of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson. He gained his freedom in 1827 and married one Julia Ann Isaacs in 1832. They eventually made their way to Madison where Eston made a living as a cabinetmaker. History tell us that he was also an excellent fiddler. It took me a while to find the gravestone even knowing what section of the cemetery it was in. Eventually I stumbled upon the big family marker with "JEFFERSON" emblazoned upon it and put 2 and 2 together.

In a previous entry I believe I mentioned seeing a duck the likes of which I'd never seen before. While I had a photo, it wasn't a great one but I ran into this variety again on my ride and got a better snap.

My Birds of Wisconsin book doesn't have this type of waterfowl in it but my Internet searches lead me to believe this is a Black Swedish duck and her ducklings. Mallards are ubiquitous here in Madison and seeing another type of duck really threw me for a loop.

"Wait. There are ducks other than mallards?!"

Since I was on the west side of town already, I left the cemetery and went in search of Aldo Leopold's house. Leopold has been mentioned in this very diary before, he being the famed environmentalist and author of A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There which I finally read last year. He lived on Madison's west side from 1924 until 1948 while he was working at the U.S. Forest Products Laboratory here.

It's certainly a nice house but rather modest in contrast to some of the other homes just a block or two down the street. And it's positively spartan in contrast to this palatial abode:

While I was riding up Van Hise Avenue I recalled that there was a Louis Sullivan house in the neighborhood somewhere. I stopped next to the above joint and consulted the Internet on the house's location only to feel stupid when I found a page saying that this was the Sullivan house I was seeking. It is the Bradley House and was designed by Louis Sullivan and George Grant Elmslie. While I know Sullivan, I am unfamiliar with Elmslie. This is one of the few residences that Sullivan designed and one of only two buildings of his in Wisconsin.

I shall reserve the bike ride finale for next time.

 

Bonus photo is a cartoon that humored me.

I never could get the hang of Thursdays: White by Allagash Brewing Company

There was a time when drinking a Belgian (or Belgian-style) witbier conferred an aura of refinement upon the drinker. Being seen with a bottle of Hoegaarden in your hand meant you had taste that went beyond the plebian and, if you could pronounce the name correctly, well, that was a mark of true sophistication. Then Blue Moon became available and drinking a domestic version of the classic Belgian style put you into petite bourgeoisie territory, at the very least.

The witbier was the diametric opposite of Miller and Bud. It had wheat in it instead of corn and rice; it was flavored, not simply with hops, but also orange peel and coriander which gave it an unfamiliar, more complex taste. According to my memory, the style became rather popular here with Leinenkugel even brewing their own witbier, a cloying, Tang-like take on it called Sunset Wheat. While it might not be Leinenkugel's fault, the style fell out of favor and was replaced in the hearts and minds and livers of craft drinkers by the IPA and Summer Shandy.

But in defiance of the vicissitudes of the craft beer world, the Allagash Brewing Company has been brewing Allagash White, their witbier, for decades. The first batch was brewed back in 1995 which, I believe, is the same year Blue Moon was invented. It has gone on to garner a reputation for being the best American brewed Belgian-style witbier and one of the best microbrews ever. At least those are the terms I've usually heard it spoken in.

In addition to a lot of effusive praise, previous talk of Allagash White also involved admonishments that tasting it meant going on a pilgrimage to the Northeast because it wasn't available here in the Midwest. I noticed that this situation changed 2 or 3 years ago when I saw Allagash in a suburban Chicago liquor store. And then last year I read that it would be returning to Wisconsin. Returning? Apparently, Allagash did distribute here but pulled out of the state to concentrate on their home turf around 10 years ago. I have no recollection of seeing Allagash back then. Did they distribute only to the Milwaukee area, perhaps? Harumph.

I recently decided to take the plunge and bought some of this stuff to discover if it would live up to its reputation. My sample was bottled on 6 April.

The stuff was a bright lemon yellow and quite hazy. A small white head decided not to stick around for long which was odd because I thought the proteins in wheat produced a larger head that went away more slowly. Maybe there's an anti-foaming agent in orange peel. It sure looked pretty sitting there on a hot, sunny summer day. The aroma was great too with wheat and coriander joining a lemony citrus scent. So far, it had certainly lived up to the hype.

I tasted the orange peel first and it was joined by some banana and coriander in slightly lesser doses. And there was the wheat as well. The body was medium-light, towards the latter, and it had a nice, solid fizz to it. With a swallow, all of the flavors mellowed just a bit and some bitterness became apparent while the orange peel taste lingered.

What really stuck out for me was an overall "fuzziness", as my notes say. The flavors were gentle, for want of a better way of saying it. Nothing very sharp or sprightly. It tasted like the flavors were all in disarray and then came a soft, effervescent blanket which put everything right. All the edges were rounded and rogue piquancies were checked. I don't think I've ever tasted anything quite like it in a beer.

This is an excellent beer and certainly tasted like an exemplar of the American witbier. It is flavorful yet light and mellow. Simply wonderful stuff. It should come as no surprise, really, as it embodies the adage "Practice makes perfect". Allagash has been brewing it for 26 years so it ought to be good. And I am very glad it's still around instead of having been discarded in favor of something trendier.

Junk food pairing: Belgians love their frites so bust open a bag of Andy Capp's Cheddar Fries to go with your Allagash White.

The Corona Diaries Vol. 25: Frisson From Finally Getting Flooring!

Early July 2021

I am very pleased to say that, as I type, we finally have a kitchen floor!

It's not quite finished – the base, transitions, and end cap have yet to be installed – but we have a floor and the appliances are back from whence they came. And the removal of all the old asbestos flooring has left a ¾" gap between the door and the kickplate so I need to buy a door sweep otherwise the cats will be extremely busy hunting down intruding mice, chipmunks, and all manner of critter. It's been over 2 months since the old floor went away. Soon we can use the new dishwasher. The end of this saga is nigh. I can taste it!

********

One evening a couple of weeks ago, neither the Frau nor I wanted to cook so we decided to go out for dinner. She was keen on Mexican food but where to go? We no longer had a Mexican restaurant nearby. El Poblano used to be just a few blocks away and I think I noted in an earlier entry that they closed shortly after the pandemic started and left town. To our shame, we hadn't taken the time over the past 15 months to visit them at their new home with their new name, Las 3 Hermanas. Well, if the tacos and enchiladas won't come to us, the we will go to the tacos and enchiladas. Thusly we headed out to the town of Marshall to check out the new version of an old favorite. 

Marshall is a small town about 15 miles east of Madison and it's a beautiful drive through rolling hills and past multiple horse farms (and Georgia O'Keeffe's birthplace) down County T to get there. I used to have friends who lived there so I was a frequent visitor back in c.2002-2006. One of those friends was a Polish guy who originally hailed from Milwaukee's south side and we'd have Polock Fests which entailed drinking too much beer and bourbon as we made large batches of pierogi from scratch.

Las 3 Hermanas is on Main Street and was easy to find. My understanding is that it is owned by a couple and the wife, Diana, remembered us as we walked in. We chatted for a while as our food was being prepared. I am pleased to report that, despite the change in location, there has been no change in the tastiness quotient.

I looked at the cooler and was happy to see that a favorite of mine, chocolate flan, was available for dessert. So I ordered some to go. Seeing as this was our first visit to the new location, Diana made it a 2-for-1 deal which was most pleasing to our sweetteeth.

********

After our trip to Dubuque, I found that I had the Mississippi River on my mind. This being the case, I figured I should, like any good Midwesterner, endeavor to know a bit about the mythic river that figures so prominently in our region's – indeed, our country's - history. I had my local purveyor of books order a copy of this for me:

I have not yet started it as I am still reading this:

Derleth lived in Sauk City, about 25 miles northwest of Madison, on the western shore of the Wisconsin River which flows into the Mississippi about 80 miles to the west. His tales here take place in the fictional town of Sac Prairie and its inhabitants. Sac Prairie is an amalgamation of Sauk City and the adjacent town of Prairie du Sac. I greatly enjoyed his nature observations, such as the migration of birds or the inhabitants of nearby wetlands. But the character sketches were a mixed bag, to my taste. Some were really neat and I could relate to the trails and tribulations experienced by the people in them and/or find great empathy for some of the characters as they struggle with loneliness and aging. Other sketches reeked of gossip and were less interesting to me.

********

I've been to the cinema a couple times recently.

First, the Frau and I went to see Summer of Soul, a documentary about the Harlem Cultural Festival. These were concerts held on Saturdays from late June through August 1969 at Mount Morris Park in Harlem. While the performances were videotaped, the tapes languished in a vault for decades until they were dusted off for this movie. (More or less. I have seen Sly and the Family Stone's set floating around bootleg trading circles so collector types like me have seen some of it already.) There were many great moments and a lot of fantastic music in the movie but a couple scenes really stood out for me.

One was when Mahalia Jackson invited a young Mavis Staples onstage to sing "Precious Lord". It was simply wonderful and brought tears to my eyes. The other was Nina Simone's performance. While I do not know a whole lot about her, I get the distinct impression she did not suffer fools gladly and gave no quarter. Not only did she perform music, but she also read a poem and it was some potent stuff which, I guess, isn't surprising considering those volatile times. The poem was "Are You Ready?" by David Nelson, a member of the earliest incarnation of The Last Poets, a proto-hip hop spoken word group. Hearing and seeing Simone say, "Are you ready to kill if necessary?" sent a chill down my spine.

The second movie I saw was a screening of the original The Taking of Pelham One Two Three down on campus. 

I don't recall if I'd ever seen it before but it's got Robert Shaw in it so I had to go. It was an old scratchy print which was almost a meta commentary on New York in the early 1970s. I found it to be a lot of fun and was much funnier than its reputation as a pure thriller would suggest. The gentleman who runs the cinematheque on campus noted that he contributed commentary to the Blu-ray release of the movie a few years ago.

On my way to the screening, I saw that the university's theater department was putting on a performance of Rashomon.

It is one of my favorite films of all-time and a good short story as well so I shall be going to see it.

********

The bonus photo today is a pair of "headless" ducks. I presume they got their breakfast.

Tripel 3: Tripel Karmeliet by Brouwerij Bosteels

Back in July I sampled a Belgian Triple called Triple 5 from New Glarus and pronounced it not my kind of thing despite having been brewed with five different grains and we all know how tasty those are. My distaste owed to the beer’s rather prominent astringency. It had this bitter acidity that was just too harsh for my poor tongue. Not long afterwards, I ran into a Belgian Tripel, that is, a Belgian beer actually from Belgium, that seemed oddly familiar to me. I was attracted to the label which featured a couple people out in a field harvesting grain.

Grain is good! Grain is right. Grain works. Grain clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the brewing spirit. Grain, in all of its forms -- grain for beer, for spirits, for bread, money -- has marked the upward surge of mankind. It’s the sine non qua of beer, after all. I like grain. More grain, please. Well, this beer delivers as it boasts three grains - barley, oats and wheat.

Wait.

That’s just two shy of Triple 5’s five grains! That’s we Americans for you. Always with the more is better routine.

Was the multi-grain tripel a tried and true brew over in the land where the saxophone was invented or did Dan Carey find inspiration from this very beer? I have no idea but I was presented with an opportunity to try a native Belgian beer and compare and contrast it with its American cousin and I took it.

The beer I stumbled upon was Tripel Karmeliet by Bosteels Brewery in northern Belgium. The name is Dutch for “Triple Carmelite”, with Carmelite being a Roman Catholic order. Bosteels says Tripel Karmeliet’s recipe dates to 1679 and was rescued from a Carmelite convent. I wonder if its recovery was like Sir Galahad’s attempt to recover the Holy Grail from Castle Anthrax. Did the Bosteels brewer have to bravely fend off a bunch of comely maidens to get the recipe?

New Glarus’ beer may have had Bosteels outnumbered in the grain department but Bosteels put New Glarus to shame with the fizz. Tripel Karmeliet’s label says it gets a final fermentation in the bottle and boy did it ever. There was some extreme fizz in my glass in the form of a gigantic (for beer) white head that kept growing as I poured like Alice after eating the cake. Once I got that cleared up, I found some lovely light gold beer that was hazy, but only just. In the middle of the liquid was a column of bubbles rushing upwards in a frenzy. I don’t know that I have ever seen a beer quite so kinetic as this one.

I smelled wheat with a berry-like fruitiness on top of it. Some grassy hop aroma was there too.

Unsurprisingly, I tasted a lot of carbonation when I took my first sip. But underneath all of those bubbles was a rather smooth brew, no doubt owing to the oats. It had a medium body and was rather sweet – honey-like. There was also some fruit flavor that reminded me of apricot. For the finish I found a modicum of herbal hop bitterness, some lingering sweetness, and, as with Triple 5, a whole lot of that boozy (8.4% A.B.V.) tasting astringency which helped make it end on a very dry note. Also, the lacing was really nice.

While not quite as astringent as its American cousin, it was still too much for my tongue and I felt bad as it was probably asking why my brain hadn’t learned its lesson the first time around. I rather liked the grainy taste and the gentle stone fruit flavors that went along with it. But the whole paint stripper aspect of the beer’s taste just didn’t do it for me.

Junk food pairing: Pair your Tripel Karmeliet with a bag of Old Dutch Cheddar & Sour Cream potato chips. All of that grease and those creamy flavors will help mellow the harshness of the beer.

A Salt & Vinegar Miscellany II

 The second look at salt & vinegar flavored snacks that are not deep friend sliced potatoes.

The Veggie Chips are an attempt to lure in Pringles eaters. While there's more than potatoes to these chips, the carrots and whatnot don't stand out and they taste like potatoes. With a healthy dose of vinegar. Not bad but give me sliced potatoes.

The plantain chips were extremely tasty because plantain is extremely tasty. For a snack that puts the vinegar first on the label, there wasn't much of it.

Fiction Paradox: Fanfare for the Common Man

Check out the latest episode of Fiction Paradox, the world's only podcast dedicated to the BBC Books Eighth Doctor Adventures - that I know of. I do it with my pals Brooke and Sasha. This time around we review The Face-Eater by Simon Messingham.

It was a good tale and the name of our episode comes from the emphasis given to working class characters which was refreshing.

You can also get our show at Google Podcasts or Apple Podcasts.

Up a River That Snaked Through Portage County Like a Main Circuit Cable: Tomorrow River Helles by Central Waters Brewing Co.

This is the second Helles in a row that I have purchased with a slight bit of apprehension. In the last go round, I bought one by Young Blood Beer Company, a brewery here in Madison with a reputation for IPAs, fruited sours, and milkshake things. Well, that's their reputation in my mind, anyway. I found their Helles to be more of a Pils, as it was lacking in malt richness. Indeed, the label said that the malt was to play a supporting role in the background. And this time I was buying one from a brewery known for its barrel aged beers – Central Waters Brewing.

The brewery is located up in Amherst in the middle of Wisconsin. Having been founded in 1998, it is part of a cadre of Wisconsin breweries that seem to be going through a mid-life slump. I'd put Tyranena, Ale Asylum, and O'so into the group as well. Perhaps Milwaukee Brewing Company too. I have absolutely no idea what the bottom lines of these companies are like nor their production volumes. They all have good reputations, as far as I can tell. But their popularity and growth seem to have stagnated.

For example, remember when Ale Asylum built their new brewery that had an easily detachable south wall to accommodate future expansion? I believe the brewery is the same size as it was when built. And back in the day Tyranena was poised to be the IPA king with citrus-flavored IPAs before that trend was widely embraced but seems to have remained largely a south-central Wisconsin phenomenon. For their part, Central Waters made quite a name for themselves with barrel aged beers before a couple batches of their Peruvian Morning, a barrel aged Imperial stout with coffee, were recalled due to infection. This seemed to really take the wind out of their sails.

No doubt the rising number of craft breweries slowed the growth of these established outfits. At some point the novel became fetishized and so the tried and true were often passed over in favor of the new and this surely affected these more established brewers as well.

All of these breweries make some very tasty beers and perhaps they are not looking to grow by leaps and bounds and are instead more or less contented with their size. More or less, I say, as Central Waters recently announced that they're opening an outpost in Milwaukee.

Last autumn I visited friends in Stevens Point, near Amherst, and we made a trek out to Central Waters HQ on a whirlwind tour of the area's zymurgological attractions. There was a Helles on tap then and of course that was my choice. It was unremarkable, to my taste, and I found their barrel aged barleywine to be much better. But I believe in second chances and was happy to try the beer again thinking that perhaps the recipe had been tweaked.

But I can grab a Spaten Münchner Hell or a Dovetail Helles, iterations both of the Platonic ideal of a Helles, and drown in melanoidin gluttony so why should I settle for an inferior beer? Maybe the fault lies not with the brewers but with me. Am I making the best the enemy of the good? It is this profound Cartesian doubt I have that leads me to keep buying lagers from breweries that don't seem to make a lot of them despite my experience that such breweries don't brew them well.

Or do they simply not brew them to my taste?

Damn you René! Damn you to hell!

Tomorrow River Helles is named after a river that flows into Amherst and emerges on the other side as the Waupaca River. Or some such thing. I'm no fluvial expert.

After pouring some into my trusty glass, I found that it had a large crown of loose, white foam. Very nice. The beer itself was light gold and slightly hazy. I could see small specks of beer detritus floating inside evenly dispersed. Chill haze? Those bits were joined by the occasional bubble. The beer did not have a prominent aroma as my nose caught only a little bread and a sweet scent that was slightly floral but mostly smelled like berries. Odd.

The medium-light body was in line with an almost benign biscuit taste and a mild spicy/grassy hop flavor. There was a hint of honey sweetness as well. The finish was surprisingly dry with some spicy hop bitterness joining a lingering sweetness.

This was a very mellow beer to me. It was slightly watery as every flavor can be adequately described as having been "mild". It was a bit like an American pilsner without the corn. The promised rich maltiness of the Helles was nowhere to be found. I don't recall the version of this beer I had last fall at the brewery tasting like this. Granted, it wasn't a hotbed of Maillard activity, but it wasn't this watery either.

I looked at the bottom of the can and it said that it was canned on 1/29/21 so it was just shy of 6 months old when I sampled it. Was I simply tasting the results of age? When I think of beers that are too old, I think of them as having oxidized. The beer tastes like wort with a large dose of vermouth added to it. That wasn't the case here. This isn't to say that what I tasted wasn't age, merely that it, if it was, it was a new set of stale flavors for me. Perhaps it wasn't stored at the right temperature at some point in its life.

Anyone else out there try this beer?

Junk food pairing: Pair your glass of Tomorrow River with a box or Ritz Bits Cheese. These mini crackers sandwiches with cheese stuff in the middle will give the beer a grainy boost. And it's Wisconsin so you need cheese.

Going On Down to Griffiss Air Force Base

The saying goes, “If you can remember Woodstock, you probably weren't there.” That was said of the original music festival with that name in 1969. A new documentary demonstrates that many who were there at Woodstock ’99 do indeed remember it - but for all of the wrong reasons.

The fest was held 22-25 July at the mostly disused Griffiss Air Force Base in Rome, New York. To my mind, it’s notorious for beginning with extreme heat and a lack of water before descending into chaos with rapes, riots, and large bonfires. It’s this Lord of the Flies madness that interests the makers of the new documentary Woodstock 99: Peace, Love, and Rage.

I watched it recently and was inspired to write a bit about it. I even took notes on the back of an envelope during my viewing about issues that stood out to me. Let me start with my first scribblings: a criticism.

About a third of the way through the movie features interviewees positing that the violence and chaos at Woodstock 99 was a reflection of that era’s zeitgeist which, they claim, was characterized by brutality, misogyny, and the like. The movie doesn’t really try to form an argument so what you get is mainly a lot of people simply offering their opinions on the times in hindsight.

A couple people hailed c1992-94 was a pop culture golden age when grunge musicians banished hair metal and boy bands to usher in a Pax Nirvana, a time when women were generally viewed as equals. This utopia ended as grunge’s popularity waned and pop music took on a violent anti-woman edge – witness nu metal. As did pop culture generally perhaps culminating in 1999 with Fight Club’s toxic masculinity and the stylized violence of The Matrix. I think it's silly to use a couple violent films as proof for society's violent orientation. As if such filmic violence was new to that time.

For her part, singer/musician Jewel opined that Generation X was like a boat without a rudder as we didn’t have the equivalent of the Vietnam War to unite us in our opposition. Rock critic Steven Hyden says that one of the defining characteristics of the era was the top-down mentality when those at the apex could dictate terms and lord over the plebs.

This armchair sociology is the weakest part of the movie. The sequence is really just a series of unsubstantiated claims made through the lens of pop culture that hastily generalize about a complex time involving millions and millions of people. When the narrative confines itself to the milieu at Woodstock 99, it finds itself on firmer ground, in my opinion. While insisting that the tragedies that played out at the festival were grounded in larger societal trends may be fun, I highly suspect that they may simply be attributed to more general factors as old as humanity itself.

The movie doesn’t really plant its flag on this issue, at least not at this time. It lets subjects offer critiques of society while also having Steven Hyden (who is also a contributing producer) point out that the festival’s problems were foreseeable (and prosaic) yet not acted upon. Another interviewee also says something in retrospect like, “I didn’t think I was the kind of guy who would get drawn into a riot.” As the fires burned at the festival, a guy in his early 20s has a camera thrust at his face and he blurts out, “They’re making money and we’re about getting drunk and partying.”

So you’ve got thousands and thousands of young men with raging libidos and veins pulsing with testosterone in a confined space where the porta-potties can’t be pumped fast enough, the free water has been despoiled by bathers, and it’s 100+ degrees out. Add in booze and the herd mentality that is part and parcel of human nature and it’s little wonder all of that bacchanalian chaos ensued. I think it would have at basically any other period in human history too.

It is appalling to think of all of those sexual assaults and rapes that were perpetrated at Woodstock 99. Official numbers are quite likely very low. The movie notes this and we get an EMT's recollection of dealing with a rape victim while someone else tells of how a woman who was being body passed ended up having multiple men manually penetrate her. To make the matter even more sad, if such a thing is possible, a contemporaneous news clip reports that a security guard was arrested for sexually assaulting a 15 year-old girl.

One of the festival’s organizers, John Scher, is a great interviewee because he provides lots of memorable quotes that deflect blame from himself and the other organizers. He attributes some responsibility to the women who went around half or fully naked for contributing to the excessively hedonistic atmosphere - stirring the pot, you would say. This, unsurprisingly, leads to an accusation of victim blaming from Hyden while one of the women who was at the festival questions whether men are really unable to keep their urges in check and asks, “What does that say about men?” I think posing this question to Camille Paglia would have been a fine addition to the movie.

Scher also blames MTV for focusing on the few bad apples instead of jumping on the team and coming on in for the big win. He also accused Fred Durst, Limp Bizkit’s frontman, of inciting violence.  This brings up an interesting subject: the power of music. Did Durst really incite violence with his call for audience members to let their negative energy out? Did the Red Hot Chili Peppers exacerbate an already febrile situation when they covered Jimi Hendrix’s “Fire” as the bonfires were starting? The power of music over our simian minds is an interesting topic but one that, alas, is beyond the purview of the movie.

Overall, I enjoyed the documentary but want to mention one more, albeit minor, criticism of it. I think it would have been interesting to hear people talk about the festival in the immediate aftermath instead of with 20 years distance. Implicit in the movie is the notion that people’s memories of events from 20 years ago are 100% accurate and reliable. What did Jewel, the lead singer from Creed, the guys from The Offspring, Moby, and the guy from Korn have to say on 26 July 1999? And what about those attendees that are featured? Maybe they’d be saying the same things but memory is imperfect. If nothing else, hearing more contemporaneous accounts would provide some relief from a bunch of middle-aged Mrs. Grundy talking heads scolding the youth of yesteryear.

There's also something of a Rashomon effect at play here. People generally agree on what happened - much of the festival exists on videotape, after all - but they give disparate judgements of the events. No one disputes that there were some bad aspects to the festival, but there is vehement disagreement over why they happened and how much significance is to be placed on them. Was the rioting an act of resistance against the capitalists at the top? Or was it sheer pandemonium that we ought to be thankful didn't result in death?

In addition to not delving into the power of music on herds of hairless apes, the movie touches on race and gender but never goes in whole hog. Fair enough. Why were there only 3 female artists booked for the whole weekend? Why was the crowd so white? What was significant about DMX getting all of those white kids to repeatedly shout the n-word? The movie brought up a lot of questions that it didn’t have the time and/or inclination to answer.

I would argue that the documentary ends by finally siding with the armchair sociologists. Festival organizer Michael Lang explains the choice of bands by saying that he wanted Woodstock 99 to be contemporary and not to look back at 1969 and that aggressive music reflected 1999. Was the mood here in America in 1999 especially violent? I don't know the answer to that question but certainly feel that the answer isn't going to come from just a handful of people with anecdotes in hand.

There was much more to the festival than the movie portrays but there is only so much you can do in a couple of hours. While I have not listened to it, there is a podcast documentary called "Break Stuff: The Story of Woodstock '99" dedicated to this subject which, I believe, was hosted by Steven Hyden who seems to be the dominant chronicler of the festival.