Foxtrot at 51 - Steve Hackett Live at the Copernicus Center

(Photo by Andy Argyrakis.)

Going to a Steve Hackett concert not only means lots of great music in your earholes, but it also generates lots of food for thought for a doofus such as myself who ponders things such as how much solo vs. Genesis material Hackett should play. He's been making solo albums since 1975 and has 27 to his credit with another one due in just a few months - much more material than he ever produced as a member of Genesis. Hackett shows also make me ponder what eras of his solo career deserve representation in the setlist. Should the emphasis be on his classic 70's output with 40+ years of newer music being ignored? "Loving Sea" is a late-period classic and I will fight anyone who says otherwise.

At the end of the day, the guy has to put butts in seats and long gone are the days when a snippet here and a snippet there of a Genesis tune would suffice. It seems that it really wasn't until the early 2000's that he began to inject whole Genesis songs into his setlists in earnest and found a nice balance of his solo material and that from his former band. Things tipped towards the latter in 2013 with his Genesis Revisited tour as large chunks of his concerts became devoted to his days in the group.

Several years ago he started dividing his shows into solo and Genesis sets. More recently, he's been doing Genesis albums in their entirety. Such was the case last year when my Frau and I saw him in Minneapolis where he went all meta and did the entirety of Seconds Out. Earlier this month when I saw him at the Copernicus Center in Chicago, it was Foxtrot at 50.

I am not the biggest fan of established artists doing an entire classic album live. While I suppose it is a genuinely celebratory gesture and can be pulled off creatively, such a setlist is usually bereft of variety with countless songs left out and most albums not being represented at all. Not a single guitar chord nor even one Mellotron note. And I'm not just talking newer material but classic stuff from the 70s as well. It can be frustrating if you like many eras of a musician's career. Plus, you are robbed of the element of surprise since, for at least a big chunk of the show, you know what's coming.

Well, Steve Hackett will populate his setlists with the songs he thinks will draw crowds. Plus, I'd imagine he throws in some tunes that he simply wants to play at that time. There are songs from Cured, Till We Have Faces, and Darktown that I'd like to be in the audience for when he plays them live but don't think that will ever happen. But hope springs eternal.

On this current tour, the trend of a set of Hackett solo followed by a set of Genesis prevailed.

While there was no "The Air-Conditioned Nightmare" or "Matilda Smith-Williams Home for the Aged" or "Omega Metallicus", there was no way I could turn my nose up at "Ace of Wands". The band was cookin' on "Every Day" which features his most epic guitar solo that isn't on "Firth of Fifth". It's a song that is a joy to behold, not only for its tunefulness, but to witness Hackett conjure notes by plucking the strings by the pickups or tapping on the neck. There's just something joyful about witnessing a master of his craft practice it before your very eyes. And ears, in this case.

(Photo by David Giard.)

Newer material was reduced to one song - "The Devil's Cathedral" but "Camino Royale" was added. At first, I was "I know this song. It's that one I cannot remember the name of from Highly Strung." So that was a real treat. And just as he did last year, he (and the band) brought the first set to a close with the instrumental section of "Shadow of the Hierophant". While I've always liked the song, I felt that Sally Oldfield's vocals on the studio version were rather twee for the longest time, as if they were some Hobbit maiden's hymn. At some point, I matured or got old or something and I just fell in love with them with their gentle clarity and delicate resonance. I hope to witness that song performed in full someday. And just as he did last year, Craig Blundell proved to be a monster on drums and added so much excitement and dynamics to it. The song built in intensity largely on his percussive prowess.

After an intermission, the lights went down and those unmistakable Mellotron chords heralded the start of "Watcher of the Skies". Great? To be sure. But I was really keen on hearing the middle trio on Foxtrot - "Time Table", "Get 'Em Out by Friday", and "Can-Utility and the Coastliners". The first was never played live by the band while the other two were never played after the Foxtrot tour. Nope, never an abbreviated version in an oldies medley. Not even a snippet during the jamming bit in "I Know What I Like".

Just as watching Hackett solo in "Every Day" was a joy, so was watching Jonas Reingold ply his trade on "Get 'Em Out by Friday". Maybe Genesis stopped playing it because Mike Rutherford didn't want to play that bass line. Reingold had his Rickenbacker in hand and I sat there in awe as he played the fast part - such as at "I think I've fixed a new deal/A dozen properties – we'll buy at five and sell at thirty-four". There didn't appear to be a bad seat in the house but I wish we'd had seats closer up so I could watch just what his fingers were doing. They looked like a blur a la the Tasmanian Devil to me.

A rousing "Supper's Ready" closed out the second set. Tears welled in my eyes twice. First during "The Guaranteed Eternal Sanctuary Man" and then again during "As Sure as Eggs is Eggs (Aching Mens' Feet)". The band didn't alter or tweak the song a whole lot but Hackett did add some extra and very wonderful soloing to bring the song to a close. Tender, aching notes them all.

The band stepped backstage very briefly before returning to encore with "Firth of Fifth", a drum solo, and then "Los Endos" with some of "Slogans" weaved in for good measure.

Hackett and Co. put on a fantastic show. One moment I've got Mellotron and bass pedals sending a shiver down my spine and the next there's Nad Sylvan's singing and Hackett's guitar bringing me to tears. Live music are better!

In a stroke of good luck, Hackett will be bringing this show here to Madison come the spring at the Orpheum. Plus, he's got a new album coming out in February called The Circus and the Nightwhale for us to look forward to.

The Corona Diaries Vol. 99 - Postlude: Dilla

(Don't forget to read entry #99.)

So how's that pickle beer marathon going?: Pickle Someone Your Own Size by Noon Whistle Brewing

My first encounter with a so-called "pickle beer" came last autumn when my Frau and I made a stop in at Noon Whistle Brewing down in lovely Lombard, Illinois one night. Because I am open minded and willing to try any old thing brewers come up with, no matter how far out in left field it may be, I bought a small pour of their dill pickle sour ale on a whim.

Just kidding.

I don't really know why I gave their pickle beer a whirl but I suspect it was because the more normal beers of theirs that I had tried up to that point were not good. It's like they spend all their effort perfecting "gummy beers" which I presume are meant to inspire images and all the good feelings of Gummi bears dancing on your tongue. Or something like that. Perhaps my logic was, since Noon Whistle does not, um, do well with malt flavors and I don't want my beer to taste like candy, let's try something else.

 

In the end, I found that I rather liked the pickle beer. Yeah, it was definitely gimmicky but I enjoyed the briney savoriness and the sour was just the right strength of tanginess. I could sense the spirits of my German, Polish, and Ruthenian ancestors looking over my shoulders and rolling their eyes at the novelty aspect of the beer but appreciating that at least there were pickles involved. They were probably also wondering where the Korn and/or vodka was.

Fast forward several months and I stumble upon Donna's Pickle Beer at the store and make a life-altering decision there on the spot: I resolve to drink every pickle beer I can find.

Ere long I discover Destihl's SuckerPunch, their dill pickle sour beer, on the shelves here in Madison. But I shy away from it. From my experience, their sour beers are extremely sour and render your tongue inoperable for a while after just a sip or two. While I did resolve to drink every pickle beer I could find, I did not set any deadlines and, instead, did some major procrastinating on that one.

Then came a trip down to Chicagoland back in October and a stop in at a Binny's where I found the beer that started all of this: Noon Whistle's Pickle Someone Your Own Size.

 

The brew was slightly hazy but I am unsure why. My first thought is that it was made with wheat but I can neither confirm nor deny that. Noon Whistle notes the hops involved but not the grains. Of course. My pour produced a big, white head that was all effervescent like soda with an audible din of bubbles bursting. They burst so much that the foam dissipated fairly quickly. I spied some bubbles inside - not counting the ones stuck to the side of my glass.

As expected, the beer smelled a lot like what you get when you smell a jar of pickles. You know, briney and dilly. But there was also a prominent lemony-citrus aroma too. I put this down to the lactic sour but apparently the Simcoe hops here also add fruity scents.

My tongue was greeted by a good, but not strong, fizziness and a light body. That lemon aroma came through but, again, I attributed it to the sour and not hops. It didn't take long for the citrus taste to give way to dill pickle. While there was a definite astringency to the taste, it was orders of magnitude less than the xenomorph blood that Destihl makes.

The tanginess and dill slowly ebbed away on the finish as a savory/saline quality joined the fading dill.

I gave it all away above so it's no surprise when I type that I really enjoy this beer. It's light, rather fizzy, and tastes like pickle brine with a touch of citrus. I brought a couple cans of this stuff to gaming one day and they went down in quick succession. Easy drinking and flavorful for someone like me with lots of Germanic and Slavic blood in him.

Junk food pairing: Go all post-modern and start deconstructing a classic dish like the hamburger by pairing your Pickle Someone Your Own Size with a bag of Herr's Ketchup flavored potato chips.

N.B. - ketchup is not appropriate on hot dogs.

The Corona Diaries Vol. 99: On Tour With Dilla

(late-July 2023)

(Watch the prelude.)

My Frau’s green thumb continues unabated and local greenhouses are, um, rolling in the green, you could say. After a recent storm, she took these lovely pictures of some of her flowers. Those fancy (and expensive) iPhones sure do take nice pictures.

********

A couple years back or so, I encountered Shermann Thomas, a.k.a. “Dilla”, a.k.a. the Chicago TikTok Historian, online somewhere. Probably Twitter. A ComEd employee by day, he makes short videos about Chicago history at night for TikTok and he’s become something of an internet sensation. He has also managed to parlay his online success into a real life tour business called Chicago Mahogany Tours which schleps folks around various south side neighborhoods as Dilla gives some history lessons.

Having listened to the Bronzeville audio drama recently and wanting to take one of Dilla’s tours, I combined the two and I registered my mother and I for a tour of Bronzeville.

The tour bus leaves from the DuSable Museum of African American History so we braved the construction on the Kennedy and drove down there. I don’t think I’d ever been to the DuSable before and was delighted to find it nestled inside the lovely Washington Park. With the sun shining and nary a drop of rain to be had for miles, it was the perfect day to be out and learning about one of Chicago's legendary neighborhoods.

I noticed that the museum was a mere hop, skip, and jump away from Stagg Field where Enrico Fermi and his pals generated the first artificial nuclear chain reaction as part of the Manhattan Project. This reminded me that I had tickets to see Oppenheimer on an IMAX screen and on film, no less, in just a week's time or so.

Other people showed up and began to wander around expectantly - these were our fellow tourists. Eventually the bus appeared across the street. At one point, I turned and saw that Dilla was walking over to us to offer greetings. It’s always weird for me seeing someone that I only know from the internet in real life. How do they compare to the image on my screen? Dilla was taller – I suspect he’s about 6’4”.

Soon we boarded the bus and were off.

The tour began with our guide announcing that our first destination was just outside of Bronzeville. President Biden had recently announced that he was designating a new national monument for Emmett Till and his mother Mamie Till-Mobley and so we drove by their home on S. St. Lawrence Avenue.

Dilla gave some background on Till’s horrible fate and how his mother’s decision to allow his battered and broken body to be seen publicly helped light a fire under the civil rights movement. It was quite moving to be sitting before their home. The building was in the process of being restored as it appeared that there were some masons working on one of the exterior walls.

From there on out, things came at us fast and furious. It seemed like there was a building of historic significance, a mural, etc. everywhere you turned and Dilla enthusiastically told us about them all. Or nearly all.

Although we saw many sites of interest, we usually ended up pulling over on the "wrong" side of the street, i.e. - so that they were not directly outside of our window. D’oh!

Most of the tour showcased Bronzeville’s intriguing history but it also served to put Chicago’s south side on display and demonstrate that, although it has its problems, it is an area of great culture and resilience, not a war zone.

For example, we stopped at Boxville which appears to be the Maxwell Street Market nouveau.

It’s a lot filled with shipping containers that act as makeshift storefronts for aspiring black entrepreneurs who hawk their wares and tempt shoppers with food.

At one point we were driving along and Dilla was talking about jazz making its way to Chicago from New Orleans and he is dropping names the whole time. As if on cue, we stopped in front of this place:

It turned out that Louis Armstrong lived in that middle residence. There’s a trumpet and a French horn in the window. How cool is that, to be at Satchmo’s place?

I first encountered The Green Book about 5 years ago via a very interesting BBC radio documentary. The Green Book was a directory for “Negro motorists and tourists” that was published the last 30 years or so of Jim Crow. It listed hotels, restaurants, etc. that were friendly to black travelers. Our bus stopped in front of 712 E. 44th Street and Dilla told us that the house was listed in The Green Book. Neat! I had never been at a site listed in it in real life before – knowingly, anyway.

And here it is in the 1948 version:

One figure that casts a long shadow over Chicago history, United States history, really, is Ida B. Wells. We got a chance to get off the bus and stretch our feet at a green space at S. Langley Avenue and E. 37th Place where we found a monument dedicated to Wells called "The Light of Truth".

Wells was one bad ass lady. Born into slavery, she would go on to become a journalist who documented the horrors of lynching, an early civil rights leader, a founding member of the NAACP, a black feminist, and more. Quite a woman. We drove by her house on S. Martin Luther King Drive but that photo was out of focus. But you can recognize it by its red turret.

As the tour wound down, we drove by a library and Dilla casually pointed out that Richard Wright wrote Native Son there. Shortly after that at a stop light, he noted a mural of Lorraine Hansberry, who wrote A Raisin in the Sun, on the side of a building on the corner.

Down at street level were scenes from the play.

Hansberry attended my alma mater, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in the late 1940s. While a student, she became involved with the local chapter of the Communist Party. Also involved with this chapter were my Frau’s grandparents and I believe they hosted Ms. Hansberry at their home occasionally. Often enough, anyway, for her to allow my Frau’s grandmother to do a portrait which is now in our home.

Dilla’s catchphrase is “Everything dope about America comes from Chicago” and, after going on one of his tours, you realize he’s got a good argument for the affirmative. There was just so much really interesting history there in Bronzeville that it was almost overwhelming.

Dilla barely had enough time to rattle off, “You see that parking ramp? That used to the site of the Regal Theater. Back in 1968, a Motown talent scout came down to see a show there and saw a band of 5 brothers from Gary, Indiana…” before he announced we were in the blues district. This was where such famous joints as the Checkerboard Lounge hosted the giants of the genre back in the day. Legendary venues I’ve heard of from tales of blues lore used to dot the streets. Blues luminaries such as Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Buddy Guy graced their stages. Koko Taylor surely belted out "Wang Dang Doodle" many a time behind some of those walls.

The tour had all sorts of moments like this. Dilla is a witty and charming guide and he made things fun and informative despite the fact that taking it all in was a bit like drinking from a firehose.

Another thing that caught my eye was all of the great architecture. The Loop may get the press, but Bronzeville is home to some really gorgeous buildings. I know that Chicago photographer and architectural critic Lee Bey has tried to bring the great south side building styles to the masses via his book Southern Exposure: The Overlooked Architecture of Chicago’s South Side but it was another thing to see some of it first-hand.

In addition to enlightening us about Bronzeville and Chicago history and demonstrating that the city’s south side is not adequately and quite unfairly summed up as “Chi-raq”, Dilla also pointed out restaurants along the way and I really want to check out Honey 1 BBQ on E. 43rd someday.

********

Bonus photos. What a difference a few months make.

"Cool at the Union"

A classic slice of UW-Madison campus life in the mid-1970s.

"And I'm carryin' around Spinoza, and other heavy shit"

The Corona Diaries Vol. 99 - Prelude: Chi-raq

The Corona Diaries Vol. 98: Driftless Escape

(mid-July 2023)

(Listen to the prelude.)

We have a neighbor with a cherry tree in her front yard. She looks to have a bumper crop this year. 

I wouldn’t have thought so considering how dry it has been. Whatever the case, those fruits look mighty fine. 

Soon a couple guys with a pickup and some scaffolding will be over to spend the day picking cherries. I have never asked what they do with all of them. Sell them fresh? Make enough jam to feed an army?

********

This year we’ve had mallards aplenty in our backyard. Maybe it’s the same pair, who knows. Perhaps ducks have frequented our place in years past and I simply cannot recall them doing so. I guess I am getting old.

Anyway, I’ve seen a pair or pairs of mallards wandering the grass several times this summer. The usual way of things is that the hen grabs a snack underneath our bird feeder as the drake looks on. My theory is that the house sparrows eat just the sunflower seeds and so they spill the rest on the ground. [Insert Onan joke here.] I suspect that our feeder is much mellower than ones at a house a few blocks down on Starkweather Drive - across the street from the identically named creek. The feeders in that yard are mobbed by mallards all summer long. One time I was biking past them when the ducks decided to head back to the creek. It was like a scene from The Birds! Wave after wave of ducks flew in front of me, behind me, just above my head - so I was huddling down, swerving to avoid them, and pedaling for my life.

Anyway, when lunch is over for our waterfowl friends, they relax out in the grass before moving on, presumably to the lake or Starkweather Creek.

********

A couple weeks ago I pulled up a map of Dane County parks and decided that Morton Forest sounded like a fine place to go for a hike. It is west of Madison in an area that I had never wandered previously. I’ve been to the nearby towns before but never out into the lush wooded countryside. Being in the western part of the county, Morton Forest is in the Driftless Area. No ice during the last ice age means picturesque hills and ridges as far as the eye can see.

The park was formerly a farm that was purchased in the early 1950s by a UW professor named Walter Morton and his wife, Rosalie. The property eventually passed to their son, Stephen, who would go on to donate it to Dane County saying, “I donated my land to Dane County Parks because I felt, given our expanding population, it was important to protect open space and create quiet places of solitude for people to visit as an escape from their more crowded urban environment.”

Amen.

The site opened to the public rather recently – in 2016.

There is a small parking lot across the road from a cabin which is the interpretive center. The cabin and the trailheads are nestled in the trees at, I would learn, the base of a limestone bluff.

What a lovely, bucolic scene! Just gorgeous. And I was alone too. There was a fellow sitting in his car in the parking lot but he was gazing intently at his phone rather than the beautiful scenery. He was staring at the screen when I parked and went into the restroom. (There's a covered pit toilet at the lot.) And he was staring at it when I came out.

The old windmill still stands, though it’s surrounded by trees these days.

None of the trails are particularly long – I think there’s only about 2 miles in total - so I resolved to walk them all. There are 3 scenic overlooks on the property and I randomly picked one to check out and hit the trail.

Not far from the trailhead I was presented with this lovely scene. It was still fairly early so the temperature was still moderate but the sun was out to cast a glow on everything and provide good light for my photographs. The air smelled great too. That verdant, planty smell. I love walking through the woods, being surrounded by trees.

The trails may have been fairly short, but they were wonderful. They snaked through woods and took you around fields, up hills, down hills, to the edge of bluffs, and so on. A really nice variety of terrain.

After a while and an uphill climb that left me a bit winded, I reached the top of a bluff and was at my first scenic overlook. A bench was provided.

Here’s the view:

I took a seat, caught my breath, and just spent some time taking in the scene. Then it was down the hill to find my way back to the cabin where I would catch another trail that would take me to the next overlook.

On the way back, there was a stretch where the smell changed dramatically. There was a creek off in the woods to my left with the road off to my right beyond some dense trees and brush.

The air went from that green smell to something slightly sweet that reminded me of Honeycomb breakfast cereal. Very strange.

I got to the other trailhead and began to ascend the bluff behind the cabin. The path took me through a small stand of pine trees so the air’s scent changed again to that wonderful sharp, evergreen smell. I love me some terpenes.

Eventually I reached the top and the next overlook.

This one was closer to the edge of the bluff than the first.

A path led away from the safety of the bench. If you’re not good with heights like me, then any distance above the ground that exceeds your height is just too damn high. Now, I went out close to the edge and looked around and even down but I was scared the whole time. I grant you, you’re not that far up here, I mean, we're not talking the Grand Canyon, but still…

I took a seat and soon found myself being accosted by a bird. Apparently I was intruding on someone’s territory. It would scream at me and then take off from a tree, fly menacingly at me, and then turn away at just the last second to land on another tree. Repeat. I discovered what looked to be an early bird as it had what appears to have been a worm in its mouth.

Get it? Early bird? Worm?

Anyway, it was a robin.

I figured that I had pissed off my avian friend enough so I returned to the trail and headed for the final overlook.

As I walking at one point, I heard a strange noise that sounded like it emanated from a large and very dangerous bird. It seemed to come from way high up in the canopy and was like a buzzsaw. The strange, almost mechanical, birdcall gave my larynx the creeps. If any human who was not a trained throat singer from Mongolia were to attempt to make that sound, permanent damage would no doubt result.

So, there I am walking along the trail looking upwards trying to find the source of this weird sound when I come to a small clearing in the woods. Suddenly I catch some movement out of the corner of my eye. I turn and see a deer and its white tail bounding away from me as fast as it can. Drats! If I’d only been looking in front of me instead of up, I might have been able to get a nice photo of it. Oh well.

I reached the final overlook.

The first trail I had walked was beneath me and I heard some voices coming from below. They were the first sign of anyone else since that guy glued to his phone in the parking lot.

After some more quiet contemplation, I headed back to the cabin.

It was mid-morning? Late morning? Whenever, it had gotten noticeably hotter out. I had coffee for the drive over but now needed something else to rehydrate. It was off to Black Earth for some refreshment.

Honestly, I fell in love with Morton Forest right after stepping out of my car. The area by the cabin with the trailheads is just so wonderful. I love how it sits at the bottom of a bluff and is tucked in by the woods, more or less, on all sides. The trails had a snug feel to them as there were usually trees right at the edge with their branches above providing shade. Simply gorgeous and it is now my new favorite park in the lower half of Wisconsin.

******** 

Bonus photo. Piper is a shy cat and hates going to the vet. Well, she had an appointment recently and, as she always does, she attempted to hide behind the laptop. It was not an adequate hiding spot, much to her chagrin. Poor Piper.

Bloody Vikings!: Rune Amok by Valkyrie Brewing

One of the newer additions to the Valkyrie Brewing line-up is Rune Amok, an ESB or Extra Special Bitter. The label shows a quartet of Viking ships sailing off as a Lindisfarne-like church/monastery burns in the distance. The painting by co-proprietor Ann Lee hangs on the wall at the brewery's tap room. I believe Rune Amok was introduced last year but cannot recall if it was available on my previous stop at Valkyrie or not. If it was, I did not sample it. That waited until this autumn.

Just as a doppelbock is an extra potent bock and a stout is a heartier porter, an ESB is a bigger bitter. At least I think that's how it works. The intricacies of English beer styles continue to elude me and I think only a trip to Old Blighty will do to educate me sufficiently on this matter. My shorthand is that milds are dark in color and light on the hops while bitters have a lighter hue and more hoppiness as well. Both go easy on the fizz.

As I noted in my review of Valkyrie's dry stout, Velvet Green, my trip there earlier this autumn was made knowing the brewery was for sale. I made a mix six-pack to go and it was bittersweet walking out the door. Recent news that Valkyrie closes in January makes my memories even bittersweeter.

I'd been thinking that I'd write some words about the brewery in general now that its demise is immanent but I realized that I probably have one more brew review to go for them. Perhaps in that post I'll wax rhapsodic.

Rune Amok came in a chestnut hue and was topped off by a small, just off-white head that didn't last. It was hazy and I was unable to see inside the glass, not that I expected to see a whole lot of bubbles anyway. It smelled of leather along with a hint of caramel as well as a touch of vague, indeterminate fruitiness that was a bit date or fig-like.

As expected, the beer went easy on the fizziness and had a lovely, smooth medium-light body. Leather and tobacco are commonly used to describe such English beers and that's because they're apt. Here the pair were at the fore with a touch of caramel in back. A little herbal hoppiness joined in and that fruitiness from the aroma was present here, but faintly. The leather and fruity tastes lingered a bit on the swallow before a light dose of herbal hops threw some dryness into the mix.

While I cannot say just how true to style Rune Amok is or how it would fare in a genuine English pub next to a Fuller's, I can say that I really loved this beer. The caramel taste was moderate and didn't make the beer sweet in any way. That leather flavor ruled the roost. I found the hops to be on the easy side and would have been happy with more. Not a lot, but some. Regardless, I simply found Rune Amok to be tasty. It went down easy and I just adore the flavors of the malt(s). German and American style just don't produce them.

Just food pairing: The ESB may be an English style of beer but Rune Amok pairs well with the flavor concocted by the crown's subjects over in Canada - all dressed. So get a bag of all dressed potato chips and let loose.

Scenes from autumn 2023

I did not take a lot of photos of the fall colors but here are the few I did.

One Three and a Half Hour's Ride Up to the North: Velvet Green by Valkyrie Brewing Co.

(Thanks to the Shitty Artwork blog for the great album cover.)

A recent venture (...September. Recentish.) up north included a stop at Valkyrie Brewing. I had stopped in after a very nice hike and that first Whispering Embers tasted oh so good as it gently put my aching muscles at ease. As I perused Ann Lee's artwork and gazed out the windows at the quiet streets of Dallas, I knew that the brewery was up for sale and that it was quite possible - even likely - that this would be the last time I'd step foot in the place.

I thought about how I would miss going there in the autumn after a long hike and enjoying fresh Rauchbier to relax my bones. It's become a tradition, albeit a recent one, and I shall miss it if no one steps up to keep the Valkyrie legacy alive.

During my visit last year (or was it the year before?), I asked Ann, who was behind the bar, if she and/or her husband, Randy the Brewmaster, were Jethro Tull fans as they had at least a couple of beers that seemed to be named after Tull songs. First there was Crimson Wonder, a Scotch ale, whose name seemed to have been lifted from "Cup of Wonder" from the Songs From the Wood album. And Whispering Embers, their smoked Oktoberfest, sounds not unlike a lyric from "Fires At Midnight" on that album. Also on Songs From the Wood there is a tune called "Velvet Green", a dry stout and the subject of this blog post.

I don't know what the specs are for a dry stout, a.k.a. - an Irish stout. Some extra hops, I suppose. I wonder if the Irish consider their stouts to be particularly dry.

As expected, Velvet Green was a very dark brown that looked black in the glass. I couldn't see inside and light didn't stand a chance trying to penetrate the stouty gloom. My pour produced a small tan head that, sadly, went away rather quickly. I guess I have become used to stouts on nitro that have big heads and vortices of tiny bubbles inside and don't recall if the non-nitro type is supposed to be this mellow. My nose caught mostly coffee and malty sweetness along with a little dark chocolate and a touch of grassy hops.

That small head equated to moderate fizziness. The body was medium-light and leaned towards the light side. Despite not being nitroed, it still had a lovely smooth taste that was dominated by coffee and roasty malt. Unlike American porters, though, the malt flavors were a bit restrained. The advertised dryness came on the finish when those herbal hops pushed some lingering dark chocolate notes aside and shone through.

Valkyrie says Velvet Green is 4.6% A.B.V. and I think this is just slightly higher than Guinness, the Platonic ideal of an Irish stout. I have to wonder when the stout became so un-stout. That is, I have always been under the impression that stouts are porters brewed to be bigger and stronger. You know, stouter. Maybe porters were historically somewhere around 3.5% which would make a 4-4.5%+ version stouter. I just thought that a stout stout would be 5%+ at least.

I thoroughly enjoyed Velvet Green. It had the requisite toasty-roasty malt flavors with coffee and dark chocolate and the dry finish was just tasty. The light body and the overall easy-going taste means that they'd go down perhaps too quickly on St. Patrick's Day.

Junk food pairing: Pair your Velvet Green (while you can!) with a bag of Keogh's Crinkle Cut Flame Grilled Irish Steak potato chips.

The Corona Diaries Vol. 98 - Prelude: Beloved Summer

The Art of Drinking: Blue Plume by Working Draft Beer Co.

  

As I was contemplating writing this review, I had something of a revelation. It occurred to me that I had lost my interest in craft beer. I don't think of it as having been a sudden change but rather the result of the accumulated disappointment of many frustrating trips down the liquor store aisles. A man does not recover from such shopping trips -- he becomes a different drinker and, eventually, the new drinker finds new things to care about. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy drinking beer and I continue to support people I know in the business, but I don't keep up with new breweries that come along and only look for new releases occasionally and only from select brewers.

It's a bit sad for me as I'd been trying to keep up with the Madison and Wisconsin beer scenes for a long time. At least since 2007. Some locals may recall madison.com's attempts to capitalize on the blogging craze by publishing highlights from the Madison blogosphere in a weekly paper called POST. Here's a beer release round-up from yours truly that dates to the spring of 2007.

I love how the editor noted that my post was "edited considerably" in an attempt to deal with my prolix prose.

Perusing store shelves means wading through hundreds of American IPA's (and other beers) that taste like Hawaiian Punch and oodles of imperial stouts that have lived in multiple types of spirit barrels that I couldn't care less about. Well, if it's gonna be that kind of party, I'm gonna stick my dick in the mashed potatoes.

There's a coterie of breweries and brewpubs that I follow and look for in stores. When I go out of town, I drink the local brew, if possible, as long as it's not an IPA. And I can always get my Rauchbier fix with some Schlenkerla.

My next project is to pare down my beer bottle/can collection. So, if anyone wants some Wisconsin packaged beer vessels, let me know.

Despite dropping out of the craft beer world, I still read about it occasionally in Isthmus which carries Robin Shepard's beer column. In a recent one, he noted that Madison's Working Draft Beer had a smoked wild rice beer called Blue Plume available. I like smoke beers; I like wild rice beers. Ergo I just had to try it.

Blue Plume poured a crystal clear yellow. My glass got a big, white head that had staying power. Lots of bubbles were seen inside. This was a very pretty beer and not at all surprising since Working Draft brewmaster Clint Lohman is a master at brewing beers that look great and tempt you to pour some in your maw based on appearance alone. The aroma was similarly enticing with a generic berry-like fruitiness leading a sudsy ménage à trois along with a wisp of smokiness and some fresh grassy hops.

Taking a sip I found the brew to have a light-medium body. That is, it was fuller than any of the many pilsners that Lohman brews but not by much. Tasting behind the very fizzy curtain I found a prominent blueberry flavor - the "blue" in Blue Plume - from the wild rice joined by a nutty taste from those same seeds, a gentle maltiness, a hint of smoke, and a firm dose of hops that lent a brisk herbal bitterness. The wild rice flavors eased off on the swallow allowing those hops to step up. They, along with the generous fizz made for a rather dry and bitter finish to sweep away those wild rice blues.

As a smoke beer lover, I must say that Blue Plume needs a larger plume. The smoke here is like the wallflower at the dance. It looks on from the side as the wild rice flavors dance the night away. Still, I'll take a little smoke over no smoke. I'm of two minds on the grains. On the one hand, I really do like the wild rice flavors here, especially the nuttiness. But on the other, I miss the malt. A light lager seems to be the base for the wild rice and didn't contribute that much to the flavor. One thing I love unequivocally here is the hoppiness. The strong green-herbal taste and bitterness provide a great counterpoint to the fruity-nutty thing that the wild rice has going on.

All the ingredients are here; I would probably put the emphasis elsewhere, if I were brewing it. But I am not. Regardless, a tasty brew that I hope to drink again.

Junk food pairing: Pair your Blue Plume with a bag of Chili Cheese Fritos.