New Son Volt

Son Volt has a new tune out called "Kaleidosphere". Since I am not a member of their Electro Melodier Society (not yet, anyway), I am not able to hear the whole 9 yards. Sounds like their recent stuff and quite good to boot. The video seems to feature scenes from St. Louis, the band's home. The Arch, anyway.

 

Oklahoma O.K.: Spicy Pickle Monster by Prairie Artisan Ales

Until just about 15 minutes ago I thought that Prairie Artisan Ales was out of St. Louis. There I was, typing away and thinking about how it was a place we didn't visit  on our St. Louis trip back in 2017. I discovered that, in fact, it's an Oklahoma brewery and that I had cornfused them with Perennial Artisan Ales which is, in fact, in The Gateway City. Do any other Sooner State breweries distribute here in Wisconsin

I hope that I can be forgiven because Oklahoma is one of the more nondescript states in the Union. At least it is from my vantage sitting here in the Upper Midwest. When I think of Oklahoma, beer does not come to mind. It's almost as if beer actively avoids associating itself with the Sooner State. Instead, I know it for the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical that bears its name and the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in 1995. Fairly or not, I believe that Texas has a lock on the popular imagination when it comes to the likes of cowboys, oil, and steak. Sure, parts of Oklahoma belong to the Great Plains but, really, that's Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas. It exists in this liminal state between the Plains and Texas. Like I said, nondescript.

During my exhaustive interweb searches about Prairie Artisan Ales' home, I discovered that Sooners love their fried onion burgers. From what I can tell, the Oklahoma fried onion burger is no mere hamburger with fried onions on top but rather its unique terroir comes from frying up a bed of onions and then flattening a ball of ground beef on top of it so that the marriage of the caramelized onion essence and the beefy goodness is consummated with all due haste. And that's a good thing, if you ask me. However, I was not able to find out which onion one should use. Yellow? White? Red? Vidalia?

Now, you may recall my previous pickle beer review in which I postulated that some craft brewer somewhere would move beyond the brine/sour/spicy paradigm which prevails in the pickle beer world today. Well, Perennial Prairie Artisan Ales has done just that with their Spicy Pickle Monster.

I do not see the words "natural flavors" anywhere on the label. Instead it's a "sour ale with spicy dill pickles..." - familiar territory so far - "...orange, lemon, and lime". Citrus! They've added citrus! Not totally out of left field, I suppose, with lime cucumber being a not unheard of combination. (Beware lime cucumber Gatorade!) Let's try out this novel take on the venerable(?!) pickle beer.

Cerveza de los muertos!

However it may have tasted, I was impressed with how Spicy Pickle Monster looked. A big white head snapped and popped as it churned its way down to the bright yellow liquid that had just a tinge of haze. A fair number of bubbles were rushing up to meet the foam. Taking a sniff, I found that dill came first followed by something sweet that I finally decided was akin to orange juice. Then I noticed a briney salinity which paired well with the lime I also smelled. To top things off, there was a bit of the floral in there too. Except for the floral element, all the scents were rather pungent which made for some fine sniffin'.

Unsurprisingly, I tasted a beer with a light body. Fizziness was a little on the light side. A very healthy Gose level of salinity and a big dash of tartness stood out immediately. As I savored my sips, I tasted a wealth of flavors: some dill, a citrus medley that would make 7UP green with envy, and a modicum of grainy sweetness. Cutting through it all was a low-level dose of spicy heat from habanero, it seems, that gradually gained in strength with each sip.

That spiciness and all those citrus flavors prevailed on the finish. A little tartness came through, but not much and the dill popped up too, if only briefly. I will note also that, while the heat built with successive sips, it eventually plateaued at a decidedly non-lethal point.

The big surprise here for me was that the dill (i.e. - pickle flavor) seemed happy out of the spotlight and content to be part of the gustatory ensemble. I would like to have had a tad more of the dill flavor but, when Spicy Pickle Monster breaches the 50 degree mark, you can taste all of the flavors mingling with one another with no one taste overpowering the rest. A bit like a good album mix where each instrument and voice is up in the mix but they all have room to breathe and be heard. Same here. The flavors are all discernible and more or less stand on equal footing yet they blend together for a greater whole.

A fine take on the pickle beer that deftly orchestrates a symphony of flavors. No doubt it would be a good companion to an Oklahoma fried onion burger.

Junk food pairing: If you really want to go for excess, then grab a bag of Old Dutch Spicy Dill Pickle Chips. Personally, I prefer leaning into the fried onion burger motif and instead have plenty of Old Dutch Onion & Garlic chips on hand when I savor a Spicy Pickle Monster.

The Corona Diaries Vol. 115: I need a new kringle pusher

(Listen to the sound track.)

(late October 2023)

With my adventures up north done for the year, I settled in to enjoy the autumn close to home. The two maple trees down the street regaled me with their gorgeous colors on my walks to and from the bus stop.

Speaking of bus stops, reconstruction of an arterial street near us was finally finished and, in addition to a fancy, new bike path and pleasantly smooth pavement, I got a new bus shelter.

I feel like an aristocrat when I’m inside it on dark, rainy mornings, which are becoming increasingly common, as it has a light. An amenity! A minor one, I grant you, but it’s just weird to me after having spent years and years of chilly, wet autumn dawns waiting for the bus in dark, spartan shelters.

This new public transit Xanadu was situated slightly farther away from the corner than the old one and, as Fate (or a devious streets planner with a wicked sense of humor) would have it, right next to a walnut tree. There was a recent dry morning when I was standing there and one of the fruits fell, coming within an inch of my head. Lesson learned, though I suppose it would have been a good excuse to call in sick had I taken a walnut on the noggin.

"Sorry, Boss, but I cannot work today as a walnut fell on my head and I think I have a concussion."

No doubt my boss would have suffered damage to her eyes from rolling them so much.

Walking out from our driveway one day, I noticed this suggestive mushroom sprouting from the mulch on the north side of our house.

Of course my inner 12 year-old giggled maniacally. I believe this is commonly known as a stinkhorn mushroom and some mycologist endowed it with the highly appropriate botanical name of phallus impudicus which translates as "shameless phallus".

On a recent bike ride I ran across these skeleton flamingos.

Despite being well out of flamingo habitat range, Madison has a thing for them. Well, the yard decorations, anyway. Back in September 1979, some UW students decided to pull a prank and put 1,000+ plastic pink flamingos on Bascom Hill.

The incident became a part of local lore and the plastic pink flamingo became an icon, of sorts, of Madison. And so you occasionally see a yard full of them, there’s a flamingo mural on the side of laundromat in the Tenney-Lapham neighborhood, and the bird features in the annual holiday lights display at Olin Park, amongst other appearances.

********

In my spare time, I prepped for Gamehole Con, Madison’s premiere gaming convention as I was to run a few sessions of the Call of Cthulhu role playing game.

One scenario takes place in the 1950’s and begins with the players driving down a county road in a torrential downpour. They seek shelter at an isolated rural diner/gas station and take comfort in its endless supply of cheap coffee but, unbeknownst to them, there’s a nasty alien entity lurking in the woods. Although just a ball of light, it is a mindless, unfeeling devourer of the vital energies that animate living beings. There are some locals at the diner, some of whom are harboring dark secrets.

I tried to make a spooky atmosphere with people sometimes catching a light zipping through the trees from the corners of their eyes. The players eventually run into this refulgent killing machine and hilarity ensues.

The other scenario took place in the small town of Blackwater Creek, MA in 1926. A recent archeological dig had uncovered the resting place of a small fragment of the evil god Shub-Niggurath. This hideous remnant of malevolence infects one of the townsfolk who retreats to a nearby cave. She transmogrifies into a horrific creature from whose body flows enough Shub-Niggurath amniotic fluid to fill a creek. Hilarity ensues.

A couple years ago I started my own tradition of serving kringle to my players. The kringle is a Danish pastry shaped in a ring of sweet-filled dough. Early one morning I walked over to Lane’s Bakery to pick up my order. This involved traversing the lesser used parts of the convention center grounds until you get to an ill-lit gravel street. From there things get brighter but it’s a bit of a spooky walk in the antelucan hours.

It was clear and chilly out but at least this afforded me a good glimpse of Orion. You know it's autumn when you see the hunter in the southern sky.

I bought a highly seasonal pumpkin kringle, no frosting. While I love sweets, I find that, as I've gotten older, I want to taste the dough more, I want my tongue to revel in the delicious results of those Maillard reactions instead of being subjected to a mindless blast of sugar. Frosting only serves to obscure the grainy goodness.

The kringle was wonderful but the trip to Lane’s was bittersweet as the bakery was to close in December after 69 years. It was genuinely sad to hear the news of the impending loss of a Madison institution and this now leaves me without a source of fresh kringle within walking distance of the convention center. The only place I can think of in the area that makes the ringed goodness is a bakery in Stoughton, about 10-12 miles south of Madison.

It's easy enough to find kringle in grocery stores as the Racine Danish Kringles brand is ubiquitous. However, I taste margarine or imitation butter flavoring in their dough. Perhaps I ought to check out some grocery stores I don't usually shop at to see what's on offer. There are surely other brands on supermarket shelves around town.

In addition to running games, I played them as well. A highlight was the Blade Runner role playing game. The movie is an all-time favorite of mine and I was really looking forward to trying it out. I was not disappointed.

I played the role of the chain smoking, grizzled veteran cop. My fellow players and I investigated the “retirement”, a.k.a. – murder, of a replicant, i.e. – a synthetic person. Our sleuthing led us around to various locations in the Los Angeles of the future where we met a slew of suspicious replicants and various human members of the criminal underground.

The game was really well done with nice, high quality supplements.

The dice were funky too with one side having an eye, a recurring motif in the movie, and an origami unicorn, something made by Gaff, one of the cops in the film.

The game had an intriguing storyline, well fleshed out characters, and some genuinely thought-provoking thematic material. Really fun.

In the dealers room someone was selling appropriately themed coffee and I bought a bag of Kraken. Who doesn’t like tentacled sea monsters?

When I wasn't gaming, I was to be found spending time hanging out with friends and BSing. One night someone in my cohort told us that there was a group of well-heeled gamers from (present day) Los Angeles at the con. Apparently they like to game in style as they had brought a butler with them who had catered a particular gaming session with a portable build your own taco bar. A butler at a gaming convention filled with unwashed masses of gamer dorks is as incongruous a pairing as anchovies and ice cream. Plus there was just something intuitively wrong about a group of rich white guys bringing a black butler to the con. The whole idea just had bad 19th century vibes.

When I heard this tale, I realized that I had run into the guy in an elevator. Anyone not clad in a black t-shirt or in costume at a gaming convention sticks out like a priest at a brothel. He must have had a good haberdasher back in L.A. because he was dressed to the nines making me look like a serf in contrast. I had greeted him as I stepped into the elevator and he seemed in good spirits as he flashed a smile. Recalling the encounter, that old TV show Soap popped into my head about that rich white family who employed a wise-cracking black butler.

I hope his employer treats him well and that he was generously compensated as being a non-gamer at a gaming convention is surely like being trapped in one of the circles of Hell.

During another late night BS session, a friend revealed that he was contemplating running the epic Call of Cthulhu scenario Beyond the Mountains of Madness.

It's a sequel to the H.P. Lovecraft novella At the Mountains of Madness which chronicles a 1920s Antarctic expedition that, like everything in Lovecraft's tales, goes horribly wrong. In Beyond, players are sent on another expedition to the icy wastes to try and discover what happened to the first one. No doubt it is a tale of great woe and I fully expect my character to go insane and/or die.

Beyond is a massive scenario that takes days and days to go through but my friend would like to try to condense it into 3-4 long sessions at next year's Gamehole Con. He asked if I and another friend of ours would be anchor players who would commit to all of the lengthy sessions and help out other players as needed to keep the game moving forward.

We did.

And so, if this plan comes to fruition, it will be an epic, chilling adventure next year. Plus it has the added bonus of delaying having to find a bakery near the convention center for a couple years.

I had a blast at Gamehole. Many characters died heinous deaths in the games I ran and the games I played were great fun. Plus I got to hang out with friends deep into a few alcohol-soaked nights where we BSed and those of us who knew my late brother indulged in some warm reminiscing.

********

A week or so after the convention I was off to West Chicago to meetup with a couple friends who were to accompany me to the lovely Arcada Theater in nearby St. Charles to see a concert by Martin Barre.

Barre was the guitarist in the progressive rock band Jethro Tull for 40+ years before being unceremoniously booted by band leader Ian Anderson back in 2011 or thereabouts. Since then he has assembled his own group, recorded 5 albums, and performed many a concert. He is currently on the "A Brief History of Tull" tour.

It was a great show! Despite being in his 70’s, Barre had a lively stage presence. Although I couldn't play a guitar if my life depended on it, I regard him as one of the best guitarists ever to come out of the rock world. He always seems to play the right notes, to play what a song needs instead of demanding to be heard strictly as a virtuoso. As a jack of all trades kind of player, he can do big, heavy riffs like "Aqualung" or judiciously add color to an otherwise acoustic song like "Velvet Green".

We got a good overview of Jethro Tull’s catalog with “My God” being a highlight. It opens quietly with some gentle acoustic guitar adorned by piano. But when those big slashing electric guitar chords came thundering in, well, they sent a chill up my spine. The flute solo in the middle was replaced by some of Palladio, a contemporary classical piece by composer Karl Jenkins and it fit seamlessly.

The band's playing was tight, energetic, and everyone seemed to be having fun and this is what live music is all about.

********

Before heading back to Madison the next day, I bid my friends farewell and went to see Anatomy of a Fall which was playing at the cinema in St. Charles. I hadn’t seen anything to indicate it was going to open back home so I jumped at the chance to see this French film by Justine Triet that had won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival earlier in the year.

Sandra is a novelist who lives with her husband Samuel in a chalet up in the French Alps along with their son Daniel and his dog, Snoop. As the movie opens, a woman has come to their home to interview Sandra. But while they are chatting, Samuel cranks up some music upstairs where he is remodeling the top floor. Sandra and her interlocutor agree to reschedule the interview for a quieter time.

Daniel and Snoop go for a walk and, upon their return, find Samuel's body lying on the snow in front of the house. Daniel screams prompting Sandra to come out of the house where she sees her husband’s body.

Samuel is pronounced dead at the scene and Sandra is accused of having pushed him out of a window. She hires a lawyer who is also a friend and goes about defending herself as she consoles her traumatized son.

One of the great things about this movie is that it sends you down dead ends and leaves you wondering. It’s a murder mystery, but only just. We don’t see things from the point of view of a detective but rather watch as life continues for Sandra and Daniel. As a courtroom drama unfolds, we learn about Samuel and Sandra’s marriage troubles. The movie left me alternately convinced of Sandra’s innocence and thinking that she may have done it through scenes of her in the throes of grief and ones where she is cold, almost emotionless.

And those courtroom scenes were interesting. I don’t know how true they were to the real French judicial system but they mirrored the scenes in Saint Omer, another French film about a woman put on trial for murder, that I saw back in January.

Prosecutors are apparently given free rein to hector the accused and their witnesses are allowed to be openly hostile to them. And here no one stops Sandra when she answers a question only to go off on tangent filled monologues for minutes at a time. French trials seem to be able to change into free form routines.

I was fed revelations about Sandra and Samuel’s marriage in small bites almost throughout, which was addictive, and pushed me towards thinking she was guilty only to have the movie offer me something else to get me going in the other direction. 

The truth about everything here was elusive whether it be how Samuel died or how strong or weak his marriage to Sandra was. I found myself questioning everything. I loved how the movie, largely through Sandra’s lengthy discourses on the stand, talked about the intricate complexities of marriage as well as those of self-assessment. Samuel’s death gives Sandra cause to reassess her relationship to him as well to reflect on her own feelings, thought, and behaviors.

I adored Anatomy of a Fall. I loved the way it weaved an intense look at a failing marriage into a murder mystery that did its best not to give much in the way of definitive answers.

 

********

In preparation for Halloween, my Frau got her costume together. It was of the creepy dead girl in the Japanese horror movie Ring.

Speaking of Halloween, a friend sent me this photo which he swears was taken in Chicago.

********

Bonus photo. This is a statue of Dred and Harriet Scott that I saw on a visit to St. Louis several years back. Their bid for freedom began at the Old Courthouse there in 1846, though I suppose it was quite new back then.

However you say it, this beer is OK by me: O-Katz by Urban Chestnut Brewing

I may be a bit late with this review but, if breweries are going to release their Oktoberfest beers during those days when Sirius follows the sun, then I can review one in the bowels of winter.

And I do mean bowels. Jebus, it's cold out! Considering all the bitching about Madison Metro's new bus network and all of the problems riders are encountering, I am thankful that everything went smoothly yesterday. It was about -10°F in the morning when I trekked out to the bus stop. My C bus was on-time and the driver greeted me with his usual warm demeanor and welcoming bonhomie. I look forward to the temperature being above 0° the next time I am waiting for the bus.

For once I did not go to Chicago (or St. Louis, for that matter) to enjoy some Urban Chestnut beer. Instead a friend of mine got a hold of a cache via a friend of his who had apparently ventured south and I ended up being the beneficiary of this kindly stranger's travels and refined taste in beer. My friend gifted me a 4-pack of UC's O-Katz Oktoberfest just before Jesus' birthday (observed).

O-Katz is short for Oachkatzlschwoaf which means "tail of a squirrel". I do not understand this cultural reference but UC's Bavarian-born brewmaster, Florian Kuplent, does and that's what counts. It wasn't that long ago that I was enjoying some of his Dunkel in more temperate weather. The stuff was quite tasty and I expected no less here with his Oktoberfest.

I will note here that, since I took this slightly out of focus photograph, I have gotten a new phone whose auto focus seems to be a bit better on these close-up snaps. Methinks the auto white balance it still lacking but that's a gripe for another time.

My O-Katz poured a hazy gold. I assumed it was a protein haze or whatever you call it because I have a hard time thinking that a Bavarian brewmaster wouldn't centrifuge or filter an Oktoberfest to perfect burnished aureal clarity. A palpable sense of relief washed over me after seeing the beer's color. I felt bad because I know I shouldn't have; I knew the brewmaster is Deutsch. But I've been exposed to American Oktoberfests for so long that I am just accustomed to them looking and tasting like someone melted a bunch of Werther's candy and added booze.

Of course a Bavarian would take the more "authentic" route and go pale.

My pour had a lovely off-white head that lasted an average amount of time and I spied a fair number of bubbles inside.

I knew I was in for a real treat when I took a whiff and smelled bread and grass. The kids can keep their aromatic melanges of tropical fruits most of them have never eaten or even seen in their lives and I'll take the Brot und Gras. Smelling that heavenly combo sets my Teutonic blood flowing with extra vigor.

My tongue was greeted by the golden elixir like it was a conquering hero as wave after wave of Maillard triumph washed over it. That bready taste was simply marvelous! There was some honeyed sweetness, but just a bit. Spicy hops lurked underneath all of the malty goodness and kept things balanced.

On the swallow, the bready taste gently fades as peppery/grassy hops come in to cleanse the palate with a medium dose of bitterness which led to a satisfyingly dry finish.

As Milhouse Van Houten is wont to say, that's good squishy!

O-Katz is on a very short list of American Oktoberfests that obviate the need to buy Paulaner Wiesn in September. Alas, it is not available here in Wisconsin. Too bad because this beer is just great. Plenty of bready goodness wrapped in a perfect mix of spicy and grassy hops inside a luscious light-medium bodied brew with just the right amount of fizz.

Junk food pairing: For the full Gateway to the West experience, pair your Oachkatzlschwoaf with a bag of Old Vienna (of St. Louis) Southern Style Sweet & Spicy BBQ potato chips.

Civil Ingredients: ESB Styled Ale by Civil Life Brewing

It occurred to me during this Civil Life drinkathon just how many English beer styles have become mainstays of the American brewing scene. The brown ale, IPA, golden ale, porter - OK, maybe the winter warmer hasn't exactly taken American craft brewing by storm but, by and large, these ostensibly English styles are to be found everywhere here across the ocean. And, arguably, American brewers have made these styles their own, for better or for worse. (Definitely worse, in the case of the poor IPA.)

Well, that's cultural appropriation for you.

One English style that brewers here have not really cottoned on to is the ESB or the bitter, more generally. I don't see triple dry hopped with Simcoe, Citra, and Cascade ordinary bitters, special bitters, nor extra special bitters. American brewers show a little reverence, it seems, to tradition and even throw a batch into a cask once in a while.

My experience with American bitters (and milds too, for that matter) has been really hit or miss. Some have been very watery while others taste too much of caramel. Malty flavors that taste of leather and have a nuttiness to them are just not popular here. Similarly, hops with earthy and floral flavors do not get a lot of love from American palates. I guess Americanizing the bitter just doesn't work. It's too much like trying to do a mashup using Beyoncé and some of that atonal Schoenberg.

 

The upside here is that, although comparatively rare, when I do find an ESB, I can usually taste that the brewer at least tried to generate some of those flavors above, they put some effort into getting the brew to taste a bit nutty, a bit earthy instead of simply adding fruit or El Dorado hops to yet another beer and declaring innovation had just happened.

Civil Life calls this brew an "ESB styled ale" and I wasn't sure what to make of that. A simple admission that it wasn't brewed in the UK? Or something else? The other ad copy on the label indicated they tried to adhere to tradition so I dunno what to think.

I think I'm getting better at pouring because all of my Civil Life samples had nice heads. Here, I got big, light tan one. The beer was just lovely, all copper and clear with a bubble here and there. It smelled no less glorious with some coveted leather joined by caramel, apricot, and a hint of herbal hops.

First sip revealed a moderate fizz (should it have been flatter?) heralding the leather and caramel aromas which were joined by a delicate bready flavor. There was a little sweetness, at first, but it gained in strength as the beer warmed, though it never became cloying. I found it to be only very slightly astringent and that mixed well with the minty-herbal taste of the hops.

The malty flavors took on a fruity note on the finish before a bracing dose of those minty hops swept them away for a nice brisk finish. Not mega dry or bitter but enough to clear the palate.

Brilliant!

That leather-bread malt flavor combo is to die for. Or, at least, go to St. Louis for. It also had a very pleasant smoothness which was accented by the sweetness that, as I noted above, never got out of control. All of the great, rich malt flavors contributed to making a medium-light body but this stuff is nimble on the tongue. Extremely flavorful yet not filling.

This is a great beer. How "authentic" is it? Would CAMRA approve? I have no idea. But it has all the ingredients of a fine English brew, to my mind: that leathery-bready, maybe even a touch nutty, taste (Maris Otter malt?), the minty hops - Fuggle? - the relaxed fizz. Simply brilliant.

Junk food pairing: Pair your ESB Styled Ale with a very large bag of cheese and onion crisps.

No roast ox crisps: Another Civil Life trifecta

So here I am once more in the playground of the Civil Life. One more experience, one more entry in a blog, self-penned.

My first trio of Civil Life brews were comprehensively explored here.

I was keen to try their Porter Ale to discover if it was on the American side of things with lots of coffee and bitter chocolate flavors or if it had been brewed in a traditional English style. Truth be known, I'm not sure what a traditional English porter is supposed to taste like but I believe it's more like a brown ale with less flavor from black malts or anything heavily kilned. Yeah, yeah, yeah - I know this is not the OG porter. But I think this gets me in the ballpark of a modern English porter. Maybe.

My can was, er, canned on 7 November so still rather fresh. I managed to pour a lovely tan head of some size that had some staying power so I was able to get a mediocre photograph. At first blush, it looked coal black but, upon further review, I found that it was a deep mahogany and quite clear. The dark appearance made me think this was an American take on the style. I smelled plum, dark chocolate, and a hint of grass.

This stuff had a tempting smoothness to it that held back a mellow fizz. Dark chocolate, coffee, and some malt sweetness were the tastes I culled from its light-medium body. Definitely American. The malt flavors faded on the finish and were replaced by a firm dose of hoppy bitterness that had a eucalyptus thing going on, i.e. - minty but not sharp with something of a medicinal aspect to it. Fairly dry too.

This Porter Ale was good. I really enjoyed the smoothness and those coffee/dark chocolate flavors. Also, it was rather light-bodied so it went down easy. It's just that I wished those hops had a greener, more sprightly taste to them. They had a mushy, almost vegetal thing going on.

Perhaps they make an English porter too.

Why yes, I was unable to get a photograph of this beer that was in focus.

I tried Civil Life's American Brown Ale last time and was curious if this was the same brew but with oats or something entirely different. Not that my palate could really tell, mind you.

The kicker about my poor photography skills is that this beer's big, tan head looked great and had staying power giving me ample time to take a decent shot yet I was never able to wrangle adequate focus pulling out of my camera app. Like the previous brown ale, this stuff had a gorgeous deep amber hue accented by stunning clarity allowing me to see some bubbles inside.

While it looked the same as the American brown, it smelled quite differently, more conventional. Some caramel, milk chocolate along with a hint of stone fruit, and a touch of grass. A decent fizz couldn't keep all that luscious oaty smoothness down. Milk chocolate, a general roasty flavor, and a little caramel were kept in check by a good dose of herbal hoppiness. I was happy that it never got too sweet. Nice malt flavors but the body was lightish.

Sweetness and malt tastes faded at the end allowing the hops to come to the fore with a generous amount of bitterness that made it fairly dry.

Definitely not an adulterated American Brown Ale. With the smoothness and prominent milk chocolate taste, it felt rather indulgent drinking this stuff. The hops made for a nice counterpoint but that chocolate flavor was a bit too strong for me. A good beer but only one, please.

I held off on drinking this Burton on Holt Ale as the label described it as the brewery's "ode to the English winter warmer". "Warmer" is an apt description of the late fall weather we'd been having so I waited until an actual day that was below freezing to try this stuff.

The tempting amber liquid was topped off by more lovely tan foam. The head lasted what I think of as an average length of time allowing me to get a photograph that was more in focus that that of the oatmeal brown but still not sharp. My nose received waves of caramel and bread larded with some grassy-herbal hops. There was also a scent that I can best describe as like that of Lucky Charms - sweetish and grainy.

As expected, the body was heavier than the other brew's I'd sampled. Medium leaning towards heavy. Fizziness was restrained allowing a full dose of caramel taste along with bread. While sweet, it wasn't cloying and I suppose those peppery hops were doing something behind the scenes to make sure it didn't veer towards the treacly. A hint of leather came through on the finish but it was short-lived as a peppery wave of hop essence washed the malty flavors away. Fairly bitter and dry in the end.

As with the previous two brews, this Burton on Holt Ale was good. Not super sweet with a really nice rounded malt taste. It seemed potent but not deadly. In fact, it went down rather easily, as if the beer was distracting my tongue as warming alcohol went down with me barely noticing until the glass was mostly empty. Well played, Civil Life.

All of the beers in this trifecta were good. I was slightly disappointed that the Porter Ale was an American style beer considering the English-looking gent on the label is donning a bowler hat. But what can you do? Nothing stood out here like the American Brown Ale did in my first round of tasting.

One more Civil Life brew to go.

Civility in Threes: A trio of ales by Civil Life Brewing

In a previous post, I noted that, even if I could not go to St. Louis, I at least could enjoy a Dunkel from that fair town.

However, a friend of mine could go to St. Louis and, indeed he did recently. In addition to eating at Pappy's Smokehouse to his stomach's content, he made a stop at Civil Life Brewing. They don't distribute here nor to Chicagoland so their beer is something of a treat since it can only be obtained after a 5 hour drive south-southwest and I hadn't done that in several years.

 

Shortly after my friend's return to this side of the Cheddar Curtain, I was gifted with about half of a sampler case. My refrigerator was full of porter and brown ale and more porter and ESB and so on. Civil Life tends to brew English-style beers and some American interpretations of them. I had not delved deeply into their offerings until I received my gift.

The first brew I sampled was the IPA. My reasoning was two-fold: 1) if it wasn't an English IPA then I would get it done and out of the way as American ones, generally speaking, are not my cup of tea and 2) it had been a while since I'd had an English IPA and, since I liked the one I'd tasted, it'd be hoopy to have another.

 

I was quite surprised when I poured some and found that it wasn't just hazy, it was turbid. Was this really a hazy-juicy IPA? From Civil Life?

"Well, they've gotta keep the lights on somehow," I reasoned.

The mega-haze dulled what I think would have been a very pretty gold beer. On the plus side, the head was this big dollop of just off-white foam that lingered. I took solace in the fact that I didn't smell Hawaiian Punch as I inspected the glass. Taking a big whiff, my nose was greeted by pine, something like mango, and a malty sweetness. The mango wasn't unpleasant and it was in the background behind the pine.

My first sip found a medium-light body that leaned towards the former. Instead of being a hazy IPA, it was more like a West Coast one with the pine and some grapefruit being the prominent flavors. I appreciated that the malt was a bit restrained and didn't have that syrupy sweetness in the background trying to be the hops' foil.

I was pleasantly reminded of Sierra Nevada's Pale Ale with this one.

Next I tried Civil Life's American Brown Ale.

A lovely deep amber with a big, light tan head. Looked scrumptious. It had an aroma that I've smelled in beer before but I don't know what it is and can best describe it as musty plum, but in a good way. Also, a little spicy hoppiness and some leather.

Every beer I've been drinking lately seems to have a medium-light body and this one did too. Some milk chocolate was joined by coffee flavors and caramel too, though the beer wasn't particularly sweet.

If I recall correctly, this is Civil Life's best-seller. No wonder as it's very, very tasty. If their IPA brought back memories from the mid-90s of drinking Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, this did the same only for Pete's Wicked Ale. Does this stuff taste like that pioneering beer? I don't recall. But it is decidedly retro to have a brown ale as your best selling brew.

I enjoyed how easy drinking this was despite having a fuller malt flavor. Astringency was mild, sweetness was kept at bay. It was malty without being cloying and it had just the perfect amount of hops for balance with a pleasing bitterness at the end.

This trio of Civil Life brews will be rounded out with their Goal!den Ale.

The goofy name comes from the fact that this beer was originally brewed for the Amsterdam Tavern in St. Louis, a place where folks like to gather to watch soccer. Er, football.

A very pretty beer with a big white head and light gold color. It was hazy, but only just. Smelled great too with notes of biscuit and honey as well as a faint bit of grass.

This one was light-medium - ha! A slight sweetness along with the taste of biscuit and something else. Just as there was that scent in the brown ale that was familiar yet undefinable, this stuff had a flavor that made me think there was corn in it. (The brewery disabused me of this idea via email.) It had a vague resemblance to Corona. When your beer's malty taste doesn't have a clear baked good analogue such as a biscuit or a cracker or bread and instead has more of a muddy, doughy taste - well, this is it. There was also a hint of lemon and some gentle herbal-peppery hops.

There are times when the lines between a golden/blonde ale and an American light lager are thrown into sharp relief. This is not one of those times. Goal!den Ale is crisp and clean with everything about it light and easy going. OK, I'll cop to it having a fuller malt taste than most American light lagers meaning it's not the same species or even genus, but definitely the same family.

A fine lawnmower+ beer.

It Takes a Village: DorfBier by Urban Chestnut Brewing

Trips to liquor stores in Chicagoland involve not only investigating what the brewers of that region have been up to, but also some of those from St. Louis, namely Schlafly and Urban Chestnut. I suspect there are other breweries' beers from the Gateway to the West at Binny's but the only other brewery whose brews I'd be interested in (that I know of, anyway) come from Civil Life. Alas, they don't seem to distribute to Downers Grove. My autumnal trek to Binny's this year yielded, amongst others, DorfBier, a Bavarian-style Dunkel, from Urban Chestnut. Another member of the Axis of Darkness!

Their brewmaster, Florian Kuplent, hails from Bavaria and keeps the taps flowing with brews that would be right at home at a biergarten in his Heimat. These are in addition to various IPAs and other non-Bavarian styles that no doubt help keep the lights on.

The label for DorfBier - "village beer" - notes that it is the third entry in the brewery's Reverence series which I presume is reserved for Bavarian-style biers brewed using (more or less) Old World methods. And, to the best of my knowledge, Urban Chestnut does brew using decoction so I don't think it's a stretch to assume that this stuff saw some decoction action.

I visited their Midtown outpost several years back on a trip to St. Louis and sampled their Dunkel. It was tasty. But I don't recall having run into it since then and, as my blog entry covering my visit to the taproom says nothing beyond the Dunkel being good, I figure it's time to revisit this brew - even if I cannot revisit St. Louis.

I got a big, light tan head in my glass that lasted. Beneath it the liquid showed off its light amber hue with crystal clarity revealing a modicum of bubbles inside. A toasty-roasty smell reached my nose first and was followed by some caramel and milk chocolate. These scents were topped off with a hint of grassy hops.

A nice fizziness set the stage for a medium-light bodied beer with a lovely bread flavor along with that toasty-roasty thing, caramel, and milk chocolate. Despite using ingredients found in candy bars here, DorfBier had only a mild sweetness. The fizz wasn't Berliner Weisse strength but enough for a gentle astringency. There was a hint of peppery hops loitering in the background. A little milk chocolate sweetness lingered on the front of my tongue on the finish but was soon swept away by a combination of fizzy acidity and a moderate dose of herbal-peppery hops which took my palate down the middle path of dryness and bitterness.

Considering the brewmaster is from Bavaria and apprenticed there, I'd have been shocked if this bier was anything less than extremely reverent and tasty. And it was. It has a nice bread taste to it - decocted? - along with malty flavors from the Dark Side that I just love. Its lightish body and moderate strength - 4.8% A.B.V. - make it an everyday workhorse of a brew. Whether you're at the biergarten, eating a meal, relaxing after work, or in need of refreshment after laboring out in the back 40, DorfBier has got you covered.

Junk food pairing: DorfBier will pair well with many junk foods but I prefer Mrs. Fisher's Dark Potato Chip. Their extra Maillard reactions will complement the dark malt flavors of your DorfBier perfectly.

The Corona Diaries Vol. 97 - Postlude: R.I.P. Chuck Berry

(Don't forget to read entry #97 about my adventures with plums.)

In my last entry, I noted my visit to St. Louis back in 2017. While my friends and I were there, Chuck Berry died.

St. Louis: Final Thoughts

Some final thoughts on my weekend in St. Louis...

On the whole I liked St. Louis. But there was one scene which summed up the city for me. As we were driving west over to The Cellar, I spied a new or newly remodeled apartment building. Lovely red brick dotted with black iron balconies. Next to it was a vacant lot overgrown with weeds and ringed by a fence topped with barbed wire. That juxtaposition really encapsulated the city for me. Signs of life and prosperity sitting uneasily next to abandonment and decay. (It was easy to see where all the melancholy in Jay Farrar's songs comes from.) At its peak in the 1950s St. Louis was home to 850,000 people while the most recent census estimate places that figure at just over 312,000. So vacant lots and boarded up buildings are to be expected.

As a public transit advocate I looked for buses but didn't see many. Before I knew where we were going to be staying I gave the Metro Transit site a perusal in case I had time to wander on my own. Bus service was a lot like Madison's in that headway dropped to 30-40 minutes, generally, outside of rush hour. I did see one of the MetroLink trains over in East St. Louis heading across the river. (Parts of East St. Louis seen from the interstate look almost like war zones with abandoned and burned out buildings.) But we didn't spend much time near the train's route.

The lack of public transit and the near absence of bicyclists and pedestrians that I mentioned in a previous post meant that St. Louis lacked that vital pulse that makes cities what they are. Most folks got in their cars, drove, parked, and went inside, it seemed. A week before going to St. Louis I was in Chicago to see "Hamilton" and the contrast between the downtowns is remarkable.

Comparing St. Louis and Chicago comes with a lot of caveats – size, population, and so on. Still, St. Louis' downtown was indeed eerily quiet. It just didn't seem to have a great density of shops and whatnot to keep drawing people. I mean, if you're a St. Louisan, how many times can you go see the Arch? I don't recall seeing any theatres and the City Museum is west of the CBD. I'll note that we only covered a limited area. However, it appears that most of the touristy attractions in St. Louis are outside of downtown and really rather dispersed around the city.

I've already written two posts about the St. Louis beer scene so I won't say too much here besides that I was mightily impressed. A good variety of new and old. Sour beers, English milds, German lagers, eyepahs heavy on fruity American hops – it was all there. And that $2.50 half pints at Civil Life were a real treat.

The food was great. Plenty of pork. Smoked salmon was rather common which surprised me. Next time I'm down there I must try out the unique culinary treats on offer though I reserve the right to be patently offended by Provel.

I consider St. Louis to be part of the South though everyone I ran into spoke with a Midwestern accent. People were also uniformly friendly.

So that's my take on St. Louis. There was a palpable sense of decline though there certainly were bright spots. Not only was there was great contrast to The Loop but even to Madison. Despite all of its problems, its small townness, and envy of larger cities, Madison is a city on the make and growing. Two very different vibes.

I have only scratched the surface of St. Louis, though. The city may only be 312,000 people but the metro area, depending on your definition, is somewhere between 2.2-2.8 million. Not insignificant. There's still much of the area to see and experience.

Beer Me in St. Louis: First Impression Part Two

Our hotel was way out west, next to an I270 off ramp. I don't think it was actually in the city of St. Louis proper. Before making the trek out there for check-in, we decided to stop for one more beer. This time it would be Side Project Brewing's The Cellar out in Maplewood.

Stepping out of our vehicle we saw this in one direction.



And in the other…



We had to stop in at Strange Donuts. Each of us bought a pastry for breakfast the following morning. (They were tasty.) There were also t-shirts on offer such as this hoopy one.



Donuts safely stowed in the car, it was off to The Cellar.



Side Project brews "Belgian-inspired" beers. Although I am not unfamiliar with Belgian styles, I really don't know a whole lot about them beyond some basics. The menu wasn't exactly Greek to me but it sure highlighted my ignorance. I ordered a grisette and when my friend asked what I was drinking, the conversation went thusly:

Friend: What did you get?
Me: A grisette.
Friend: What's that?
Me (looking at menu): A brett-fermented farmhouse ale aged in oak.

I'd heard of the grisette but had no idea what it was. And nobody else really knows either as descriptions of it prior to its recent revival here in the States have apparently all been lost. There is general agreement that it was a low-alcohol brew made for miners in the Hainaut region of Belgium at some point in the dim and distant past. Having had some, I can imagine those miners quaffing this stuff by the gallon.



It was light, slightly funky-tart, a little oaky, and just all-around tasty. However, the irony of me drinking a less than 12oz pour of a beer originally made for working stiffs costing about as much as the minimum wage in this country was not lost on me.

The Cellar was definitely a place for craft beer aficionados and fairly well-heeled ones at that. Look at the menu. Notice the serving temperatures listed as well as the level of toasting of the foedre used for aging the Foedre Fermier. Not quite the place for hoi polloi like myself.

Still, I really enjoyed my grisette as well as the rye my friend James ordered. There were two ice cubes in the glass and they were nearly flawless. You'd need some kind of laser to detect the imperfections.

The room itself was bright and had some nice rustic charm to it. The Cellar was also the second place in a row whose men's room had but one single solitary toilet.



We made it to the hotel, which was located in a light industrial area, only to find that not enough rooms had been booked and that most of those that were were not yet ready. A real charley foxtrot but also not really that big of a deal. The food, drink, and company more than made up for it.

Once things were sorted, we hit the road back into the city for dinner at Iron Barley Eating Establishment. We had a short wait for a table and so we settled at the bar. I ordered a Zwickel from Urban Chestnut although I was impressed that there was a beer engine back there and it foreshadowed our last stop of the night. Someone else who was waiting struck up a conversation with my friend Randy. He told the gentleman that we were from out of town and looking forward to hitting Pappy's Smokehouse the next day. Randy's interlocutor remarked that there was a new barbecue place in town, a pretender to Pappy's throne, and that their smoked salmon was fantastic.



For dinner I had about an entire pig's worth of ribs perched atop a bed of braised sauerkraut. Quite tasty. I noticed that the menu also offered smoked salmon. A pattern was developing here. Smoked salmon was seemingly quite common. I sampled some toasted barley and it too was delicious. The place reminded me of The Weary Traveler here in Madison though the tavern side of things was smaller. And it was more ragged but not in a forced or kitschy way. I will add that the waitress was wonderful and managed to rattle off a list of what seemed like a dozen specials with ease. Very impressive. The water closet had but one commode. I don't know how much a "Jethro sized" vessel holds, but you could get one of soup.


The neighborhood that Iron Barley is located in was...distressed? It wasn't bad in the sense of there being drug dealers and prostitutes on every corner but there were a lot of vacant buildings in the area. The street was lined with these two-story apartments and just about every other one was boarded up. I didn't see any broken windows nor graffiti, though.

For a nightcap it was off to Civil Life Brewing. It was tucked away off of an arterial street and had a nice old-time tavern look about it.



My comrade Charles was especially keen on Civil Life as they specialize in beers of the British Isles. He had lived in England for a spell where he acquired a taste for milds and ESBs and has a hard time finding versions of these beers here in the States that match the taste of those he had in their homeland. According to him Civil Life gets as close as you can this side of the Atlantic.

Full English pints were available but also half pints for $2.50. It was a steal especially considering how tasty the beer was. I had a British Bitter.



Cracker and caramel on the malt side with herbal, almost medicinal, hoppiness. Simply tasty. I sampled Charles' ESB and it to was great.

And, yes, the restroom had but a lone toilet. St. Louis regulations must stipulate 1 toilet per 300 people because Civil Life is not small. There's the main bar area with a dart area in back and more room upstairs. Plus there's seating outside to boot. There must be long lines during the summer.

Civil Life closed at 11:00 and we were on the road back to the hotel by then.

Beer Me in St. Louis: First Impression Part One

A few weekends ago a few friends and I engaged in the great American tradition of jumping in a car and hitting the road. Our destination: the Gateway City. While I'd driven through it previously I had never actually spent any time outside of my car there. My cohorts all agreed that Pappy's Smokehouse had some of the best barbecue in all of Christendom with their ribs being singularly tasty. A weekend of beer, barbecue, and good company was just the way to help usher in spring.

We had reserved a minivan but ended up with a giant black Suburban featuring tinted back windows. It was luxurious. The middle bench where I sat had its own climate control with vents on the ceiling a la airplanes. There were a couple displays and a Bluray player too. In addition to temperature and fan controls, the rear panel also had a USB jack and, oddly enough, RCA jacks. Apparently there are portable home electronics that don't use HDMI.



As Chicagoland faded into central Illinois I noticed the exit for the town from which one of my grandmothers hailed. Actually she grew up on a farm and I'd bet the landscape hasn't changed all that much in the 100 or so years since she had lived there. Flat with fields seemingly everywhere. I could completely understand why in 1933 at the tender age of 18 she ventured to see the World's Fair in Chicago and decided not to return home. Electricity, indoor plumbing, and head-first humanity – all 3.3 million of them.



The flatlands of Illinois finally gave way and soon the Arch could be seen in the distance. Having seen it before I suppose it wasn't quite the thrill that it could have been. Still, this was St. Louis. On the Mighty Missisipp. Land of Mark Twain. And Son Volt. (Who had a gig that night in town.) Honestly, I had "Afterglow 61" in my head the whole weekend. Attempts to locate the highway failed, however.

St. Louis was very much a city on the make back in the 19th century. Being on the shores of the Mississippi River gave it a significant edge in transportation. But it never became the industrial powerhouse of the central part of the country because Chicago became the nation's rail hub. Still, St. Louis was no slouch and it was eventually home to plenty of industry and some 850,000 people at its peak in the 1950s. And then industry left followed by people leaving St. Louis at some 315,000 inhabitants today.

That about exhausts my knowledge of St. Louis history I had going in.

Our first destination was The Schlafly Tap Room for lunch and our first sampling of St. Louis microbrews. The Tap Room is just west of downtown nestled amongst some beautiful old buildings. Sadly, there were some that were empty and boarded up. This would emerge as a leitmotif as I wandered the city. But after 60%+ of your population decamps, it is no surprise that there would be abandoned buildings. I suppose I just didn't expect them to be so close to downtown.



The Schlafly Tap Room was fairly busy when we got there and became only more so as two or three large groups of young women came in shortly after we did. I figured that these were gals out celebrating a birthday. "Tap Room" is something of a misnomer because The Tap Room was really more of a gastropub. The eatery portion of the joint was co-equal to, if not more prominent, than the drinking one as the bar was on the small side. While certainly pleasant and sunny, the décor was on the prosaic side. It was a mix of patrons although the hipster craft beer aficionados were greatly outnumbered by non-hipsters including families with children.



It was a beautiful sunny day and rather warm so I ordered the Hefeweizen which was perfect. A big blast of wheat followed by a generous helping of banana accented by a hint of clove. It also had a nice lemony tang to it. We were eventually seated for lunch.

The menu was what I think of as being typical for brewpubs these days. You've got your standard American dishes done upscale like meatloaf, hamburgers (served on an English muffin), and so on accompanied by things such as curry, falafel, schnitzel, Shepherd's Pie, et al. A real hodgepodge of culinary traditions with no emphasis.

For my part, I had a catfish po' boy which was tasty although it seemed well-dressed.

Tangent: I think the only po' po' boy I have ever eaten was in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana at their crawfish festival. I stepped up to the table run by something like the Breaux Bridge Women's Auxiliary and a kindly old lady provided me with a shrimp po' boy. (I would go on to eat a lot of crawfish. So much so, in fact, that I had hives by the time we hit the road home.) No vegetables here. French bread, mayo, and enough shrimp to feed an army. I don't know how she stuffed all of them in there.

Anyway, my po' boy was tasty and my friends enjoyed their burger, Shepherd's pie, and mussels (flown in from the Pacific Northwest). The schnitzel was less warmly greeted as it seemed a bit over-cooked with the theory being that it was not pan fried but instead deep fried.



My friend Randy got a flight of beer that we shared with our meal. And so we tried the Hefeweizen, Kölsch, Irish Extra Stout, Cask Coffee Stout, and Cask Chocolate Stout. There was just too much coffee for Randy in the stout so I had it all to myself and found it delicious, although I do concur that it was heavy on the joe. The chocolate stout was tasty and featured a lighter touch on the chocolate than its sister brew did with the coffee. I'll go for the trifecta and say that the Irish Extra Stout was also very tasty. Lots of good, unabetted coffee and chocolate notes.



On one wall was the big hop board noting that Lemon Drop was the hop of the moment although I don't recall which brews they were featured in. Presumably a pale ale of some sort.

I had a window seat at our table and this was my view:



The streets were deserted. Well, I did see one bicyclist but overall it felt like I was in a scene from The Day After and I just dated myself terribly. There were no pedestrians. Inside was all convivial and Gemuchlikeit but outside was almost a ghost town. The pavements were not teeming with intense energy, to borrow a line from Neil Peart.

After lunch we headed west (where else?) to Urban Chestnut's Midtown Brewery & Biergarten. On the way there I noticed the odd parking stalls of St. Louis. They are at an angle but the lines point in the direction of traffic instead of against it. St. Louisans must stop and back into them. I also noticed several gorgeous old churches along the way.



Urban Chestnut appeared to have been built into a disused auto garage with the brewery in the former bays. The area for us customers was in a rectangular room with wooden benches and featured spartan drinking hall décor. Brewmaster Florian Kuplent learned his trade in Germany and so UCBC's line-up is a blend of traditional German styles and more contemporary American ones.



I had a dunkel and it was good. Randy ordered Urban King, an extra cream lager, which I sampled and enjoyed even more. Oats made it smooth and I really loved the big, green, grassy hops.

UCBC was bright and airy. They served food and the menu included Landjäger, curry wurst, and smoked salmon salad. Keep this latter one in mind for my next post. There were several young families enjoying themselves as we drank as played Connect 4. If Schlafly was akin to a Rock Bottom, then UCBC had the vibe of Sugar Maple in Milwaukee. It was less of a restaurant and more of a neighborhood joint.

Having said that, both places brew excellent beer and they both offer a nice mix of lagers and ales, traditional styles and newer ones. UCBC and Schlafly appear to be the larger breweries of the St. Louis craft beer scene. To finish the day we would visit a couple of the smaller ones.