The Corona Diaries Vol 41: I Need My Fix

(early November 2021)

A couple days ago I noticed a brace of unfamiliar birds on the feeder out front.

They hung out underneath the feeder and in our honeysuckle bush for quite a while. As best as I can figure out, they were American Tree Sparrows. My Birds of Wisconsin book notes that they migrate south from Canada to spend the winter in Wisconsin. They picked a fine weekend to spend here as we're in a brief warm-up with highs in the 50s. Still, there's something a bit sad about being reminded of the passing of summer by seeing that the aestival birds are gone and their winter cousins are here.

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In a couple days I am setting out on a short vacation. It will begin with a quick trip to Endeavor and the retail outlet of Andy's Meats, the meat processing facility for Chicago's Andy's Deli. A friend and I are looking to stock our freezers with enough kielbasa and other Polish delectables to last us through the winter.

After I get home and empty my cooler, I will immediately jump back in my car and head for Osseo, 150 some odd miles up I94. That evening I am to meet 1-3 high school classmates for dinner. I haven't seen any of them for 30+ years so it should be fun evening of reminiscing and catching up.

After that I have sundry plans to do some hiking. I am thinking of walking a stretch of the Buffalo River State Trail the following morning before hitting the road once again. This time I'll take Highway 53 north to the Chippewa Moraine State Recreational Area where more hiking awaits. The Frau and I were there back in 2009 and we stood on a ridge and watched a storm approach as a flock of hummingbirds gorged themselves on the many feeders at the interpretive center.

From there I continue north a short way where a hotel room awaits me in Chetek. With that as my base of operations, the trip will continue with a mix of hiking, visiting a brewery or two, and eating at a supper club. Plus, just enjoy the northwoods and not being at work.

It looks like there's a chance for snow up there so I must remember to pack appropriately.

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I recently whipped up a batch of beef paprikash.

I have this weird problem of never adding enough paprika when I make it. The recipe calls for X amount of it but I never measure. Plus, I split the paprika payload between smoked and unsmoked varieties and worry I've put too much of one or not enough of the other in and, without fail, the result is too little paprika. It still tasted pretty good and was some hearty fare on a chilly fall evening.

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I've been to the movies a few times recently. The first was to see the Icelandic film Lamb.

I'd seen the trailer a few times over the summer and it made the film out to be a horror flick. While there were elements of the genre, I don't think it is a true horror film. It's slow and contemplative, in large measure, which mirrors life in rural Iceland, I'd imagine. There wasn't any dialogue for the first several minutes, for example. Plus, witnessing the birth of a lamb with no dialogue nor music creates a raw, earthy atmosphere.

Without giving too much away – the trailer gives rather a lot away, in my opinion – the story is thus: a couple who have lost their daughter find that one of their sheep has given birth to a human-sheep hybrid - a shuman, if you will. They take it in as if it was their daughter. The husband's brother shows up and relationships become very strained. At one point the child-chimera's father returns…

I really liked this movie. Low-level tension hung over everything and there was a lot of Nordic stoicism too so, when tempers flared and passions were loosed, they were all the more dramatic. There was an element of fantasy to it as well in the form of some folkloric elements and I just found that all of these ingredients added up to an enticing tale.

After Lamb, I went to see the latest James Bond movie.

I had read that about 40 minutes of it had been filmed using an IMAX camera so I went to see it at our local IMAX theater. Apparently, there is a small number of IMAX cameras in the world and Christopher Nolan had most of them tied up so the Bond filmmakers couldn't shoot the whole film in the format. Regardless, it didn’t disappoint.

While I rather like Daniel Craig as Bond, I was forced to ban my Frau from viewing his outings several years ago as the British secret agent as she enjoyed seeing Craig's butt in Casino Royale just a bit too much for my liking. I am unsure how well that ban has held up.

No Time to Die has a sepulchral feel to it that hangs over the events of the story. Quite appropriate for the ending, which I won't spoil. It was a fine Bond movie with plenty of chases, pretty women, and stuff blowing up. I am looking forward to seeing who is cast in the role next.

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My latest read:

The Nature Fix chronicles the latest research into what experiencing non-man-made environments does to our brains and how that knowledge is being employed around the world to make folks happier and healthier. The author, Florence Williams, is a journalist by trade so it was written for the layreader – like me.

The gist is that we evolved in natural environments, not cities, so our brains are wired in a certain way so as to flourish best in certain respects in fields and forests instead of urban canyons and office cubicles. In general, people tend to be more at ease, less stressed, and focus on the positive when out in nature as opposed to being in cities.

Williams notes that this isn't really a new idea and quotes Frederick Law Olmsted as saying that nature "employs the mind without fatigue and yet exercises it". Olmsted designed some parks down in Chicago but I am not sure which ones. Didn't he work on the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893?

We meet a Korean park ranger named Park Hyun-Soo who works at the Jangseong Healing Forest which is dominated by cypress trees. He touts the benefits of the activities offered there such as mediation and tea ceremonies. Hyun-Soo also promotes the effects of the phytoncides from the trees as there is research that shows inhaling them can reduce stress and blood pressure.

Later we meet and follow a group of veterans with PTSD going on a rafting/ camping adventure in Utah. For some, the exposure to nature was a mere diversion. For others, it brought them out of their shell and they found some happiness in socializing for the first time in a while.

Williams is even-handed in her accounts. She admits that nothing is a cure-all and that being in nature can affect different people differently.

A very interesting read and highly recommended.

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Bonus photo. Here's a picture of a very naughty cat that looks rather angelic because of the way the light comes in over her head. Don't be fooled!

Just don't go busting my balls, Garrett, OK?: Brooklyn Lager by Brooklyn Brewery

Before beginning to write this very blog post, I knew next to nothing about Brooklyn Brewery. My wife confirmed that it was indeed in Brooklyn, at least at one point, on a trip to New York City several years back to visit a friend. They stopped at the brewery and its taproom and enjoyed all the wonders on offer there. In addition to knowing the easy bit, I knew that the brewmaster is one Garrett Oliver.

Oliver first came to my attention back in the aughts and likely because he was (and still is) one of the few African-American brewmasters. But his notoriety, to my mind, anyway, is based on his skill at brewing – Brooklyn has a very fine reputation – and his role as editor of the Oxford Companion to Beer. In this latter role, I recall that he took a fair amount of flak from various beer history types who spend considerable time perusing historical brewing records that are often not in English and sometimes list ingredients in obscure units of measurement that no brewer has used in living memory. But I also recall that he generally took the criticism in stride instead of ordering hits on his critics as you'd expect from a New Yorker. He's been in the business for a while and I tend to think of him as an elder statesman of American brewing, an ambassador for quality American brews and the notion that they deserve to be paired with foods of equal distinction.

The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that my indifference to and ignorance of Brooklyn Brewery has a lot to do with the fact that it's on the East Coast and I am a Midwesterner. I live in "flyover country". New York Times reporters visit and are shocked to find that we have coffeeshops where a fine cup of joe can be had. Coastal news organizations fly in a reporter who talks to some old duffers over the course of a few days and - voila! - they know all there is to know about the region and its tens of millions of inhabitants. And, besides, don't New Yorkers all talk with a funny accent - like the characters in Goodfellas?

We are tired of being looked down upon and being told that all things true and good come from coastal realms and that we hicks merely import them. Now, I will grant you the coasts have got us beat on fresh seafood. And New York City can boast about the quality of its bagels. But we Midwesterners brew beers that are of equal or superior quality to anything a snooty coastie can whip up.

However, to the best of my knowledge, no one from Brooklyn Brewery has ever threatened me personally nor held any malice in their heart towards the Midwest so why shouldn't I give their brews a spin? Why let regional prejudices prevent me from enjoying a cold one from the coast?

I had no idea the Brooklyn Brewery has been around since 1988 when it was founded by Steve Hindy and Tom Potter. Garrett Oliver was hired in 1994. Brooklyn was a contract brewery for the first 8 years of its existence and finally got its own brewing facility in 1996. I was surprised to learn of the brewery's international presence. Their website boasts that their beer is now available in thirty-some-odd countries. It has partnered with Carlberg, the Danish brewing behemoth, to have its beers brewed and distributed in Europe and Hong Kong. Wikipedia also notes that it bought a brewery in London in partnership with Carlsberg. Finally, it says that a 24.5% stake in Brooklyn was bought by the Japanese company, Kirin. So, there is more – much more – to Brooklyn Brewery than some brewing vessels and a cozy little taproom in the titular borough.

While Brooklyn has all the trends covered – IPAs aplenty, sour beer, hard seltzer, blah blah blah – they still advertise Brooklyn Lager as their flagship. It's readily available here in Madison, at least it is at Woodman's here on the east side.

When I first decided to give it a try, I became a bit apprehensive after seeing it described as a "Hoppy Amber Lager" on the can. Was this going to be some India Pale Lager type thing that had been hopped to within an inch of its life?

My photo does the beer some justice as it was a very pretty gold hue. I poured it poorly and only got a small dollop of white foam that went away quickly. It was clear and I could see a goodly number of bubbles inside. It looked mighty fine!

The aroma surprised me. There was honey and caramel from the malts while the hops contributed an amalgam of berry-like and floral scents. While I was hoping for a bit more bread here, the hops smelled absolutely wonderful!

Thankfully this was not to be a particularly sweet beer. Sure, there was some caramel sweetness but it was fairly restrained. A healthy fizziness helped in this department and added a slight astringency. The hops were not of IPL/kill your tongue potency but were quite noticeable with that fruity-floral combination. But I tasted a little grapefruit in addition to that pan-berry flavor.

The caramel and fruity-floral flavors faded on the finish which allowed a herbal – almost minty – hop taste to come through. Not too much, but you can taste it. This final hop appearance also made it finish rather dry.

In addition to bagels, New Yorkers can be proud to tout this brew because it is great. The maltiness wasn't overly sweet and the hops were simply wonderful. I loved the floral taste as well as how they smell one way, take on a little something else as you drink, and then leave your mouth with a wholly different flavor after you swallow.

Junk food pairing: Pair your Brooklyn Lager with the tastes of New York City and America's Dairyland together in harmony. Grab a bag of everything bagel chips and liberally apply Cheddar 'n Bacon goodness from a can of Easy Cheese.

Did you know "vanilla" comes from "vagina"? No, really.: Baltic Fire by Lakefront Brewery

Yesterday I wrote about the advent of coffee beer in 1994 just 25 miles to my south in New Glarus. And today I have read that the term "Baltic porter" was first used that very same year by Bill Yenne in his book Beers of the World although it was über beer geek Michael Jackson that seems to have popularized the term 4 years later. There truly was more to the 90's than grunge, cargo pants, despair, and indifference.

While Slavic food is severely underrepresented in the Madison dining scene today, a restaurant called Russia House spent much of the 1990s evoking images of Sean Connery romancing Michelle Pfeiffer and dishing out borscht and vodka to folks downtown. I was sad to see it go but was very happy to see the opening of Arbat Russian Restaurant in nearby Fitchburg sometime the following decade. I have fond memories of chasing away the winter chill there with hearty platefuls of pelmeni and stuffed pork loin. And to wash it all down I was able to choose from a full array of Baltika beers with my favorite being #6, their Baltic porter.

English beer historian Martyn Cornell has written about the history of this style so credit is due to him for what follows.

The short story is that the Poles developed a taste for English porter in the 18^th century with a particular fondness for something called the "double brown stout" which sounds like it was a much, um, stouter porter than its more workaday cousin. I suppose it isn't surprising that the Poles had a taste for a stronger brew considering their hostile neighbors. You too would seek out a more potent potable if the Prussians, Russians and Austrians invaded your country and wiped it off of the map as happened in 1795 when the state of Poland was terminated and would not reappear for 120+ years.

Fast forward to the 19^th century when lager brewing was all the rage and some entrepreneuring Polish brewers applied it to their beloved porters. And voila! The Baltic porter was born.

Until an international standards committee comes up with a mutually agreeable definition of what exactly constitutes a Baltic porter, I will continue to labor under the characterization of a beer that is a dark lager around 8% A.B.V. that is otherwise a porter.

It's a fairly uncommon style here in Madison, as far as I can tell. When I am at a liquor store in Chicago, the shelves have Baltic porters from various large Polish brands such as Okacim, Zywiec, and Perła in addition to Baltika, which is a Russian brewery. Unlike Chicago, Madison does not have a large Polish/Polish-American population and so those beers don't show up on our shelves. Thankfully some craft brewers are happy to help fill the gap. Last winter I tasted a Baltic porter from Milwaukee's Third Space Brewing called Ice Bear. And late last autumn another Milwaukee brewery, Lakefront, gave us Baltic Fire, a Baltic porter with vanilla.

Lakefront is one of the progenitors of the Wisconsin craft beer industry having opened in 1987. Their Riverwest Stein is not only tasty, but also a stalwart of the beer scene here. It's one of those brews that does a yeoman's job in places that don't have menus that are printed in a typeface so small you need a magnifying glass to read because they need to fit in all the trendy IPAs and hard seltzers they serve on a single sheet.

While I am inclined favorably towards Lakefront, my Spidey senses tingled when I saw that their new Baltic porter was made with vanilla. Additives in beer can have some tasty results but American brewers tend to use them with all the subtlety of Donald Trump at a beauty pageant. So, I was a bit leery about this Baltic fire stuff yet I tried it anyway because a Baltic porter with vanilla sounds delicious.

Baltic Fire looked dark brown with a slight reddish tint. Its clarity allowed me to see lots of bubbles bopping around inside. My photo, as usual, doesn't capture the beer in all of its glory as the big tan head exited stage right hastily. As someone who enjoys dark beers, I can say she was a looker and had me chomping at the bit to take a sip. Taking a whiff, I caught vanilla. Lots of it. "This must be what it's like working at the McCormick vanilla extract factory," I thought to myself. Subsequent sniffs revealed some stone fruit and coffee smells.

My first sips revealed a good fizziness – recall all of those bubbles – and a medium bodied dark lager with a hint of coffee and a large dose of vanilla. As in, had I just fallen into a vanilla extract vat at that McCormick factory? Heavens to Murgatroyd, that was some potent vanilla! Not surprisingly, that taste lingered after I swallowed though a little fruitiness emerged along with a hint of dark chocolate. Then I tasted some hoppy bitterness and a rather unpleasant extracty astringency.

Sadly, my additive-induced wariness proved correct. This beer was not for me. The vanilla was just too much and suffocated the wonderful porter flavors. Those coffee and chocolate bits need to breathe! I hope that Lakefront tries again and uses a lighter touch when it comes to the vanilla because I think there are some complementary flavors here that are simply out of balance.

Junk food pairing: Pair Baltic Fire with something that will replace some of the lost porter flavors. Go with a bowl of Brownie Supreme Chex Mix Muddy Buddies.

If there's a stopper in your bung hole, don't be alarmed, now: Ryeway to Heaven by Revolution Brewing

 

If memory serves, my first encounter with barrel aged beer was a brief one. It was at the Great Taste of the Midwest sometime in the mid- or late-90s. A brewery, which I cannot recall (but I suspect it was from northern Illinois. Freeport, perhaps?) announced it would pour their new bourbon barrel aged stout at a particular time. I wandered over to the brewery's neck of the woods at the appointed hour and found a gentleman removing the cork from a magnum. He was, like many of the attendees, on the large and burly side with a rather long beard and a bardolphian countenance.

Upon removing the cork, he hoisted the magnum onto his shoulders and began pouring as he turned around slowly in a circle so that the throng of beer nerds that had gathered around him could get a taste. I, being over 6 feet tall and having long arms, was able to easily get a pour by reaching over a couple of shorter geeks. While I recall enjoying the beer, I have absolutely no recollection of what it tasted like.

My current attitude towards the style was formed during the inaugural Madison Craft Beer Week back in 2011. A friend and I were at Jan's Unfriendly Tavern where O'so Brewing, whose HQ is up in Plover, were doing a tap takeover. At some point a gentleman took up a spot by a window and began preparing to pour samples of the brewery's first ever bourbon barrel aged beer, which I suspect was their Night Train porter given the treatment, from growlers. Unlike the guy from the Great Taste, he seemed to be of average height and weight and did not have a beard that would put Rip Van Winkle's to shame. My friend and I each got a sample and, upon our first sips, our faces contorted in agony as if we had suddenly found ourselves sitting next to Satan in the ninth circle of Hell as he nommed on Judas Iscariot. Once the pain had abated enough for us to speak, we proclaimed simultaneously, "They forgot to take the booze out of the barrel!"

On a recent listen to an episode of The Beer Temple Podcast I learned that barrels arrive at breweries with 2+ gallons of bourbon or whatever spirits they held soaked in the wood. (As I recall, anyway.) That's a lot of potential for an extra flavorful beer there. But that booze is also a monster waiting to subsume your beer like Satan chowing on traitors and hide its malty goodness behind a wall of spirits. My own preference is for barrel aged beers that still have some semblance of beer instead of bourbon that has had the edge taken off of it.

For example, there's Tyranena's excellent Rocky's Revenge, a blend of barrel aged and unsullied brown ales. And there was Lakefront's Wendy, a doppelbock aged on bourbon-soaked oak chips. Both of these beers featured the unmistakable taste of bourbon but their beery pneumas were still able to come through. But these seem to be the exceptions so I am more than a bit shy when it comes to barrel aged beers. Taking up valuable space for extended aging in specially acquired vessels, these beers are rather expensive and I'd hate to invest in some only to find that a few drams are plenty enough for me.

My highly inexhaustive search for the first time beer was commercially aged in a bourbon/spirit barrel reveals that Goose Island is commonly credited with that feat having done so back in 1992. And the subsequent Bourbon County line of barrel aged beers would go on to become the stuff of craft beer legend. Somewhere along the way, however, Bourbon County would lose its luster, perhaps after Goose Island was acquired by corporate brewing behemoth AB-InBev.

With the progenitor of the style having fallen out of the good graces of many drinkers, the enterprising folks at Chicago's Revolution Brewing stepped in to fill the void. My impression is that, around the Midwest, at least, Revolution's barrel aged beers are considered the ne plus ultra of the style, having taken the crown from Goose Island. These brews, collected in the Deep Wood series, are renowned for their high tastiness quotients as well as for not being brewed by a multinational corporate leviathan. I am unsure if it's always been the case, but, these days, Revolution staggers the release of their barrel aged beers over the course of a few months.

This year they are offering Ryeway to Heaven, a rye ale aged in rye barrels. If Revolution was going to come out with both, um, barrels blazing with secale cereale, then I would overcome my wariness of beer aged in the former home of a spirit.

 

I have come to the conclusion that ethanol is bad for foam. These big beers always produce a small head that never sticks around. Such is the case here where a diminutive tan bit of foam was here and gone in no time. The beer was, as I think my photo actually illustrates for a change, a lovely reddish brown. A cloud of rye (the spirit) vapors hit my nose despite it being several inches from my glass. (It is 15.8% A.B.V.) When I finally got the courage to stick my proboscis into the glass and take a whiff, it smelled that rye (the spirit), tobacco, and a hint of plum.

Despite the paucity of foam, the beer had a firm fizziness to it which was a good thing because it was thick and heavy bodied. It featured a trifecta of honey, caramel, and malt flavors all adding sweetness as well as a deep smoothness. The marketing division of Revolution must have been reading about understatement the day they designed the label because it says, "(Share and)** Enjoy an ample body that suggests sweetness..." That's a bit like saying that the Atlantic Ocean suggests wetness. This stuff tasted not unlike a syrup. It tasted boozy too. Really boozy. The sweetness and booze stood in stark contrast to one another on my tongue.

The marketing division may be been doing something else that day because the front of the can says "Aged in rye barrels" while a 45 degree turn reveals the claim that the beer was aged in rye and bourbon barrels. Harumph.

After swallowing, the sweetness lingered for a while before giving way to a modicum of hoppy bitterness which was followed by a big, boozy burn.

The key, I found out, was to let this brew warm a bit. The sweetness remained cloying and the rye (the spirit) retained its potency, but, instead of these tastes having a purely antagonistic relationship in my mouth, they reached a kind of détente. Everyone mellowed out just a bit and the flavors didn't seem quite so...antipodal. They had melded into something more accommodating.

Ryeway to Heaven didn't turn me into some kind of barrel aged beer junkie, but I appreciated half a can on cold evening in February. It definitely warmed me up.

Junk food pairing: You're gonna need a bigger chip! To cut through this big, sweet brew you're going to need a potent snack. I suggest a bag of Ruffles Cheddar and Sour Cream Potato Chips. They're thicker than your average chip and so carry more fat and dairy goodness to further mellow your tongue.

**OK, I put that in there.

The Corona Diaries Vol 40: Autumnal Fun and Games

(November 2021)

With the change of seasons there's colorful leaves, cooler temperatures, and Piper hanging out underneath the bathroom sink.

It's all warm and cozy down there as a heat duct runs underneath it.

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Let's start with food because who doesn't like food? Wisconsin leads the nation in cranberry production. I believe we grow more than half of the national cranberry crop and wouldn't be surprised if there was a national strategic cranberry reserve somewhere up north. I bought a bag of the fresh stuff and made pork chops.

Beer, stock, onions, cranberries – it was tasty! Oh, and some rosemary too.

Regarding those changing leaves, there are two maples a block over that turn a brilliant red every year. They're really nice to see on my walk home from the bus stop in the evening.

I spent Halloween down in Chicago visiting my mother. We went out to eat at Psistaria Greek Taverna before trekking across the street to New York Bagel & Bialy. There was a line out the door of the bagel joint when we got to the restaurant and when we left it. They do a brisk business. After that we made a quick stop at a liquor store so I could get some Chicago beer that's not available in Madison.

The scariest thing of the whole trip was the traffic on Touhy Avenue where it seemed like half the city was trying to get to the Edens in record time and wanted to let everyone know they were in a hurry by frequently honking their horn.

Speaking of scary things, I got in a scary read this Halloween season – Spiral by Japanese horror author Koji Suzuki.

It's the second book in the Ring series. The first book, Ring/Ringu, was made into a Japanese film of the same name and remade here in the States as The Ring by Gore Verbinski and starring Naomi Watts. Back in the late 90s and early 2000s I watched a lot of Japanese horror films, which were in vogue at that time. They were all total creepfests punctuated by moments of sheer terror and Ringu was the first of them that I watched so it has a special place in my horror-filled heart.

Spiral was good. It picks up the day after the events of the first novel. Knowing the events of Ring, this one lacked the novelty of its predecessor but it was still spooky and there were a couple spots in the story where I was genuinely frightened but couldn't stop reading because I just had to know that the protagonist survived.

All in all, a good fright.

If you dare dip your toes into contemporary Japanese horror, Ringu is a good place to start. I recall watching Dark Water and Juon and being scared s*itless by both. One of them has an elevator scene that scared my Frau and I so much that we simultaneously reached for each other to cling for our dear lives.

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Last month a couple friends and I took a trip to Milwaukee to see The Hu, a hard rock band from Mongolia that we'd been wanting to see for some time now. They're not just a hard rock band who happens to hail from Mongolia; they are a Mongolian hard rock band that incorporates some traditional instrumentation from their homeland.

You get your bass, electric guitar, and drums but also the morin khuur, a 2-string bowed instrument, a tovshuur which is a 3-string Mongolian lute thingy, and some kind of woodwind that looked and sounded like an oversized recorder. Plus they sometimes throw in some Tuvan throat singing which, to best of the knowledge of this non-singer type, involves singing more than one note at a time.

While they played a lot of hard rock, there were also a few songs that were gentler and more folky where the electric guitar added color instead of big chords. They sang in their native tongue but it didn't make a difference. Their performance was full of energy, great melodies, and big, thumping beats so we didn't really need to know what was being sung.

Our next goal is to see the German-Nordic experimental folk band Heilung in concert. They like their primitive beats, to dress in (faux?) animal skins, and to don antlers. They draw inspiration from runes and the paganism of their ancestors that royally kicked some Roman butt in 9 C.E. at Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. Hopefully they'll make their way to the Midwest sometime soon.

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Last month I attended Gamehole Con, a tabletop gaming convention held annually here in Madison. It's always a great time. Friends from Chicagoland come up for the occasion to join my Cheesehead comrades and me in 4 days of gaming gluttony.

Most of the time we played boardgames. A group from Milwaukee brings their games library over – we're talking hundreds and hundreds of games – and you can check them out for free and play them to your heart's content. We generally play a mix of games new and familiar.

I played Raiders of the North Seas for the first time.

As you can imagine, it involves taking the role of Vikings and attacking various harbors, monasteries, etc. But instead of slaughtering monks like at poor Lindisfarne, you roll a couple dice and take pieces off of the board.

We also played a game called Red Cathedral which involves – quelle surprise! – building onion domed churches.

I found that the pictures in that circle looked very familiar. While it took me a while, I eventually figured out why. They were done in a style that was just like that of the illustrations in a book of Russian fairy tales that were drawn by Ivan somebody or other.

Take a look at the game board:

Now here's a picture of Vasilisa whom I presume had a run-in with Baba Yaga seeing as her hut is in the background. I am unsure, though, as I woefully ignorant of Russian folklore.

Another highlight of the weekend was the last game of the convention that we played on Sunday before the remaining Chicago folks headed home – 1775: Rebellion.

It's pretty neat as it involves cooperative play as well as competitive.

A friend and I were the Continental Army and Patriot Militia, respectively. We were teamed up against  a couple of our pals who took on the roles of the British Regulars and the Loyalist Militia. The French and the Hessians made guest appearances as did the Native Americans.

The situation was looking very dire for us rebels as the game entered the last round of play. Miraculously, though, we fought the British scum to a draw.

When I wasn't involved with a boardgame, I was playing or running a role-playing game. Friends from Chicago run Call of Cthulhu games – horror role-playing based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft as the Cthulhu Masters Tournament. The game they ran this year took place at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970. As rock music played in the distance, we were tracing ley lines, being kidnapped by cultists, and had our sanity strained to the breaking point by unearthly beings hell bent on unleashing havoc upon our world.

In other words, your usual Call of Cthulhu stuff.

I ran a Trail of Cthulhu game. Trail is very similar to Call but with some different game mechanics. My scenario took place in northern Wisconsin in the fictional town of Four Pines in April 1934. The players/investigators head north from Chicago and enter a town that sends one of its own out into the woods when the Northern Lights appear to appease a mysterious creature. They discover that the creature is the Wendigo of Native American lore which haunts the forests of the north and eats people. Only it's not really the Wendigo, but the Great Old One Ithaqua!

I made sure that the town tavern had some folks playing Hardanger fiddle (a Norwegian violin with 8 strings) tunes as well as some lumberjack songs on accordion for that authentic feel. I took the songs from Folksongs of Another America:Field Recordings from the Upper Midwest, 1937–1946 compiled by UW-Madison folklorist Jim Leary. As the players hung out at the tavern, I had the locals telling lumberjack as well as Ole and Lena (i.e. – Norwegian) jokes. E.g. –

Ole went to the doctor for a physical. After Ole was dressed the doctor came in and said "I am sorry Ole, but you are very sick and have only a few weeks to live".

Ole went home with a heavy heart to tell Lena the news. After Ole told Lena he sat in his easy chair and Lena went to the kitchen. Soon a heavenly aroma came from the kitchen. Lena was making his favorite cookies! "Lena must really love me" he thought. Ole went into the kitchen and started to take a cookie. Lena slapped his hand away and said "Get avay! Dese cookies aren't for you, der for da funeral!"

Unfortunately, I didn't keep things on track and we weren't able to finish the game in our 4 hour time slot. Still the players enjoyed themselves as did I which is the whole point.

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Bonus photo time. Here's my father-in-law in warmer times showing off a sail he painted for a regatta.

Just Like the Darkest Depths of Mordor: Brewhouse Coffee Stout by Central Waters Brewing Co.

 

Because I have reached that point in life when most of it is behind me and not yet to come, I often approach things through a historical lens. Such is the case here. Coffee beers always bring back a memory of drinking New Glarus' Coffee Stout on Easter '96 at the Paradise Lounge here in Madison with my roommate. The way I recall that day, the beer was new and novel to me and I had a great day drinking and shooting pool with nary a thought about some guy being nailed to a cross.

But the Internet, that ever reliable font of truth, says that New Glarus' brewmaster Dan Carey first brewed their Coffee Stout in 1994. I remember drinking their Edel Pils that year but no coffee-laced stout. Apparently the Feds were unamused that someone had put caffeine in their alcohol (or was that alcohol into their caffeine?) and put the kibosh on Coffee Stout until laws were changed and labels printed telling consumers that there was caffeine in that beer as if "Coffee Stout" didn't already get that point across.

So perhaps I was actually witnessing the resurrection (ahem) of Coffee Stout that Easter after a brief and legally mandated hiatus. Regardless of the veracity of my memories, the Interwebs say that New Glarus was the first to commercially brew a coffee beer. I think it's rather neat that the ur-coffee brew is from these parts and is still available today as New Glarus seems to make it every 2 or 3 years. I also think it's a shame that this fact is often overlooked in discussions about the brewery. The ubiquity of Spotted Cow, the awards given to Belgian Red, and their beers' availability being limited to Wisconsin tend to overshadow Dan Carey's pioneering efforts to merge barley pop and java.

Despite being groundbreaking, Coffee Stout seems to never have gone on to be considered a paragon of coffee beers generally. Even I tend to think of Founders' Breakfast Stout first when the subject of coffee brews is broached. Not far behind, though, is Central Waters Brewing located up in Amherst in the middle of Wisconsin.

I remember the early days of Central Waters, which was founded in 1998, as being filled with a variety of good brews such as Ouisconsing Red Ale and Mud Puppy Porter, a favorite of mine. I fondly recall drinking Satin Solstice, an imperial stout, with friends and all of us enjoying it immensely. They also had a pale ale or IPA with a crane or similar bird on the label. A nice variety of styles that were tasty. And then they moved towards barrel aging.

I am not sure when this was but I'd guess in the mid-2000's and it soon became their trademark. They probably had the premiere barrel aging program in all the land. (Sorry Tyranena.) One of their barrel aged offerings was Peruvian Morning, an imperial stout with coffee that was aged in bourbon barrels. Then in c. 2011 there was a bad batch of Peruvian Morning. And then again the following year. And the year after that. The upshot was that the brewery stopped making it for a while. Despite this, Central Waters became lodged in my head as one of the leading makers of coffee beer.

However, long before the troubles with infected beer, Central Waters was brewing Brewhouse Coffee Stout, Peruvian Morning minus the time spent mingling with bourbon. I am certain that I have had it in years past but am only now getting around to writing about it. My can was dated 10/20/21 and the Central Waters website lists it as a seasonal so I presume you can find this stuff every autumn.

Unless you hold the glass just right, you just see this darkness in your glass that allows no light to penetrate it. It's like Sauron brewed the stuff. But, in reality, it was of a deep chestnut hue. I got a goodly-sized tan head on top that lasted what I think of as an average amount of time. No surprise that the first whiff was dominated by coffee. Subsequent sniffing revealed dark chocolate, roasted grain, and just a touch of stone fruit – think plum.

This beer has a firm fizziness to it that complements its medium-light body. Again coffee was at the fore on my first sip. Bitter chocolate eventually came through as did roasty grain flavor. As the beer warmed, that plum made its way to the fore when I swallowed as did some mildly bitter coffee and chocolate tastes faded. There was a modicum of herbal hoppiness on the finish which lent a little bitterness and a gentle eucalyptus-like taste. It had a fairly dry ending with some astringency to boot.

I loved the coffee and chocolate flavors here. This isn't surprising as both are the result of Maillard reactions. Just as Wiccans venerate the cycles of Nature, such as the changing of the seasons, I venerate whatever it is carbohydrates and amino acids do in Maillard reactions. I am drawn to those flavors like a moth to the flame. I suppose there is an art to mixing coffee and beer. My preference is for African coffees because they have more of an earthy flavor to them vs. South American coffees which taste brighter with more of a citrus edge to them. Central Waters does not specify the type of coffee used here. Perhaps someday I can sit down and figure out how various coffees of whatever roast work in beer.

Future gustatory projects aside, that stone fruit flavor was welcome but I appreciated that it was subdued. My only gripe is that I found the beer just a tad overly astringent. Still, this was a great brew.

Junk food pairing: This is a big, bold beer with lots of Maillard reacted goodness so pair it with something from the grill such as Dutch Crunch Mesquite BBQ chips or Herr's Baby Back Ribs chips.