Heute bin ich ein Berliner

A glass of Scotty's Berliner Geist mit Schuss from Bavaria Sausage. They have Waldmeister und Himbeer.

A Taste of Deutschland at Vintage

The Dulcinea and I went out to Vintage for dinner earlier this week. Scanning the beer menu I noticed that Scott Manning's gruit was still there so I ordered one after The D went in for a Maltiplicity Maibock. Alas, there was no gruit to be had. Instead I went for one of these:



It's Scotty's dunkelweiss. It was absolutely delicious with the dark malt giving some chocolate flavors that were complemented by the bananay esters from the yeast. Incredibly tasty take on a style that is much neglected by Wisconsin brewers. At least those that bottle/can. Somebody tell Dan Carey to brew Black Wheat again.

The maibock was also very tasty. As its name says, it is full of bready, malty goodness.



While chowing down we caught Scotty as he walked by and were graciously supplied samples of the above, his Berliner Geist, a Berliner Weisse which he said would be ready on Friday, i.e. – yesterday. It was warm and not fully carbonated but it was still tasty. Light and moderately sour, it portended a growler and me on my porch anon. Scott said that he was unsure if the kitchen would be amenable to making some Schuss. I shall find out if there is Waldmeister to be had there or not. Otherwise I shall have to concoct some myself.

Maiwein im Juni

I made some Maiwein, or "May wine" in English, over the weekend. It's simply Waldmeister (woodruff) steeped in riesling wine. Woodruff blooms in the spring, hence the drink being associated with the month of May. The riesling was a bit too dry for my taste and I shall have to get something a bit sweeter next time. If this stuff was sweet as the gentleman at the liquor store suggested, I'd hate to taste the dry variety. I'll need to keep an eye out for some Wollersheim White Riesling or otherwise learn a bit more about wine. The woodruff was dried - I have no idea where one can get fresh woodruff in the Madison area - and it lent an herbal, straw-like flavor to the wine. A nice, cold glass of this stuff makes for some fine Teutonic refreshment on a warm day.

And Your Beer Smells of Elderflowers!: New Belgium's Gruit

Next up on my quest for hopless beer is New Belgium's Gruit.

New Belgium is in Fort Collins, Colorado and they've been around since 1991 which makes them craft brew veterans. I find their Fat Tire amber ale in coolers at most summer shindigs I attend at friend's homes. Fat Tire is fine by my palate although I don't go out of my way to buy it. Indeed, I rarely give New Belgium's annuals and seasonals a glance although I do enjoy 1554 dark lager. However, I do always check out their Lips of Faith line which features more experimental brews. The Coconut Curry Hefeweizen went well with the Thai food I and my fellow RPGers ate at various gaming sessions last winter. And so when I saw that New Belgium had brewed a gruit, I just had to grab a bottle.

I must admit to being quite surprised when I poured myself a glass and found that, unlike my local gruit from Vintage, this stuff was so pale in color. My chromatic confusion must surely be because I associate gruit with being the stuff people in 1350 quaffed after a hard day of setting the bodies of plague victims alight which would have been dark and smoky. Instead New Belgium's iteration is a nice dark straw hue that's a big hazy from the wheat in the grain bill. I got a nice white head while a modicum of bubbles were found below.

With an herb/spice mix containing ingredients that I was unfamiliar with, I was keen on taking a whiff to find out what these exotic botanicals smelled like. It's just extra fun knowing that you're to get something different instead of more fucking grapefruit hop aroma. My nose caught plum, a bit of sweet, doughy malt, orange, and a floral scent which I presumed to be the elderflowers.

The first thing my tongue noticed was that tingling from carbonation. The beer didn't look particularly effervescent but it tasted so. Beyond that the elderflowers returned from the aroma and there was more of the stone fruit malt sweetness. The beer also had earthy, almost musky, overtones. I'm not sure if these came from a particular botanical or if it was the product of multiple herbs/spices. Whatever the case, they complemented the floral taste really well and made a nice contrast to the sweetness of the malt. The gruit had a medium-light body which was smooth as it was brewed with oats. As the beer warmed, the malt became more prominent yet the balance of flavors remained.

The bitterness came at the finish. All that bog myrtle, horehound, yarrow, and wormwood really did the job and it was a lasting bitterness. Just like with the Vintage gruit, there was a subtle minty burn here as well which I take to the bog myrtle. My glass was left with some nice lacing.

I am beginning to get the hang of the new-fangled gruits. You use a few herbs/spices that are bitter and then something floral for aroma and to add to the flavor. As it stands, New Belgium's gruit is mighty tasty. My palate has really taken to floral flavors in beer. There's a pleasing détente here between the sweet and the bitter, the earthy and the floral. While I'm sure an India Pale Gruit with 100 I.B.U.s of mouth-puckering wormwood astringency can't be too long in coming, I enjoy the gentle bitterness of the gruit. I also really appreciate how this brew's body had one foot each in the medium and light. The beer is easy-drinking yet it does not venture into the lawnmower beer realm. It is, ominously enough, 6.66% A.B.V. yet it doesn't taste that big.

Junk food pairing: New Belgium's Gruit pairs well with rosemary potato chips. Even better if there's garlic on 'em too.

What Happened to the Harold's Chicken on the East Side?

I was thrilled when a Harold's Chicken Shack opened over on East Washington. There are times when I get a hankering for some fried chicken and there just isn't much beyond a KFC by me on the east side. (Plus they had Italian beef and Chicago Polishes.) And now that location has closed, although the west side location remains open.

At the franchise's Facebook page a post from 29 April reads:

Thanks to local businesses hatin on other black owned businesses is why Madison cant have anything!

This was followed by another post dated 13 May that says in part:

We appreciate all of your support! Unfortunately the EAST location has come to and END, the WEST location is open at 707 s gammon rd. Our presence was unwanted at our 2810 e wash location thanks to te SLUMLoRD Micheal [sic] Matty and RPG Rental and the Madison police Dept.

Did the business garner a lot of calls to the police or some such thing? What happened?

Coming Soon: Chris Farley Documentary I Am Chris Farley

A new documentary about comedian and Madison native Chris Farley called I Am Chris Farley is set to debut this summer. According to Cinema Blend the movie "will get a very limited theatrical run later on this summer, touching down in a few key (read big) markets" so it probably won't screen in Madison. After that it heads to Spike TV followed by video-on-demand.

I can say that I was once in the same building as Chris Farley. That was at Babe's Grill & Bar which was over on West Washington in The Depot. The occasion was the Badger's appearance in the Copper Bowl. My friends and I were in one room while Farley was in another although we were informed that he was holding court. One of my friends disappeared for a while and returned saying that he had been interviewed by a reporter. We all ended up being mentioned in the The Capital Times the next day with my friend having gone on record dissing Mormons.

Forward: Anger Into Action Documentary Seeking Support

Race is a hot topic here in Madison these days. The latest entry into the community conversation took place last Friday when the Justified Anger coalition unveiled their "Our Madison Plan" which was designed to help set the city on a course to deal with the problems that have beset the black community here. I was not at the event but I'd bet that Jonathon Leslie-Quam, Jamie Quam, and Sheba McCants were as they are the producers of a documentary called Forward: Anger Into Action which looks at Madison as it tries to deal with a black community falling further behind its white counterpart. They describe it as "an observational portrait of a city at a crossroads". Here's a teaser:



The project is seeking money via an IndieGoGo campaign and it looks like it will be very interesting. You can also find out more from this article at The Madison Times.

That article at The Madison Times notes that the genesis of their documentary came on the heels of the "Race to Equity" report which was released in October 2013. It laid out for all to see the iniquitous disparities between whites and blacks in Dane County with regards to poverty, unemployment, education, arrest rates, et al. So it's no surprise that the report seems to be the movie's starting point. Given the frequency of Rev. Alex Gee in the trailer, he seems to be the protagonist of the movie. With the sting of the "Race to Equity" report still lingering Gee loosed his "Justified Anger" essay onto Madison's white liberals in The Capital Times. A black middle class pastor and a native of Madison (as opposed to an interloper from Chicago), Gee described being the victim of racial profiling by Madison's men in blue and pointed an accusatory finger at the white liberal majority of the city. A large swathe of white Madison shivered at the touch of this Ithuriel's spear

In the trailer Erica Nelson, the Project Director for the Race to Equity Project says that her organization's report took a lot of people by surprise. This is extremely sad considering that another report, "The State of Black Madison 2008: Before the Tipping Point", had given a similarly distressing picture for blacks in Madison five years previously. While I cannot say with certainty why that earlier report didn't start a larger conversation in Madison about racial disparities, the few returns I got in a Google search for it sure makes a prima facie case that a paucity of media attention is a leading factor.

Hops? We Don't Need No Stinking Hops! - Snowflake 2015 Gruit by Vintage Brewing

A recent column by the Wisconsin State Journal's Chris Drosner reviewed Small Town Brewery's Not Your Father's Root Beer, a beer, unsurprisingly, flavored to taste like root beer. Drosner wrote:

But beer purists — and they are a vocal lot — will say that Not Your Father’s Root Beer is not a beer because it lacks one ingredient considered essential to beer: hops.

Who are these "beer purists"? It's funny. Do beer bottles say "malt beverage" on them or "hop beverage"? Here's how Wikipedia defines beer: "Beer is an alcoholic beverage produced by the saccharification of starch and fermentation of the resulting sugar." Now, do you boil grains to get fermentable sugars or do you boil hops? People were consuming beer long before the use of hops came along.

I didn't know this until I looked it up but the ancestral home of the beloved hop is China. The plant made its way west and found a home in the gardens of ancient Romans who ate the shoots. As far as Western civilization and brewing is concerned, the first record of hops used in brewing comes from 822 C.E. in a list of rules written by Abbot Adalhard documenting how his abbey was to have been run. Tenants of the abbey were to collect hops and a tithe of malt and hops were given to the porter to brew beer.

Hops were growing in the wild in Europe during this time and it wasn't until the 11th or 12th century that hops were first cultivated commercially by some enterprising folks in Northern Germany. From here, their use spread although there was resistance that took decades, if not centuries to overcome.

So, if medieval brewers weren't brewing with hops, then with what did they flavor their brews?

Various and sundry divers botanicals. "Gruit" or "grut" refers to not only hopless beer but also to the botanicals used to flavor beer. It seems that the most common ones were bog myrtle, yarrow, and rosemary. However, many other herbs, spices, barks, etc. were used including juniper, mugwort, heather, sage, caraway, ginger, et al.

As someone who is not a hophead and who grows tired of liquor store clerks only being able to suggest some kind of hoppy pale ale or apologize for not having Pseudo Sue in stock, I decided to try all of the gruits I could this year. Granted, there are few but I gave it my best shot.

Every year Scott Manning at Vintage brews "a new and unique 'snow flake' beer- always a fresh new recipe and never the same brew twice." This year he brewed a gruit which he described as a brown ale with mugwort, licorice root, sweet gale, chicory, chamomile, and orange peel. Not a hop in sight. (Praise be to St. Gambrinus!) I got to taste this year's gruit while it was still in the tank and I was really looking forward to the finished product.

As befitting a brown ale, the beer is a deep reddish brown and is also clear. My pour produced a small head that disappeared fairly quickly. Some bubbles could be seen in the glass. Considering that Scott basically threw the whole spice rack into this brew, I was surprised that all my nose could pick up was roasted grains and an unidentified floral scent. Heck, maybe it's just my nose. Despite my proboscis not being overwhelmed, the aroma was very fine.

As for the taste, the brew was very smooth but had a fairly thin body. I first noticed roasted malt sweetness that was bread-like. On top of this there was a nutty flavor that I presumed was the chicory. Where I would normally expect to taste some sprightly hop bitterness, I found myself pleasantly surprised by a floral flavor along with a hint of licorice. Mind you the beer didn't taste like you were digging into a plate of begonias but rather a more subdued flavor similar to how rose hip jelly doesn't have a sharp, pungent floral flavor. At the finish, I could taste something minty and a bit of bitterness as well that was akin to that of a Noble hop. I believe that the mugwort provided the former while the sweet gale gave the latter.

If you had any ancestors in medieval Europe, you don't have to contract the Black Death to feel a connection to them. Instead you can quaff this fine gruit. I'm not a malt expert but I believe that the invention of malts that didn't taste like the smoke of whatever was fueling the fire that kilned them wasn't until the 17th or 18th century. And so I'd guess that, if you were to invite your ancestors to dinner (which humans don't seem keen on doing), they'd probably wonder just what the hell they were drinking. Having said this, I thoroughly enjoyed Scotty's vintage 2015 gruit.

With a body on the thin side and an A.B.V. of about 5%, this is certainly a brew for the warmer months. The floral taste and minty finish also contribute to the sense of this being a beer for nice spring days and the summer months. I really like how the floral flavor contrasts with the earthy malt/chicory base. These are all mellow flavors with the malt segueing into the botanticals seamlessly. Honestly, I didn't miss the hops at all.

Junk food pairing: Eat Cheddar Cheese Cracker Combos along with your Snowflake gruit. The salt accents the botanicals while the cheese provides a vaguely sharp and creamy contrast to the malty sweetness.

Getting Better With Age: Terrance by Lakefront Brewing

Lakefront's My Turn series began in 2011. These limited edition beers showcase the potatory predilections of the brewery's employees and not just those who specialize in zymurgy. Front office folks also get to proclaim their tastes.

Terrance came out in 2013, if memory serves, and is a Kölsch. Sadly, I recall bottles of it languishing on the shelves of Jenifer Street Market. Apparently most Madison microbrew drinkers are like Madison Craft Beer Week co-founder Jeff Glazer who craves "weird or exciting or creative" brews. If it's not laced with an exorbitant amount of hops, isn't soured with bacteria from the brewmasater's toilet, or isn't aged in a Malort barrel, well, why bother? On the other hand, this left plenty for me and perhaps a few others who don't prize novelty above all else in beer.

The Kölsch is a specialty brew of Köln (Cologne), Germany. The beer we know today goes back to around the turn of the 19th century. Lagering (i.e. – storing the beer in temperatures that approach freezing for a couple of months) was quite hip and trendy at the end of the 19th century time yet Köln was still under the influence of its own Reinheitsbegot laws which outlawed bottom-fermenting beer. Not wanting to miss out on the trend of the day, brewers there used top-fermenting yeast but lagered their beer. The term "Kölsch" (or "Koelsch") is a protected appellation so only beers of this style brewed in the Köln area can rightly use the name. Hence the use of "Kölsch-style" on Terrance and other American iterations.

By all appearances, Terrance adheres to the conventions of the style. It is clear and straw-colored and looked mighty fine in my stange. Kölsches are supposed to be well-carbonated and my pour had lots of bubbles making their way up to a nice, fluffy white head. The beer had a slightly fruity aroma with yeast and bread smells also being prominent.

Like the color, the Kölsch is supposed to be light-bodied and Terrance hits the mark. It had the perfect biscuit/cracker flavor from the pale malts that was just slightly sweet but there was also a vaguely berry-like fruitiness to it, a flavor derived from the yeast. Hops were faint here but I could taste a subtle Noble spiciness underneath everything. The carbonation gave my tongue a little zing as well. That spicy hoppiness returns in the finish and made it fairly dry.

My glass was decorated with an abundance of Schaumhaftvermoegen.

As I noted above, Terrance was released in 2013 which means that the bottle reviewed here has been sitting in my cellar for a stretch. I recall drinking this beer fresh, however, and I think that it has improved greatly with age. Back in 2013 Terrance had a heavier mouthfeel with a bit more sweetness and it tasted more of dough than my preferred clean, biscuit flavor. The doughy taste seems very common in Wisconsin Kölsches with Point's Three Kings Ale, Leinenkugel's Canoe Paddler, Sand Creek's Groovy Brew, House of Brews' Prairie Rye, and the new Parched Eagle's Golden Ale all having this taste. Exceptions to this rule include Big Bay's Wavehopper and Vintage's Sister Golden Ale (the reformulated one). Not knowing exactly how all of these beers are brewed, I will say from my little experiment here that, generally speaking, more lagering seems to be needed for Kölsches.

My aged Terrance was extremely tasty. It had a clean taste in which the fruity flavors from the yeast and the biscuity ones from the malt are allowed to come to the fore. The hops were subdued and I wouldn't have minded just a bit more of them. Terrance's 4.2% A.B.V. paired with its crisp flavor makes for a fine brew on a hot day.

Junk food pairing: The Kölsch style is all about subtlety and so I recommend a junk food on the mild side. Pair (aged) Terrance with Monterey Jack Cheez Its.

Smells Like Victory: Kirsch Gose by Victory Brewing Company

I must admit that I am not familiar with Victory Brewing beyond having had the occasional Prima Pils. But I was intrigued when I read that they would be releasing a kirsch gose. I like gose beers. I like cherries. A truly tantalizing combination.

Although most closely associated today with the German city Leipzig, the gose originated in the town of Goslar in north central Germany at some point in the 16th century. (The river Gose flows through the town.) A cousin of the more popular Belgian witbier, it is a top-fermenting sour wheat beer flavored with salt and coriander with the sour coming from the addition of lactic bacteria these days. The style was extremely popular in the 19th century but is now on the endangered species list. It went into decline after World War I, seems to have gone extinct in 1945, but has been revived in fits and starts ever since. For a much more thorough history of the gose, read Ron Pattinson.

Being a fairly rare style, I've not had many a gose. The only German iteration I've had is Leipziger Gose. As for American versions, my first experience came by way of Gordon Biersch's take on the style at the Great Taste of the Midwest. Schell has tried their hand at it as well and Anderson Valley with mixed results.

Closer to home, Next Door Brewing here in Madison brewed a gose called Egon's Revenge last year. I rather liked it and head brewer Bryan Kreiter says that it will be brewed again this summer with a tweak here or there. For instance, instead of using acidulated malt to create tartness he hopes to "culture some wild yeast/bacteria from raw grain and sour the wort pre-boil."

On their website, Victory proudly proclaims of Kirsch Gose "European tradition and American ingenuity come together in the truest sense..." I am not sure what they mean by this but assume that they are saying that adding cherry juice to a gose is a unique example of American creativity. Or some such thing. While a fine idea, it is not paradigm-shifting. If you go here, you can see how it is common to quaff a gose in Leipzig mit schuss, that is, with a shot of raspberry or woodruff syrup just like a Berliner Weisse. Caraway schnapps is also traditional. (N.B. – the website has graphic photos of tasty beers and may lead to the impulsive purchase of plane tickets.)

I served my Kirsch Gose in a tulip glass because I bought a couple at Goodwill and hadn't used them yet. That and I hoped this beer would have a nice cherry-laced aroma that would be concentrated by the glass. Traditionally gose is served in a vessel that is essentially a graduated cylinder. (See photos at above site.) Despite my lousy photography (it was cloudy outside), Kirsch Gose is an exceptionally pretty beer. It is a touch hazy with a gorgeous light-orangey/hibiscus red hue. Bubbles made their way up to the generous pillow of pink foam atop the brew.

My choice of glass was fortuitous as there was indeed a luscious cherry aroma to be had along with a hefty dose of lemony tartness. Also present was a hint of biscuit. Goses have a modicum of hops but I could detect none of the German Spalt hopfen in the nose.

On the tongue the beer unleashed a wave of lemony tartness as to be expected. It was very pronounced but I've had beers that were even more sour. The tartness finds a friend in the cherry flavor which was sweet, but only just. The fruit flavor let the sourness predominate but the cherry made sure you knew it was present. Underneath all these flavors was a bit of bread. What brought everything together was the salt. The salinity was obvious but not overpowering. Not only did it make a nice counterpoint to the sweet and sour but also gave the beer a nice complexity. The mouthfeel is medium-light and the wheat makes it smooth but the salt added a depth of flavor that belied the overall lightness of the beer.

Kirsch Gose finishes on the dry side with the cherry, tartness, and salinity all lingering on the tongue. And my glass was left with some wonderful Schaumhaftvermoegen. Victory nailed the visual aesthetic here on the head.

To my palate and that of my significant other, Victory has hit one out of the park with Kirsch Gose. It has a wonderfully complex mix of sweet, sour, and savory yet it remains light and refreshing. It is easy drinking as witnessed by the rapidity at which our 4-packs were emptied.

Junk food pairing: Pair Kirsch Gose with Chinese shrimp chips. They're the chips that look like Shrinky Dinks before you fry them and then turn into light, crispy chips after a bath in the oil.

Mutatis Mutandis: Betray Ale by Wisconsin Brewing Company

I recall the spring of 1991 when I walked into my dorm room and found my roommate proudly brandishing a bottle of Capital Maibock or as he referred to it, Mindblock. If memory serves, this incident was my introduction to seasonal beer drinking and also when I became enchanted by Kirby Nelson's bock-brewing diablerie. You had Maibock in the spring as the air began to become more temperate and then, as the leaves withered, there was Autumnal Fire followed by dark and blonde doppelbocks to stave off Jack Frost.

As the craft beer scene matured and an unremitting hop assault on the tongues of drinkers began, Nelson largely stayed out of the fray preferring to remain at the helm of a "Wisconsin lager" brewhouse. In 2012 Nelson left Capital to join the new Wisconsin Brewing Company and promptly shocked longtime Capital fans by brewing two IPAs out of the gates. But there was a collective sigh of relief from these folks when WBC released a maibock called Big Sweet Life last spring.

It wasn't long before a draught-only India Pale Pale Bock, a helles bock, hit taps around town. And this year it has been christened Betray Ale and bottled to replace Big Sweet Life.

The maibock ("May bock") hails from Munich in southern Germany and is the lighter-colored member of the bock family having a golden hue that can wander into amber territory. Like other bocks, this style has a rich malt flavor but is often more hoppy than its cousins. It is brewed in the winter and brought out to celebrate its departure in the spring.

Betray Ale is billed as being an "India Pale Pale Bock" so you know that Nelson has taken the greater hop flavor of the style to heart. Nothing seems out of place, however, when you poor the beer into a glass. It is clear with a nice deep yellow color. Bubbles galore run up from the bottom of the glass to a nice white head that stuck around for a while.

The first indication that this isn't the bock of springs past comes in the nose. I was taken by surprise when I smelled grapefruit. There was a little bit of a bread-like scent in the background but the citrus/grapefruit fragrance dominated. After taking my first whiff I was rather ambivalent. On the one hand, I was not amused at smelling 20+ years of drinking Nelson's maibocks go down the drain because many people have lost sight of the fact that beer is a malt beverage, not merely a vehicle for hops. On the other hand, it simply had an alluring aroma.

I was unsurprised to find that grapefruit was not to be found solely in the nose. It was the first thing I tasted. While very prominent on the tongue, this hop flavor was not bitter. In fact, I think that the malt comingled with it to make a very sweet, fruity flavor akin to a pink grapefruit juice cocktail. While I inquired of WBC as to what kind of hops are in Betray Ale, I have not yet received a response. WBC advertises the beer as being dry hopped so I presume the grapefruit aroma and flavor come from that addition of hops. Simcoe?

There was also just a touch of spicy hop flavor underneath all the citrus. Once the hoppiness recedes, you get a brief flash of malt sweetness that was a mix of stone fruit and corn. (Not creamed corn, by the way.) Betray Ale is 6.5% A.B.V. so, while it is a good strength for a spring night, it's not super-potent and you cannot taste the alcohol. Considering all of the sweetness, Betray Ale has a medium body that befits a maibock. I found the finish to be smooth yet slightly dry with lingering citrus hop flavor.

To be blunt, I drank about half the bottle and gave the rest to my significant other. If she hadn't been around, it would have been poured down the drain. Kirby Nelson can brew a damn fine maibock so why hide that behind all the lupuline macquillage? If Betray Ale had about a quarter of the citrus flavor, then I suspect I'd like it more. A quarter of the citrus plus a bit more Noble hop spiciness. Use the grapefruit flavor as an accent and not the main attraction. As it is, the brew just tastes too syrupy, too much like grapefruit juice cut with sugar to dull the tartness. While I hate to see tradition suddenly disappear, I am not opposed to change and the creation of new traditions. But Betray Ale is Old World tradition ruined by New World novelty.

On the plus side, my glass was left with some really nice Schaumhaftvermoegen.

Junk food pairing: Drink Betray Ale along with cheese curds, preferably those made with a beer batter that tastes like beer instead of grapefruit. The salt and fat should help counter the cloying fruit punchiness of the beer.

Willkomen in Wisconsin, Metropolitan Brewing

Chicago's Metropolitan Brewing recently announced that they'll begin distribution in Wisconsin come May Day so you can raise a glass of their fine lager to the proletariat or cool yourself off after leaping over your Beltane bonfire. To celebrate, Ale Asylum will be hosting a welcome party on Wednesday, 29 April.

If the Metropolitan folks show up you know it will be fun. I am hoping to attend so I can wrap my lips around some of their Arc Welder rye dunkles. It is the nectar of the gods.

Medieval Salve Kills Antibiotic Bacteria

Perhaps the Dark Ages aren't as dark as generally thought.

Researchers have discovered that a medieval salve for eye infections is very effective against some nasty strains of bacteria which laugh at futile attempts to kill them with antibiotics. The recipe was taken from the above "Bald's Leechbook". I presume that none of the researchers knew Old English which means that a medievalist of some stripe at some point had to translate. Score one for liberal arts majors!

But researchers recently found that a thousand-year-old Anglo-Saxon treatment for eye infections works as an antibiotic against one of today’s most notorious bacteria, Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). The British researchers will present their findings this week at an annual microbiology conference held in the United Kingdom.

Christina Lee, a professor in Viking studies at the University of Nottingham, translated the recipe from the Old English in Bald’s Leechbook, which was written in the 9th century and is one of the earliest known medical textbooks. The researchers prepared four batches of the recipe, which called for two species of garlic and onions, wine, and bile from a cow’s stomach brewed in a brass cauldron and let sit for nine days before use.

take cropleek and garlic, of both equal quantities, pound them well together, take wine and bullocks’ gall, of both equal quantities, mix with the leek, put this then into a brazen vessel, let it stand nine days in the brass vessel, wring out through a cloth and clear it well, put it into a horn, and about night time apply it with a feather to the eye; the best leechdom.

The researchers tested the concoction on cultures of MRSA bacteria in synthetic wounds as well as in rats. No individual ingredient had no effect on the cultures, but the combined liquid killed almost all the cells; only about one in 1,000 bacteria survived. At more dilute concentrations, the salve didn’t kill the bacteria, but still interrupted their communication, preventing them from damaging tissues.

First U.S. Penny Was Godless and Instead Promoted Science

A rare "Birch cent" recently sold at an auction for $1.2 million.



The coin, known as the "Birch Cent," was made in 1792, months after the one-cent denomination was first authorized by Congress, according to the auction house Stack's Bowers Galleries.

It was made in a trial run for the penny, and depicts Lady Liberty. Thomas Jefferson and George Washington discussed the design in letters dated August 1792, before it was presented to Congress as an option for the new coin.

The article makes it sound like this was merely a prototype coin and not legal tender. Having now looked at Wikipedia it would seem that this coin lost out to the Chain cent as the first penny used as legal tender in the United States. The profile of Lady Liberty was retained for the front of the Chain cent.

While the Chain cent merely says "Liberty" on the front, the Birch cent says "Liberty Parent of Science & Industry". For all the bluster of charlatans such as David Barton about the United States supposedly being a Christian nation, "In God We Trust" was not placed on American currency until 1864. And here we can see the privileging of science over religion in the very early days of our republic.

A Winter Wonderland: Winterland by Hinterland

My previous review tasted a beer that was heavy on the juniper so, in keeping with that theme, I'm going to again engage with a brew that eschews hoppiness in favor of the coniferous. This time we have Hinterland's Winterland.

Hinterland is up north in Green Bay. From what I can tell, the brewery has a something of a middle-of-the-road reputation. I don't hear people bad-mouthing them but they also haven't found their break-out beer like Spotted Cow or Hopalicious – that beer known statewide and upon which their reputation is made.

Winterland, a porter brewed with juniper, is the brewery's winter seasonal. I believe the beer was first brewed or perhaps bottled back in 2010 but it took me until this past winter for me to give it serious consideration.

The beer pours a deep, dark brown that is opaque. When you look at it in the narrow portion of a glass, you can see that the brew is clear. My pour produced a nice, pillowy head that was tinted brown. And it hung around for a fair spell. As I drank, I got some pretty good lacing to decorate my glass. On the nose Winterland gave off a lot of that coffee aroma from what I take to be the chocolate or black malts. Oddly enough, there's also a slight berry fruitiness in there. And of course there's the resinous, piney goodness of the juniper.

One might expect a beer so dark as to absorb all of the light around it like a black hole to be heavy but Winterland has a nice medium body. It's slightly chewy but mostly smooth. The roasted grains are front and center with their bitter chocolate and coffee flavors but the juniper is no slouch either. When you pull a Winterland out of the refrigerator the juniper is definitely noticeable but the malt is still at the fore. As the beer makes is ascent to room temperature, the sharp piney flavor of the juniper grows. The effervescence complements the pine notes well here.

The brew finishes on a slightly bitter and dry note. It is here that my tongue became aware of the hops. While I'm not sure what varieties were used, they tasted like the Noble kind with a spicy, almost peppery, flavor that accented the fresh, resinous juniper very well indeed. Winterland weighs in at 7.5% A.B.V. which means it's a fairly potent brew but I couldn't discern any alcohol burn.

I have to admit that I thoroughly enjoyed Winterland and that it will be a go-to winter seasonal for me later this year when Boreas reminds us that the snow is once again on its way. Why I neglected to give it its full due until now escapes me. It is a hearty brew and I love juniper. Here the spice plays well with the prominent roasted grain and Noble hop flavors. The juniper also reminds me of Wisconsin's pinery up north and of venison since I like to cook it with the berry. In this sense Winterland is a fine addition to the Badger State beer portfolio as I appreciate brewers and beers that reflect their regional origins.

Junk food pairing: Try Jay's Onion & Garlic Ridged Potato Chips. Let the sharp, clean juniper go head-to-head with the pungent root vegetables on your tongue.

Hear What You’re Missing

Last week Vox posted an interesting article called “Listen to what gets lost when an MP3 is made”. It features the work of a Ph.D. student named Ryan McGuire who is behind a project to let people hear the sounds that are discarded when a song is made into an MP3.

The MP3 format can reduce the file size of a song as much as 10-fold, but in the process something has to be filtered out. Which sounds get filtered out of a song to make the file smaller was determined in 1993 by a group of European sound engineers who using songs like Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car,” and Vega’s “Tom’s Diner.” In 1994, MP3s became a public format and, after the advent and widespread use of the internet, they are now the primary format that most people listen to music in.

But what happened to those filtered out sounds?

Ryan MaGuire, a a Ph.D. student in Composition and Computer Technologies at the University of Virginia Center for Computer Music, created a project called “moDernisT” to find out. McGuire’s project pulls out those missing sounds and lets them live on their own.

According to the article “Tom’s Diner” by Susanne Vega was the first song to become an MP3. And here are the leftovers from that song after having been compressed.

moDernisT_v1 from Ryan Patrick Maguire on Vimeo.

It’s quite a bit more than I thought it would be. I figured that stuff beyond a certain frequency would have been lopped off but it really sounds like the compression process takes out a bit of everything.

The Yule Goat: Joulupukki by Vintage Brewing

On my most recent trek to Vintage I was disappointed to find out that I was a day late for this winter's Joulupukki as the last barrel had been emptied the day before. But fate smiled upon me last weekend on a trip to the Woodshed Ale House where the terminal keg of the season was still spilling out its juniper goodness.

"Joulupukki" has become the Finnish word for Santa Claus though more literally it means "Yule goat". It is also the name of one of Scott Manning's winter seasonals – his take on the Finnish sahti beer. The sahti is a traditional Finnish style of beer that can involve grains aplenty other than barley and is flavored with juniper. It's generally one the higher side in alcohol compared to other styles. Beer Advocate says the style ranges from 7%-10%.

This beer beer has a lovely deep amber color. It's clear but opaque. My pour didn't generate much of a head although there were bubbles lingering at the top. My nose nearly climaxed at the heavenly aroma with malty sweetness mixing with a bright floral scent and the trademark pine of the juniper. It was very refreshing not to smell any hops.

On the tongue, Joulupukki tastes much like it smells. The malt has a stone fruit sweetness here which is balanced somewhat by piney, resinous juniper and a hint of spice from the rye. Scott cleared out his spice cabinet for this one with cardamom, orange peel, clove, and whatever else he found at the ready making its way into the brew. These flavors were not very prominent but they did complement the malt very well and toned down the brighter flavors just a bit. For such a malt-forward beer, it was very light on the tongue and not syrupy at all. Although the carbonation didn't stick out on the pour, I could really feel the effervescence on my tongue making a nice contrast to the sweetness.

The beer finished smoothly with a hint of dryness as the bittering hops (~8 I.B.U.s) came through and melded with the lingering juniper. Sadly, there was no lacing on the glass. Presumably this is due to the paucity of hops. Joulupukki, if memory serves, weighs in at 6.8% A.B.V. This is not the heartiest beer ever but it will warm you up and, after a few too many, you'll have that blue alcoholic gleam just like the Finns in John Dos Passos novels.

I thoroughly enjoyed the wonderful boreal mix of flavors that is Joulupukki. This is not at all surprising since I love rye in my beer, love juniper, and am not a hophead. The emphasis here is on the malt sweetness along with the spicy rye which are complemented by the earthy flavors brought by the juniper and other spices. Joulupukki is heady enough to be a fine winter warmer when seeking shelter from a cold winter's night but can also be a nice, cool refresher upon stepping out of the sauna. My plan is to convince Scott to age some of next year's batch in akvavit barrels.

Junk food pairing: Joulupukki goes well with Annie's Extra Cheesy Cheddar Bunnies. Just don't eat them while you're in the sauna.

Thoughts on Madison Metro Transit

(Photo by J. Mc.)

No one wants to hear that Madison Metro is looking to increase fares again. But times are hard for public transit and a slight increase in fares for better service seems a reasonable trade-off. Even better is that the fare increase is only $0.05 and only for unlimited passes which affects UW employees, students, city employees, etc. This doesn't seem like a big deal except the fare increase is to pay for making wi-fi service available on buses.

Madison Metro Transit riders using unlimited passes could see an increase in rates next year in exchange for the addition of wireless internet access.

The city’s operating budget for next year includes $96,300 for implementing Wi-Fi on Metro buses, contingent on an increase of $0.05 per ride for unlimited pass holders. The capital budget also includes $150,000 for wireless network upgrades.

Metro Transit will hold a public hearing on the rate increase on Wednesday, Dec. 10, at the Madison Municipal Building to discuss the possible changes.

Five or six years ago adding wi-fi to buses would have been a very nice amenity. Today, however, everyone's smartphone has a data plan as do many tablets. Who comprises the ridership that this wi-fi is targeting? This just seems like a fairly useless lagniappe.

Madison Metro does some things very well. For example, if you work downtown or on campus on weekdays from, say 6:00-18:00, Metro can probably get you to and from work rather well. Work second or third shift? Work on weekends? Metro will likely be less successful.



When I first read the article about the fare increase, I immediately thought of route 6. Route 6 goes from the west transfer point out to East Towne Mall via the Square and East Washington. East Washington is home to the new 14-story Constellation whose 200 or so residential units were all rented out/sold by the time the building opened. This past September the Constellation's sister building next door, the 15-story Galaxie broke ground. It will have 205 residential units plus office space and a grocery store. The Creamery, a mixed use development on the 1000 block of East Washington may go ahead without the planned concert venue. Across the street on the same block there's a proposal for a 10-12 story tower featuring a music venue. Breese Stevens Field was recently renovated and you can bet the city didn't do it for fun. It is looking at bringing back the state high school soccer championships to Madison as well as having the stadium host concerts and other entertainment events.

We also have the latest iteration of Archipelago Village which would consume most of the south side of the 900 block of East Washington. Further east there's a proposal for a 70-80 unit apartment building with a brewpub on the ground floor. Union Corners is finally coming to fruition at East Wash and Milwaukee. East Wash and First Street is the preferred location for our public market.

Whew! That's a lot of development.

Yet outside of morning and afternoon rush hours, route 6 provides service only about every half an hour. On weekends route 6 runs once an hour which borders on the useless. (Ditto for another major route, route 4 on weekends and others.)

A similar situation also exists on Cottage Grove Road. A lot of housing and commercial space is about to go up there in the form of Royster Corners yet bus service on Cottage Grove Road is minimal during the week and barely there on weekends. Buses travel on Cottage Grove Road very far so riders are basically limited to buses that traverse Atwood Avenue and Acewood Boulevard.

I can't help but think of the motto of public transit consultant Jarrett Walker: "Frequency is freedom." Walker was here in Madison back in 2011.) Is a bus running once an hour very useful or appealing to people who can drive? Frequency is freedom. I highly recommend listening to an interview with Walker up at the Community Transit podcast. In it he says:

If you really want ridership, the best indicator we have found for what drives high ridership is just a high quantity of service.

He goes on to note the experiment happening with our neighbors to the north. Canadian cities generally offer more service than their American counterparts and have ridership that is about double that here in the States.



It's frustrating to read that Metro wants to raise fares to install wi-fi when much bus service is almost useless and very unattractive to new and choice riders. It's frustrating to read about the city pouring money into a public market when Metro's maintenance facility is at capacity with no plans for expansion. It's frustrating to read that Madison is moving forward with Bus Rapid Transit while the normal bus service is sub-par. How about whipping the current system into shape before adding bling and BRT?

Madison Metro needs more buses that run more frequently. I think this is the #1 outstanding issue with Metro service. Frequency is freedom.

The Kimmie, The Yink, and the Holy Gose: Anderson Valley's Take on the Gose

Now is the time for all good Wisconsin beer drinkers to consume brews leftover from the warmer months in preparation for what the Farmer's Almanac is predicting to be a really goddamn cold winter. And so to make room for stouter fair in my refrigerator, I have begun to drink the lighter fare therein.

First up is Anderson Valley's The Kimmie, The Yink, and the Holy Gose Ale. I have no idea what the name is supposed to mean. I suppose that it's an in-joke for the brewmaster or some goofy northern California punage. Regardless of the name, I was keen on trying a domestic take on the German brew.

The gose (go-suh) dates back to the 16th century and gets its name from its hometown – Goslar. The brew spread and folks in Leipzig really took a shine to it and breweries there began to brew it. Eventually the beer became associated with Leipzig. Gose went on the decline around World War I presumably because, well, there was a war on plus the Reinheitsgebot had escaped Bavaria only to spread northward and lagers were the hip and cool (pun intended) beer trend. World War II seems to have killed it but the style was resurrected every now and again during the bad old days of the Cold War. Today I believe there are two or three breweries in Germany that brew Gose with the most common one to my eyes on this side of the Atlantic being Leipziger Gose.

Provenance aside, the style is that of a sour wheat beer. 50%+ of the grain bill is wheat with the rest being barley. It is spiced with coriander, salt, and hops while lactic bacteria provide the sourness. Until this brew, I had never had a brew by Anderson Valley and was really looking forward to it.

The Kimmie, The Yink, and the Holy Gose Ale pours a nice foamy head despite what my photograph shows. By the time I took a picture that was lit well enough and in focus, the head had dissipated. The bier itself is clear and of a very light straw color. There were a few stray bubbles making their way up. A lemony tartness dominated the aroma.

On the tongue The Kimmie... has a light body and you get the effervescence. You may not see the bubbles in your glass but you can taste them. As with the aroma, the lactic tartness stands out along with its attendant lemony/citrus flavor. Further along the tongue you catch a bit of grain along with a stone fruit flavor. There was just the barest hint of salinity. The hops only seem discernible in the finish which is tart, slightly bitter, and dry. It was disappointing to me that the salt was barely noticeable but even worse was that I could not taste any coriander. None. Zip. Keiner. Anderson Valley's webpage says it's in there but you could have fooled me. Perhaps their brewmaster is into homeopathy and really diluted it while counting on the wort to have a memory of the coriander.

As I drank I found that the bier yielded no Schaumhaftvermoegen. The sides of my glass were clean. But I did feel refreshed. Despite the near absence of hops, salt, and coriander, this beer goes down easily with its rather light body, lemony flavor, and dry finish. Anderson Valley reports that it is 4.2% A.B.V. which is sessionable and quite appropriate for hotter weather.

Junk Food Pairing: I would definitely pair this beer with Chinese shrimp chips – the ones that look like Shrinky Dinks before you fry them up.

Folks here in Madison should try Egon's Revenge from Next Door Brewing, although you'll probably have to wait until next summer to do so. It is a wonderful beer and probably more in line with the gose style as it has traditionally been made with a fuller body than The Kimmie... Best of all, the salt and coriander are not hidden, though not overwhelming either. It's a bit stronger at 4.6% but within the range for the style. Personally, I think it's one of the best beers you can find in Madison.

Passenger Rail Returns to Madison (Temporarily)

Prior to a few days ago, the last time Madison had passenger rail service was back in 1976 when trains ran between Madison and Milwaukee for Badger football games. The last time Madison enjoyed regular passenger rail service was on 30 April 1971 when the Sioux and Varsity lines ran their last trips before Amtrak took over and abandoned Madison completely.

Last month Pullman Rail Journeys announced passenger rail service between Madison and Chicago on a couple weekends in October that would coincide with Badger football games against Northwestern and Illinois. The trips would be in old cars that had been refurbished with $99 buying you a Standard Class seat and for $100 more you could go Diamond Class which got you a seat in a domed car and a meal. The newly revitalized Varsity made its first trip last Saturday bringing people to Madison from Chicago and the Wisconsin State Journal was aboard.


(Photo by Brian Allen.)

The article interviews various passengers. An 82-year old gentleman seems to have taken advantage of the opportunity to revel in nostalgia while younger people enjoyed not being behind the wheel and the space and comfort that trains provide. Ed Ellis, president of Iowa Pacific, Pullman's parent company, is quoted as saying, "Being able to get on the train in Madison and just not worry about (traffic) and have something to eat and drink and look out the window is a pretty pleasant alternative. People obviously picked up on that because we sold more tickets than we thought we were going to."

I have to wonder if these weekend rail excursions came about because of talks at the meeting which may not have been a meeting back on 21 June. Recall that All Aboard Wisconsin, a rail advocacy group, was trying to get stakeholders aboard a Pullman train headed from Chicago to Prairie du Chien to discuss rail service between Madison and Chicago. When word of this meeting got out, it turned out that this was apparently more of an attempt at a very informal get-together. Wisconsin & Southern Railroad, which owns track between Madison and Chicago, had "no immediate interest" in letting anyone use its track for passenger service. Indeed, they were unaware of any such meeting. Similarly, Ed Ellis of Iowa Pacific was surprised to hear of anything akin to a formal meeting.

The message suggested representatives from a number of rail companies, including Metra, Iowa Pacific and Wisconsin & Southern would be participating, but the president of Iowa Pacific, Ed Ellis, claimed that wasn't true.

Iowa Pacific, he said, is doing little more than providing the passenger cars that High Iron Travel will be using to transport passengers on a $2800-per-person weekend trip from Chicago to Prairie du Chien.

"My understanding is that they wanted to put some people on in Madison who are interested in passenger train," he said.

The companies, however, are not participating in any type of talks about future rail service, he insisted.

Perhaps Pullman had been planning these Madison trips for months prior to the June soiree but nothing seems to have been mentioned about them until last month. And so it seems a bit more than coincidental that three months after an effort to get stakeholders together to talk about Madison-Chicago rail service, we get a couple weekends of passenger trains running between the two cities. I don't mean to imply that these are test runs and that any formal plans emerged from the June "meeting" - heck, Ellis may just be following through on promises he made after a few cocktails. But that the runs did better business than expected can only help those looking to establish passenger rail service here in Madison.

For a bit on the history of passenger rail in Madison, see my Madrail posts.



Tangentially, 10 miles of disused track between Fitchburg and Oregon recently returned to service. Trains will be hauling what I presume is rock from McCoy Road to the Lycon concrete factory in Oregon.

Judy Is Positive About This

I have to admit to being quite surprised to hear a few days ago that David Lynch and Mark Frost were posting mysterious tweets with references to Twin Peaks.



And so I wasn't quite as surprised when I found out that Twin Peaks is being resurrected as a nine episode mini-series for Showtime with shooting to begin next year.

The new Twin Peaks will be set in the present day, more than two decades after the events in the first two seasons. It will continue the lore and story of the original series, with Lynch and Frost committed to providing long-awaited answers and, hopefully, a satisfying conclusion to the series. It is unclear which actors from the original series will be featured in the followup. I hear that star Kyle MacLachlan will be back, reprising his role as FBI Agent Dale Cooper who was at the center of the show.

While this is indeed exciting news, I remain ambivalent. It should be a fun watch but Lynch and Frost had better not go all George Lucas and do something like explain the Lodges right down to the midi-chlorian level. Just be sure to get me some info on Judy and that monkey that said her name and I'll be happy.

The Terror To Be Adapted for Television

Dan Simmons fictional account of the ill-fated Franklin Expedition, The Terror, is being adapted for television as a series by AMC. I don't know how I missed the news for the past year and a half. I absolutely love the book - my review is here - and am looking forward to seeing how it makes the leap to the small screen.

I am hoping that the TV adaptation retains the pacing of the book which is a slow burn. My paperback copy is 760+ pages with Simmons in no hurry at all. Instead he is happy to let the reader wallow as the crew's slow, gruesome fate unfolds one death at a time. There's the thing out on the ice that is picking off crewmembers one by one which provides a terror that is constantly lurking in the background. But the real terror is the struggle of crew to simply survive. In addition to the something out there in the dark, they have to contend with extreme cold, food stocks that are running out, and scurvy taking hold. Expedition members were out on the Arctic ice for two years or so and Simmons documents their struggles in excruciating detail.

Simmons' book is one of the best and most rewarding literary slogs there is so hopefully the TV adaptation won't push the story along too quickly. I can imagine the TV version throwing in more attempts to capture the thing to make the story more action-oriented. Plus Crozier's clairvoyance and Lady Silence can be used less sparingly to add variety for viewers. Should be interesting.

Those Poor Navarrese

Bill Maher recently stirred up a shitstorm by suggesting there was something wrong with the Muslim world when books, movies, and cartoons incite riots and provoke Muslims to threaten the authors' lives (and in the case of Theo van Gogh, threats became murder.) and that Muslim countries generally treat women poorly. Maher was called all manner of things including Islamophobic, racist, and a bigot.

Well, Maher's got nothing on the medieval author of The Pilgrim's Guide to Santiago de Compostela. I've been reading about medieval Iberia and the book includes some excerpts from this work which was written around 1140. As the title indicates, it's a guide for people making a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain. According to the text, it was nearly as popular a destination for pilgrims as Rome or The Holy Land which makes one wonder why there's this myth that medieval folks didn't travel far from their homes.

The author is an anonymous Frenchman who informs travelers of which rivers are safe to drink, what towns are to be found on the route, and about the natives as well. Whoever the author is, he really didn't like the Navarrese. (Navarre is or was a region in north-central Spain.) I mean he really, really didn't like the Navarrese. He begins by noting that "These people, in truth, are repulsively dressed and they eat and drink repulsively." It gets worse.

...when the Navarrese are warming themselves, a man will show a woman and woman a man their private parts. The Navarrese even practice unchaste fornication with animals...He even offers libidinous kisses to the vulva of woman and mule.

A Frenchman decrying oral sex?! Forsooth! Up to this point in the book, at least, not even the Jews are described so harshly. Sure, they are said to be greedy and untrustworthy but at least they didn't practice cunnilingus.

Oh, but here's the best bit:

This is a barbarous race unlike all other races in customs and in character, full of malice, swarthy in color, evil of face, depraved, perverse, perfidious, empty of faith and corrupt, libidinous, drunken, experienced in all violence, ferocious and wild, dishonest and reprobate, impious and harsh, cruel and contentious, unversed in anything good, well-trained in all vices and iniquities, like the Geats and Saracens in malice, in everything inimical to our French people.

The author does concede that the Navarrese are good warriors on the battlefield so they're not all bad.

On Cooking Mutton

I recently listened to an episode of the BBC's fine radio show Food Programme concerning mutton. At one point an Indian gentleman is heard explaining that the neck is best for stewing and braising. He goes on:

"As an Indian, naturally your tendency is to cook it in a, sort of a nice sauce. And even for us, the easiest thing I always tell people is do not mar it. Whole spices - cinammon, cardamom, clove, peppercorn. Onion, garlic, ginger, and some red chili. That's it! Do not overkill it because spices can easily destroy it."

Presumably the addition of an eighth of a teaspoon of fennel would destroy a fine piece of mutton.

Lagers in the Craft Beer Ghetto and Other Brew News

Madison Craft Beer Week begins in nine days but The Dulcinea and I began celebrating the annual event last month with a trip to the Wisconsin Brewing Company to watch the state's brewing intelligentsia watch as Kirby Nelson's fancy new brewhouse did all the work in whipping up this year's Common Thread. For 2014 we're getting a Bohemian Pilsner made with Sterling hops instead of the traditional Saaz. It was my first visit to the new brewery and it was mighty impressive.



We arrived around 10:30 that morning only to find that the work was done. The brewers gathered from around the state were instead milling about and taking turns peering into the mash tun like expectant fathers while tour groups wandered amongst the stainless steel forest. We settled into our seats and had some beer. After an Amber, I tried the Porter Joe, their porter infused with coffee, and it was fantastic. I believe it was originally brewed as a one-off for some event but it went over well enough for another go round. It has a very nice balance between the roasted malt and coffee flavors. It's balanced and drinkable.

Here's Scott Manning from Vintage being chatted up:



And here's the brewers all lined up for their photo op:



This is Kirby test brew setup.



For a fee, you can brew a beer with Kirby on it and then invite all your friends to the tap room and enjoy it. It sounds like fun but I'd probably brew something with rye, end up with a congealed mess, and have Kirby yelling at me for hours as I cleaned it.

The tap room was expansive.



With its vaulted ceiling and all of the windows looking into the large brewhouse, it had a very industrial feel as opposed to the nice, comfy atmosphere you find at your local tavern. But it's a tasting room and not a contender for third place for locals, I suppose.

We got back into Madison a little after noon so it was off to Next Door Brewing for a nooncap.



I cannot recall what The D ordered but I went with the gose and it was delicious. A bit heavier on the salt than the previous takes on the style I've had but it was still quite enjoyable and very refreshing. I intended to return a few days later to get a growler of it but the brewpub's website didn't list it. Hopefully it'll return in the summer.

Getting back to Craft Beer Week, I feel rather underwhelmed looking at the schedule. I also feel saddened that lagers are apparently the Craft Beer Week orphans . Witness the "Lagers: An Overview" event.

It's easy to think of lagers as the bland and flavorless over-produced light beer domestically produced, but they can range anywhere from new and exciting styles like the hoppy India Pale Lager to the traditional deep, rich maltiness of a doppelbock. We'll have some of our favorite examples on hand for you to try.

It seems that every other event that week will be about barrel-aged imperial stouts, IPAs, and sours brewed with bacteria recently extracted from the deepest, darkest depths of the Congo and so lagers are thrown into the ghetto and get a token event. I am reminded of a recent blog post by Lew Bryson (a man on a crusade to promote session beers) in which he was critical of craft brewing groupthink:

I'm actually getting more concerned about the lame groupthink and sheep mentality represented by "session IPA," especially since it's Sierra Nevada. I really expected something better from a brewer that has produced an iconic, leading Pale Ale, Barleywine, American Stout. I expected a brilliant Bitter, a fearless Mild. But we got a following beer from a brewer that's a leader. I expect better.

I expect better from the whole industry. I should be happy on Session Beer Day, and to some extent, I am! It's great, we're seeing a LOT more session strength beers from notable brewers, and more and more of them at brewpubs. But...an unending parade of "session IPA"?

GOD DAMN IT, AMERICAN BREWERS! You're BETTER than this! And I'm not just talking about session. American craft brewing has become a pathetic nation of followers. Look, a sour sold, let's make one! Look, session IPA sold, let's make one! Look, limited edition beers sold, let's make one! I weep for you. Truly. Show some balls, at least come up with your own name, like "fractional IPA."

Moving back to Kirby and Wisconsin Brewing, they now have a Maibock out called Big Sweet Life.



I've not had it yet but have been told it's a bit hoppier than the version Kirby brewed at Capital and perhaps slightly less sweet as well. Rumor has it that Porter Joe will be draught-only for a bit before being bottled later this year. Kirby apparently has a helles ready for release and is planning an Oktoberfest "with a twist". Lastly I'll note that Wisconsin Brewing Company has inked a distribution deal for the Chicago market. The distributor, Chicago Cluster, "blankets" the northern half of Illinois which means the brewery has a new market that is roughly double the size of its Wisconsin market. They seem to be on track of meeting their 250,000 barrel goal. Add in the Twin Cities and Wisconsin Brewing can become quite a regional brewer.

Tickets for the Great Taste of the Midwest go on sale 4 May at noon. There are some changes this year as detailed in this blog post. Ticket prices are up to $60, for starters. The Malt House and west side Vintage are new ticket outlets while the Tyranena tasting room is out.

I heard a few months ago that River City Distributing over in Watertown had bought the rights to various Polish beers and liquors from a Milwaukee area distributor and that the Madison area would see new brands on shelves. Neither store shelves nor the company's website reflect this. Has anyone else heard about deal? Hell, maybe there's an Okacim IPA to be had.

The winners of this year's World Beer Cup were announced earlier this month. Talk about groupthink – check out the categories with the most entries:

3rd) Wood- and Barrel-Aged Strong Beer
2nd) American-Style Pale Ale
And 1st place goes to...American Style India Pale Ale!

I am shocked. Shocked!

Wisconsin breweries brought home some medals:

Sprecher Shakparo – Bronze in Gluten-Free Beer
Sprecher Black Bavarian – Gold in German-Style Schwarzbier
Central Waters' Sixteen – Gold in Wood- and Barrel-Aged Strong Stout
Vintage McLovin – Silver in Irish-Style Red Ale

Oh, and Miller won a couple of awards too.

Some new and newish brews:



While it appears to be a flavored-enhanced beer instead of a true radler, it does come in at a sessionable 4.1% ABV, quite a bit lower than most American drinks labeled "radler" and "shandy".





Don't tell Lew Bryson but Lakefront is coming out with a session IPA called Extended Play. And the latest entry in their My Turn series is Johnson, a DIPA.



Milwaukee Brewing Company has introduced Litta Bitta, a so-called white IPA, brewed with lemongrass. White IPAs, as far as I can tell, are very hoppy Belgian wit beers but the monikers "IPA" and "India" sell so everything has to be an IPA variation these days. Presumably we can look forward to an IPK – India Pale Kölsch – because, well, it has more hops and will sell like gangbusters.



I mean, just ask Capital. Their fourth IPA is Ghost Ship, a white IPA. It has coriander, orange peel, and lots of hops. I tried one of these last weekend. It tasted like an imperial witbier at first with prominent coriander and orange bitterness and then the hops kicked in and ruined it. Craft brewers should stop adding more hops to everything and then calling it an India Pale XXXXX.

Also in Capital news, a Twitter tweet shows brewer Ashley Kinart whipping up a test batch of her new beer. ETA is June. Anyone know what kind of beer she has in mind?



The Hop Garden is a hop farm just south of Madison that has also gotten into the brewing game and this is the result. It's brewed by Page out at House of Brews and is available in stores now. Robin Shepard of Isthmus profiled The Hop Garden and its owner Rich Joseph a couple months ago. This pale ale is his first brew and next comes an imperial IPA. Quelle surprise!



The latest from Schell's Noble Star line is North Country Brünette which the brewery describes as a "Märzen style Berliner Weisse". I've never heard of such a thing although the brewery claims it's a defunct style. (Where's Ron Pattinson when you need him?) My understanding is that it's a Berliner Weisse in style but with more of a Märzen grain bill. Sehr interessant!



This beer is out and may very well be gone already. I had it on tap somewhere and it was excellent. Unchained is Summit's limited edition brew series and this was, sadly enough, the first lager in the series. The brewer describes it as being "modeled after a cross between an Oktoberfest bier and a Wiesn bier". Wiesn is, from what I can tell, a lighter take on the Oktoberfest. If you see this in stores, get it. Or just let me know about it and I'll buy it.



The latest hoppy brew from Schell. I believe this will be released next month. It's described as "Combining the hop profile of west-coast American IPA’s with traditional German brewing techniques..." German, American, and French hops used in a double dry hopping. Sounds like a very hoppy pilsner. Schell gets credit from me for not calling it an India Pale Lager.



This is an entry in Stone's Spotlight Series which features brews resulting from a brewing competition held within the company. It's a rye Kölsch with black malt and extra hops. Intriguing. But was it lagered? Probably not. Too bad it's not being distributed in Wisconsin. However, there will be some in Illinois.



Speaking of Illinois, Chicago's Baderbräu has a new brew called Lawnmower Lager which is an IPL (quelle surprise!)



New Belgium's Lips of Faith series now has a gruit. I am looking forward to trying this stuff but haven't seen it around Madison.

On the New Glarus front, Yokel and Hometown Blonde are returning. Berliner Weisse is the next Thumbprint brew and we can look forward to bourbon barrel kriek, the IIPA, and Cranbic later in the year.

Homebrewer Jim Goronson is looking to open The Parched Eagle Brewpub in Middleton. I talked to Goronson about a month ago and he said he's looking at opening in November. I believe Goronson is looking at the Clownin' Around party supply store at 6301 University Avenue for his location.

Get ready for the Sunny Rest Beer Festival!



"Nudity required at the beer festival area". I love how they Photoshopped those beer glasses into the hands of those women. No doubt there will be dozens of young gals at the festival just like those on the poster.

Deus in Machina: Transcendence

Like many people, I spent Sunday reflecting on a man who dies and then is resurrected. Unlike Christians who celebrated the death and rebirth of one incarnation of their tripartite deity, I was at my local IMAX cinema watching Johnny Depp's death and resurrection in Transcendence.

Transcendence is the directorial debut of Wally Pfister, a cinematographer best known for his work with Christopher Nolan. Pfister surely knows how to lens a movie but I recalled the last time a DP whose work I respected tried his hand at directing - Lost Souls. Janusz Kaminski took a break from shooting Steven Spielberg's film to make this mediocre horror flick. Would Pfister fare any better?

The movie begins with a brief prelude featuring a man who we will come to know as Max wandering the streets of a city that has no electricity. Streetlights are dark, broken cell phones litter the ground, and a laptop is used to prop open a door. He makes his way into a backyard where he kneels before two sunflowers and begins to eulogize two of his friends.

Flashing back a couple years, we are introduced to Will (Johnny Depp) and Evelyn Caster (Rebecca Hall). Will is an artificial intelligence researcher and his wife is trying to get him motivated to get to a conference where potential funders for his project can be found. Will is the dreamer type while Evelyn is more pragmatic. He focuses on getting a computer to be self-aware, much to the detriment of bathing and sartorial choices, while she plays the mom and gets him to change into something presentable.

After his speech, in which he admits to essentially "playing God", Will is shot by a member of a group called RIFT (Revolutionary Independence From Technology) which launches attacks other AI research labs at the same time. Will survives only to discover that the bullet that he was shot with was laced with polonium and he is fated to die a slow, painful death from radiation poisoning. Evelyn recalls that Will had uploaded the "consciousness" of a monkey into his super-mega quantum computer and decides to upload Will's into it so that he may live on. Max questions this decision and whether the transferring the electrical activity of Will's brain into a computer will create something that can fairly be called Will.

At this point the movie has introduced a fair amount of interesting thematic ideas. What is consciousness? Is our humanity merely an admittedly highly complex series of electrical impulses? Unfortunately, we get a rather generic action/thriller. After Will asks to be connected to the Internet, Evelyn and Max have a falling out which leaves Evelyn to care for the electronic simulacrum of her husband alone. RIFT kidnap Max and learn of Will's transubstantiation. Meanwhile Will asks that he be connected to the Internet so that he can expand his capabilities.

With RIFT closing in, Evelyn moves to upload Will to the cloud via a satellite connection. Luckily there were no birds looking for a spot to perch and the consciousness of a human being is only a megabyte or so in size because she only had a couple of minutes to complete the upload. I wonder what file type the human consciousness comes in - .will?

With Will living on somehow on the Internet, he plays the stock market and makes tens of millions, if not more, for a company owned by Evelyn and then directs her to a small desert town called Brightwood where she is to build an underground data center where Will can live on and carry out his nebulous plan. The place ends up being massive with an even more enormous farm of solar panels powering the whole thing. Of course no one in the federal government at-large seems to notice that a very large computer laboratory is being built in the desert nor a vast amount of data traffic to and from some podunk town in the southwest. Maybe Will used IP6 and IANA never noticed.

Once fully armed and operational, Will miraculously becomes an expert in nanotechnology and begins experimenting on some of the local contractors making them into superheroes with incredible strength the and power to regenerate. In fact, Will is so goddamn good, he can grow a copy of his old body in the lab. Will has become a god and his ability to monitor Evelyn's limbic system in real time so perturbs that she loses trust in him and escapes his clutches. She is captured by the FBI who joins forces with RIFT and Will's buddy Joseph, who also ran an AI lab, to make their last stand for humanity. They get themselves some machine guns, a mortar, and a couple howitzers. Oh, and a computer virus which take out Will's systems as well as every other computer system on the planet. The plan calls for Evelyn to be infected with the virus so that, when Will uploads her consciousness into his system, it becomes infected. Bullets and explosives don't cut it against nanobots and the augmented contractors. It all comes to the bad ass RIFT lady threatening Max's life to get Will to upload the virus himself and end it all.

Perhaps it's because I work in IT but I just can't look beyond the techno-asshattery in this movie. Here the Internet is essentially magic instead of being a bunch of computers connected together. You just take a technology, add the Internet and – voila! – you have a god-like power. During the sequence when Will is being uploaded to his quantum computer, we see that it is a process that takes weeks. His face is scanned and Will is recorded reading the OED so that his likeness and voice can later be used in the interface. This takes weeks yet, after this, everything is done is done lickety split. Where did Evelyn upload Will's consciousness to? You don't upload something to the Internet, you upload it to a computer on the Internet. The electronic Will can advance nanotechnology beyond our wildest dreams, can build his old wetware body from scratch but he can't advance solar panel technology beyond the point of needing a few square miles of panels?

Beyond the IT realm, Transcendence disappoints in other ways. For instance, the world is faced with the gravest threat it's ever known short of nuclear war and all that humanity can muster in its defense is a handful of anti-technology radicals, a few G-men, a mortar, and a couple howitzers?

Moving onto the acting, I have to say that this move was a colossal waste. Johnny Depp spends a short while at the beginning playing a bland genius before spending the rest of his time doing a mediocre HAL 9000 imitation. Morgan Freeman as Joseph just called in his umpteenth performance as the wizened mentor. There was nothing unique or animated about anyone's performance here. For the most part, people stood around watching Will's next move in a mixture of awe and fear. The story didn't help much. The scene where the simulacrum of Will comes alive in the computer was positively anti-climactic. There was no time to dwell on such a momentous occasion because we had to race to Will's apotheosis. Indeed, there was no time to dwell on much at all. Why bother to consider questions about the nature of consciousness or our relationship with technology when Max has to be kidnapped and solar panels have to be erected? I think more time was devoted to showing nanobots rebulding those solar panels destroyed by mortar fire than to considering the "big questions" posed in the opening minutes of the film.

Another example of this comes at the end of the movie. The fully-resurrected Will and Evelyn are lying on a bed dying. Will reveals that the electronic simulacrum was really the old Will and that he did everything in order to bring her dream of a better world to fruition. Awwww. While a nice, tidy way to end a love story, the whole revelation was a dud because A) the movie avoided discussing whether or not the thing that the characters considered to be Will could really be loaded onto a computer and B) Will and Evelyn's relationship wasn't developed enough. The script sets Will up as an Apollonian figure – and individual who uses the human capacity of reason to its full extent while Evelyn is the Dionysian figure – she's all about advancing or healing the whole of humanity and is emotional. Will's cold expressions and voice dominate his UI while Evelyn cries and gets angry. But these antipodean dispositions don't conflict or intermingle very much and so, when Will gives his confession, it didn't feel like it resolved much. Rather than a relationship tempered by opposing outlooks ending with a bang, it limped to a conclusion with a whimper.

Transcendence reminded me of many cinematic adaptions of Philip K. Dick novels. Take the interesting concepts and then ignore them as ideas and instead use them as springboards for excitement, action, violence, and fresh fruit!

Alles Gute zum Geburtstag, Piper!

Our Kätzchen is now a Katze. Here she is a day or two old.



And here she is today on her first birthday.



Unfortunately I wasn't able to get a decent snap this morning. It'll just have to do. I suspect she'll be spending her birthday sleeping, fighting with Marilyn (our other Katze), and causing general mayhem with toilet paper, facial tissue, and the like.