Haunted UW

Schottenfreude

This book looks to be a must-read.



I can definitely relate to Kissenkühlelabsal.

Charlemagne to Stewards: Hire Good Brewers (And Other Beer Notes)

I recently read the Carolingian capitulary called De Villis. Written around 800, it's a set of administrative rules for the stewards of estates in the kingdom. Number 61 is especially important:

During the time the steward performs his service, he should have his malt delivered to the palace. Similarly, let masters come who know how to make good beer there.

Charlemagne not only oversaw the Carolingian Renaissance but he also directed that estates have good beer. A very wise ruler was he.

Some new beers:











I've seen the Potosi doppelbock at Jenifer Street Market and I believe the Geneva Lake brew is there as well. So, Central Waters is making a chili beer. Is this the new trend in craft beer? Great Dane recently released three chili beers and Capital has eschewed the doppelbock and turned Eternal Flame into a Chocolate Habanero Stout.

I'll be in the Chicago area next month to celebrate Doctor Who's 50th anniversary and am looking forward to my annual trek to Binny's. Metropolitan's new brews are definitely on my list:





Oktoberfests are very tasty indeed but schwarzbier is the nektar of the gods. Well, one of them, anyway. Notice how there's no barrel aging, no brett, no chilies - just malty goodness. If Wisconsin could only have a craft lager brewery.

Also coming soon is Lakefront's latest in their My Turn series, John, a sour cherry dark lager. Sounds very tasty.

In other good news, Schell's Chimney Sweep, a dunkles rauch, returns this winter. My review is here. In short, it's great stuff. It is nice to see a rauch beer get something more than a super-limited Brigadoon-like release. Speaking of which, Lakefront's Luther, a helles rauch, is still on shelves even though it was released last fall. (Review here.) If I made a top 10 list for best beers I drank this year, it would surely be near the top, if not at it. A fantastic brew. Why does the craft community show so little love to rauchbiers?

I had a glass of this year's Pumpkinataur by Capital. Last year's batch was much better. The stuff out now in bottles doesn't have the velvety mouthfeel like it did last fall and the nutmeg is much more prominent. Pumpkinataur came in first in a tasting of spiced beers featured in the latest issue of Grain & Grape but it reminded me of why I generally avoid any beer that has the word "pumpkin" on the label. And while I'm at it:

Dear Brewers, Jenifer Street Market, et al,

Nutmeg, allspice, clove, ginger, and cinnamon are spices, not "pumpkin spices" in the same way that cayenne peppers are not Buffalo wing spice. They have a long culinary history that pre-dates Europeans setting foot in North America. Medieval chefs were spicing meat dishes with duke's powder, a spice blend that includes nutmeg, clove, ginger, and cinnamon, long before any white man ever tripped over a squash.

Has anyone tried these?





I suppose it was only a matter of time that mead and cider would have hops added to them after the introduction of hop whiskey and hop vodka. Madison Sourdough even has a bread with hops in it. Hop-flavored breakfast cereals can't be far behind. Why must everything be made to smell and/or taste like a West Coast IPA? This trend can die now.

I heard a rumor that a certain Madison homebrewer is looking to open a brewpub in Middleton in an empty storefront on University Avenue. I've had some of this person's beer and heartily endorse the idea.

Vintage is expanding into Sauk City with the Woodshed Ale House. There will be no brewing on the premises. From Robin Shepard:

As for the beers to be served the Woodshed Ale House, Manning's Woodshed IPA will be an obvious signature brew. The Sauk City tavern will not have its own brewing operation, but Manning will use his Vintage brewhouse to make special brews for its taps. He'll also serve a wide range of craft beers and a few Vintage brewing standards that include a golden lager, coffee stout and rye pale ale. "It'll be interesting to see what people want from us and what we can develop just for them," says Manning.

Manning is currently brewing the first house beer for Woodshed Ale House. Named "Sauk Hop," it's an American pale ale and features all locally harvested hops (Cascade, Nugget and Mount Hood) grown on a farm just outside Sauk City.

Earlier this year I asked Scott to brew a Baltic porter and he did. But not just your run-of-the-mill Baltic porter. He made his with smoked wheat. And he called it "Ulfberht" after a Viking sword featured in an episode of NOVA. The folks at NOVA got wind of this and interviewed Scott. I second his idea for a "NOVA special on fermentation and human culture".

The biggest news in the local brewing scene is the impending opening of the Wisconsin Brewing Company. They threw an invite-only soiree last weekend which you can read about at The Daily Page and the Wisconsin State Journal profiled the company the next day.

On Friday the taproom opens as does distribution in Verona. The brews will make their way to the rest of the Madison area on Monday. Their line-up will be an IPA, a session IPA, a porter, and an amber lager. I tried the porter when it was on tap at Vintage and enjoyed it quite a bit. Still, it is a bit disheartening to see Kirby, a man whose love of German lagers is well-known, now spending his time brewing IPAs. But the plan is to max out the shiny new brewery's 100,000 barrel a year capacity ASAP and expand to one and half times that output in short order. You can't do that with dunkels and pilsners. Hopefully this drive for quantity won't discourage Kirby from trying out new recipes.

To that end, allow me to offer some suggestions which would be more in line with German brewing traditions yet also differentiate WBC from every other Tom, Dick, and Harry with their IPAs:

-- Rauchesha - a fine helles rauch. Tagline: "The only rauchesha in the world."

-- Maibier - a Kölsch-syle beer with woodruff. Served in the taproom by dirndl-clad maidens with floral crowns.

-- Roggen Roll - a rye amber lager.

-- Manoomator - a wild rice doppelbock. Oh wait. That's been done. Still, how can a brewery with Kirby as brewmaster not have a wild rice beer?

-- Traubenator - blonde doppelbock aged in Riesling barrels.

-- Curse of the Mumme - a Schiff-Mumme. Could be a fine fall seasonal.

-- Verona Weisse - a Berliner Weisse with cranberry. You don't get more Wisconsin.

-- Hölle Hefeweizen - a hefeweizen with habeneros.

See, these beers are guaranteed to make your brewery stand out. They combine Teutonic tradition with New World flare plus they cover most of the craft beer trends. You've got barrel aging, a sour, an extinct style resurrected, and a chili beer.

Did you catch Triumph at the Great American Beer Festival?

NIMBYism in Lake Edge

The Cap Times published an article today by Mike Ivey called "Royster Corners fights perception about density of low-income housing" which was prompted by a recent meeting between the developers and the neighborhood. The project replaces the Royster-Clark fertilizer factory which was torn down a couple of years ago and will feature apartments, single family homes, and retail space. According to Ivey's account of the meeting, "some neighbors were focused solely on the apartment being built with Section 42 affordable housing tax credits." Ivey then adds:

The apartments in question are billed as “workforce housing” priced for households at 60 or 80 percent of the Dane County Area Median Income ("AMI"). For a one-person household, 80 percent of the AMI works out to $45,100. For a family of four, it's $64,400.

Ahrens notes that most of the 60 percent units are aimed at people with disabilities or families with a disabled family member.

The whole situation comes across as whites in the neighborhood expressing dismay at an influx of people of color while the neighborhood's alderman, David Ahrens, tries to quell those fears by noting that the lowest-income housing in this project will mostly be populated by disabled people and their families with "disabled" being a code word for nice, quiet, and white. I was not at the meeting in question nor do I pretend to know what's in the hearts of those neighbors who were focused on the "workforce housing". But I do know that this country is no stranger to housing segregation and that subsidized housing is often associated with people of color. What concerns of people focused on the subsidized housing alone are addressed by noting that much of it will be going to disabled people and their families?

America's Future Is In Good Hands

There are some sorority gals on Bascom Hill trying to put up a banner. They brought it along with a couple fence posts but apparently neglected to bring an implement to pound the posts into the ground. One seems to have borrowed a hammer from the construction crew on Park Street and was trying to pound the post into the ground. Of course she was shorter than the post and was standing downhill from it making it very hard going.

The Cabal Strikes Back: The Dark Volume by Gordon Dahlquist

I so thoroughly enjoyed Gordon Dahlquist's Glass Books of the Dream Easters that I'm not quite sure why it took me so long to read the follow-up, The Dark Volume.

As the title implies, a pall hangs over the proceedings here. This would seem to be The Empire Strikes Back for the series. There is still plenty of action featuring our heroes squeezing out of perilous situations just in the nick of time, but there's also more introversion on their parts with each of them mining their souls and finding sadness.

Just as in the opening of the first book, The Dark Volume begins with Miss Temple finding herself abandoned. Instead of a husband gone AWOL, she awakens in a strange room in a strange house with neither Doctor Svenson nor Cardinal Chang present. She discovers that the three of them along with Elöise Dujong, tutor to the children of cabal member Arthur Trapping, all washed ashore on the Iron Coast after the events on the dirigible which closed out the first volume. Although Miss Temple survived the sea, she fell ill and came ashore unconscious.

The party was taken in by local villagers and they bided their time until Miss Temple awoke and was in good enough health to move. During this time the village was beset by a series of ghastly murders. Chang investigates but discovers soldiers who were likely sent by whomever in the government remains that is in league with the cabal. However, his unconventional appearance draws suspicion from the locals and he is forced to flee. Svenson also investigates and discovers traces of the indigo clay at the murder scenes and on the victims as well. It would seem that some members of the cabal had survived the dirigible crash as well. He pursues the killer trusting that Elöise will care for Miss Temple.

The book proceeds in chapters which alternately focus on one of the three main characters. Eventually everyone makes there way to a town where they can catch a train back to the city. Along the way Miss Temple runs into the Contessa and we discover that Francis Xonck is alive though decidedly not well. He used some of the blue glass to deal with the bullet to the chest delivered by Doctor Svenson. The glass saved his life but it has sickened him and he is obviously not long of the earth.

As I noted earlier, The Dark Volume delves inside the heads of our protagonists much more than did The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters. For her part, Miss Temple is plagued by salacious visions and urges that she received after an encounter with a glass book and which she, at times, cannot contain. She is disturbed at how she has been transformed from a proper lady who enjoyed, nay, demanded the finer things in life into a killer. At one point, however, she realizes that she cannot return to her former life no matter how much she wished to do so. In possession of a blue glass book that survived the dirigible wreckers and which the surviving members of the cabal seek, she plunges her hand into it and absorbs even more memories.

Doctor Svenson finds himself a wanted man by the authorities in his home of Mecklenburg as well as by those in the home country of the cabal which he visited as attendant to the prince. He has feelings for Elöise but she is not wholly able to return them. She had some of her memories drained away by a glass book and, like Miss Temple, is in the midst of an identity crisis. In addition, it would seem that she was in a relationship with another which drives Svenson away despite his attraction to her.

Cardinal Chang is still bogged down by his unrequited feelings for Angelique. Previously she had been turned to blue glass by the Comte and there is a rather doleful scene here in which Chang returns to Harschmort House and walks over her shattered remains. He makes his way back to the city and contemplates escaping to his old ways of being a denizen of the night who lives on the fringe of society. But a run-in with two old enemies from the streets convinces him that he cannot just melt back into the shadows and that he has no choice but to see his campaign against the cabal through to its end.

Indeed, this realization comes to Miss Temple and Doctor Svenson as well. Eventually everyone is back in the city, including the Contessa and Xonck. There it is discovered that the machinations of the cabal did not come to an end that fateful day out on the sea but rather that they continue. The Comte's machinery was taken from Harschmort House destined for a new home and the powers of the indigo clay to be harnessed by a new villain.

While the character development is most welcome The Dark Volume is, like its predecessor, just plain fun. Our heroes are frequently on the run as they learn the truth of the forces they face. They are captured and escape by the skin of their teeth. I liked how Dahlquist would present a scene from one character's point of view and then reveal in the next chapter that one of the other characters had been there as well. Plus he has a great talent for slowing down the action and ratcheting up the tension. For example, in one sequence Chang is chased from the Stropping train station into a tunnel which has a siding where rests the Comte's personal train car filled with his grim machinery for the Process. He takes refuge in the car and, when he hears people about to enter, hides in the coffin-like apparatus which transformed Angelique into a glass woman. Will they discover him or will Chang make a lucky escape?

A wholly different kind of tension is built up in a scene where Miss Temple and the Contessa are hiding out in a freight car on a train heading back to the city. We learn a bit more about the Contessa including that she is not totally without honor. However, this doesn't prevent her from toying with Miss Temple in a wonderful sexually-charged moment. Will Miss Temple be able to control the erotic urges spawned by the memories from the book that are trapped inside her mind? Or will she be able to release the tension?

The book ends with a clear setup for the third and, sadly, final volume The Chemickal Marriage. I, for one, will be sad to bid farewell to Miss Temple, Cardinal Chang, and Doctor Svenson.

Another Side of World War II: The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang

Having read Iris Chang's The Chinese in America and found it quite engaging and enlightening, I was happy to find another of her books, The Rape of Nanking.

I was a bit perturbed while reading the introduction when I ran across this: “Yet the Rape of Nanking remains an obscure incident.” Chang goes on to list various well-known histories of World War II which mention the Japanese atrocities in Nanking only in passing, if at all. Having had a father who was a WWII history buff, I knew about the Rape of Nanking, so I am at somewhat of an advantage over many people regarding the conflict. Still, one would think the sheer cruelty on display those several weeks would have taken their place alongside other infamous acts of barbarity from the war.

The book addresses two broad aspects to the topic at hand. The first is a prelude to and then the Rape itself along with a diversion into the Japanese mentality that led to it. After this, Chang looks at the event as viewed from outside Asia as well as the aftermath on personal and geopolitical levels.

In July of 1937 Japanese troops stationed in the Chinese city of Tientsin took gunfire one night while training near the Marco Polo Bridge. The next morning of the soldiers was missing from roll call. This incident escalated and led to a full-scale invasion of China. Thus began the Second Sino-Japanese War. The battle for Shanghai lasted a few months before the Japanese ultimately retained control in November. From there the armies marched to Nanking, the capital of the Republic of China and home to 1+ million people. With the Japanese advancing, many fled the city but there were still some 600,000-700,000 people there when the Japanese assault started on 9 December. By the 13th, Nanking had fallen and the unthinkable began.

What the Japanese did to the people in Nanking would have made Genghis Khan proud. Prisoners of war could not be fed or housed so they were killed. Citizens were shot in the back indiscriminately. And this is just the beginning because the savagery of the Japanese army knew no bounds. Chinese men were strung up alive and used for bayonet practice. Some were nailed to boards and run over by tanks. Others were buried or burned alive, often after having had their noses and ears hacked off. A killing contest between two soldiers made it into at least one Japanese newspaper.

The women in Nanking suffered just as much as the men. It is estimated that some 20,000-80,000 females were raped. From young girls to old women, no age group was spared. Some of them were so brutally gang raped that they died from the assaults. Those who refused sex were often killed. And as the story of one Mrs. Hsia, illustrates, women were often killed after having been raped. Mrs. Hsia received a bayonet in the chest when the Japanese soldiers were done with her and a perfume bottle was shoved into her vagina. The same fate befell her teenage daughters while a baby was simply killed by bayonet.

While I knew of the Rape, one thing I didn't know was that, amidst the carnage, there was a safety zone set up by Western businessmen, clergy, et al in the center of Nanking. It sheltered tens of thousands of Chinese and the book profiles a trio of Westerners who bravely helped whomever they could. Surprisingly, one of them, John Rabe, was a Nazi. Also profiled are two Americans, surgeon Robert Wilson and Wilhelmina Vautrin, a missionary. Their stories have them confronting Japanese soldiers to save the lives of the Chinese who sought shelter in the zone. Wilson worked for hours on end to administer care to the wounded. Their diaries chronicle the horrors they witnessed and became important tools to counter Japanese claims that Rape never happened or was greatly exaggerated.

Almost as soon as the Rape had petered out, reports of it began to leak to the West and the Japanese began a propaganda campaign to cover up what they had done. Reporter George Fitch risked his life to smuggle out 16mm film of the Rape while the Japanese gussied up small sections of the city and held it up as an example of how well they had treated the Chinese and the city.

After the war ended the Tokyo War Crimes Trial began in 1946 and, while it would bring a measure of justice to the survivors in Nanking, it was not a complete victory. Guilty verdicts were handed down for some military officers and they paid the ultimate price, but the terms of surrender for Japan with the United States meant that neither Emperor Hirohito nor any of the royal family would be tried for war crimes.

The final chapters show the further indignities foisted on the survivors of the Rape of Nanking. Many of the Chinese survivors fell into poverty and never got out of it. The Westerners who are profiled suffered from extreme mental anguish and had to deal with an incredulous public. Rabe, for his part, fell out of favor with the Nazis and died a pauper. But perhaps the greatest indignity comes from the many Japanese people, from politicians and academics on down the line, who deny that the Rape of Nanking ever happened. The book was published in 1997 and at that time there were still men in power in Japan who would gainsay despite all of the evidence to the contrary.

The Rape of Nanking was a subject near and dear to Iris Chang's heart. (She died in 2004.) This certainly doesn't make this book unreliable but she does tend to favor the larger estimates of death tolls and the like. She also advocates the idea that the Emperor and other royalty knew of the atrocities but did nothing to stop them. This would seem to be little more than guesswork. While I'll leave it to historians to argue the numbers and lay odds on whether Hirohito knew about what his armies were doing in Nanking, Chang surely did a great service by writing a book for the layreader on this topic.

I appreciated how she asks her readers to enlarge their understanding of World War II. In the opening paragraph Chang addresses the notion of exactly when the war began. For Americans, she says, it was with Pearl Harbor. For Europeans, it was the German invasion of Poland. But to Asians it was the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931. This is a very simple yet effective way to introduce the idea of differing perspectives which is so important in the story here. The Japanese felt themselves to be a master race while the Chinese were sub-human; Americans had to deal with political vs. moral perspectives; many Americans couldn't believe that the Rape had occurred which spurred the organizers of the safety zone to act, etc.

So why did the Rape of Nanking fade into relative obscurity? It's a tough question and Chang offers various answers. For one, the American government tried to juggle moral outrage for the crimes and a desire to rehabilitate Japan after the war. The Tokyo War Crimes Trials were low-key when contrasted with the Nuremberg Trials. The U.S. kept Hirohito in power and shielded him from prosecution in order to get Japan on its feet more quickly. Another reason was the communist takeover of China which cut off the survivors of Nanking from the outside world and the outside world from any historical documentation regarding the events. Books have been written about the incident, Japanese officers were tried and found guilty but there were perhaps too few books and too little attention paid to the trials for the Rape of Nanking to enter American consciousness the way something like the Holocaust did. Chang doesn't explain why Winston Churchill and others gloss over or omit the Rape from their histories of World War II. Perhaps they don't consider the event to have been a part of the war – it was part of an intra-Asian conflict that is more of a prelude than an actual battle in the war itself. I wouldn't doubt that recognition of it faded in America because it did not involve many Americans and pre-dated America's entry into the conflict.

The Rape of Nanking may have its flaws as a history but it does tell the story of a rather forgotten episode of World War II. I can imagine that, at the time of its publication, it must have stood out in contrast to Stephen Ambrose's barrage of books as a stark reminder that there was more to WWII than D-Day. And this, I think, is the book's real triumph. It tells a story about World War II for the layreader that isn't about the "Greatest Generation" fighting evil on a battlefield. It's not Anglo-centric and the heroes aren't trained soldiers dying for their country but civilians taking a stand for humanity.

That BBQ Joint: First Impression

That BBQ Joint opened on Willy Street last week so I stopped in after work to sample the smoky comestibles. The place was empty but the garbage cans were full. The decor was rather utilitarian. There were a few small tables with stools against the windows but that's about it. Take away is the order of the day.



I purchased a rack of ribs, which came with garlic bread, and some vinegar coleslaw. In addition, I brought home some of their regular BBQ sauce. The ribs were tender but not falling off the bone. When you rip off the meat, you can see the smoke ring. Curiously enough, the rib tips were still attached which methinks disqualifies them as St. Louis-style. They had a wonderful smoky flavor. The sauce, which came on the side, was tomato-based and had a nice sweet-tangy balance.

The garlic bread was fine while the coleslaw was a bit too sweet for me. I prefer slaw in a vinegar-based dressing to emphasize the tartness of the vinegar. Sugar shouldn't neutralize the vinegar, just take the edge off.

As I was getting the bill settled, a gentleman came in and took his place in line behind me. We chatted briefly and he noted that this was his second go-round of the day. Earlier he had tried out the pork shoulder and was so smitten that he had returned to try the ribs.

So far, so good for That BBQ Joint. Hopefully the neighborhood embraces them, although I was not present during any breast-feeding so we shall see. Personally, I still give Papa Bear's sauce an edge, but TBBQJ has the advantage of being closer to home. As a bonus, TBBQJ doesn't have a stupid, sexist drink menu like it's nearest competitor.

The German Love of Beer Has Ancient Roots

I've been reading of bit of Tacitus lately, specifically Germania which dates from the first century C.E. In it the historian describes the Germanic tribes encountered by the Romans. This passage stood out:

A liquor for drinking bearing a certain resemblance to wine is made by the process of fermentation from barley or other grain.

And people thought of them as barbarians. It is surely a sign of an advanced and highly civilized culture that they brewed beer.

That BBQ Joint Opens Tomorrow

That BBQ Joint was supposed to have opened last week on the 1st but the new opening date is apparently tomorrow. A friend of mine, who travels to St. Louis to eat BBQ, stopped there on the 1st and discovered that they were not yet open for business due to ventilation issues but was given some samples. His thoughts:

The pork? "Scrumptious." He enjoyed the brisket too: "...best brisket I've had north of the Mason-Dixon." The ribs were "very good" and an "excellent example of St Louis rib."

That BBQ Joint is at 1511 Williamson Street, the former home of Batch Bakery and Pavlov's Pizza. (R.I.P.)

Where's Evan Rail When You Need Him? Lazy Monk Brewing's Bohemian Dark Lager

Eau Claire's Lazy Monk Brewing is the brainchild of Leos Frank, who emigrated from Czechoslovakia in the early 1990s. His distaste for American beer led him into homebrewing and from there he took the leap into commercial brewing a few years ago. His brews are traditional styles from his homeland and nearby Bavaria which makes for a beer list which is, to my taste, pleasantly devoid of any iteration of pale ale. Indeed, there are no ales at all to be found.

A recent trek to Eau Claire led me to the wonderful Just Local Food Co-op which had Lazy Monk growlers as well as recently-introduced cans. I bought one of the former filled with Frank's Bohemian Dark Lager. My knowledge of Czech beer styles is very, very limited but I gather this brew would be considered a Černé Pivo. How does this style differ from the Munich dunkles or a schwarzbier? Not sure about that...

Bohemian Dark Lager pours a luscious deep amber and is very clear once you put your glass up to the light. I got a pretty decent head that stuck around for a while but there wasn't much Schaumhaftvermoegen to speak of as it immediately fell back into the beer. Much to my shame, I had a bit of a stuffy nose when I drank this and so all I could catch were the wonderful roasted grains and a bit of stone fruit.

The beer had a medium-light mouthfeel and I tasted primarily those darker malts which reminded me of well-done toast. There was also a bit of plum-like flavor as well just like in the nose. The real difference between this brew and the dunkels and schwarzbiers I've had is that this was much less sweet than a Bavarian dunkles and much more dry than either of the German styles. Indeed, this is one of the driest beers I've ever had. I think it was due to, not only having the yeast deal with most of the sugars but also because of the carbonation and hops. Of the latter, I didn't taste a whole lot as I was expecting. There was a bit of that spiciness but it didn't pop out at me like Saaz does in a Bohemian pilsner.

The finish continued the dry theme along with some mild grassiness.

Bohemian Dark Lager was a thoroughly enjoyable brew and unlike any dark lager that I've ever had. I can't say much in terms of how it adheres to the style as found in the Czech Republic today but it definitely fits in with the descriptions of the style that Evan Rail and Ron Pattinson give.

Junk food pairing: Bohemian Dark lager pairs well with meat flavored snacks like Ruffles Flame Grilled Steak potato chips or Snyder's Cheeseburger Pretzel Pieces.

Don't Move Your Lips - Hips Don't Lie from Lucette Brewing

Lucette Brewing up in Menomonie have a generally good reputation as near as I can tell and I found myself intrigued by Hips Don't Lie, a weissbier with honey and rose hips. This, their first German-style brew to my knowledge, sounded like a good combination of flavors. I found myself in Eau Claire recently and purchased a six-pack at the Just Local food co-op which had what I thought of as being very reasonable beer prices and a nice selection of brews from the northern part of our fair state.

Hips Don't Lie pours a beautiful gold and is clear making it a kristallweizen. There was a goodly amount of bubbles in my glass making their way up. I got a nice fluffy head which lasted a fair amount of time. The smell was wonderful. I caught mostly that wonderful estery banana goodness but I also discerned a bit of phenol in there with a moderate bit of close in there. The aroma also had an earthy sweetness which I presume comes from the honey as well as a faint floral aspect which was probably the rose hips peeking through. My experience with rose hips comes mostly from jelly which means I am no expert.

The taste is mostly like you'd expect from a weissbier. I found those banana esters to very prominent and really couldn't taste the more clove-like elements which were present in the aroma. The honey was easy to taste and added a mellow sweetness which complemented the fruity aspect of the bier plus the carbonation gave it a slight dryness that made a nice foil to all the fruitiness. All of this came in a brew that had a medium-light mouthfeel. It was very tasty and refreshing up to this point. Things took a turn for the worse as the beer made its way back on my tongue. An off taste began as an overdose of noble hops but quickly became a very prominent astringent taste took over as we neared the finish. It's was a bit like the taste of very cheap, very potent hooch. I presume the flavor came from fusel alcohols. Whatever they were, this taste ruined the whole beer. It finished with a bit of dryness, a bit of lingering banana, some of the floral essence first encountered in the nose, and astringency.

What a disappointment. Had the astringent flavor not been present, it would have been a wonderful bier. Hips Don't Lie is 6.2% ABV, which is a bit high, but it's fall so I can't complain. It's fairly intense banana flavor melded with the honey very well and the rose hips made a pleasant addition to the aroma and finish. Unfortunately, the off flavor consigned this bier to the drain.

Junk food pairing: If you can look past the paint stripper flavor, then pair Hips Don't Lie with Snyder's Buttermilk Ranch pretzel pieces.

Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Drink This Beer - Berliner Weisse from Hinterland

A few years ago virtually no one outside of food microbiology circles knew what brettanomyces was and now, curiously enough, office drones around the country are raising glasses filled with the beer equivalent of limburger cheese extolling the virtues of the yeast. Sour beers are the latest trend in American microbrewing. It seems like sour English and Belgian styles are the most common but it's hardly surprising that the Berliner Weisse would get dragged along on the coattails.

The history of the Berliner Weisse goes back centuries and it was an exceedingly popular beer a couple hundred years ago. Today, not so much. It is a very light sour wheat beer that's low on hops. The sourness comes from an addition of lactic acid or some fine Lactobacillus bacteria although I've read that, back in the day, secondary conditioning allowed for brettanomyces to enter into the picture so drinkers could enjoy the lemony tartness of lacto as well as some of that barnyard flavor. At some point it became traditional to serve the beer “mit Schluss” or “with syrup” meaning a shot of flavored syrup was added to counteract the tartness. Waldmeister (woodruff) or Himbeere (raspberry) became standard flavors.

New Glarus brewed their Berliner Weisse for the second time this year and so Hinterland is only the second Wisconsin brewery I know of to brew this style and bottle it. I wouldn't doubt that various brewpubs around the state have made it and Lakefront teamed with Leinenkugel earlier this year for a batch served at the Wisconsin Restaurant Expo as well as at various bars during Milwaukee's Craft Beer Week, but as far as stuff you could grab at the store, pickings are slim.

As one would expect, Hinterland's Berliner Weisse poured a brilliant straw color with a lovely frothy head that went away all too soon. It was also pretty clear whereas the style is generally cloudy. All of those big champagne-like bubbles were highly visible. It smelled really nice with the sourness being rather mild here alongside a sweetness that reminded me of apricot.

Things were going well until I actually tasted it. The beer had the requisite lemony tartness to it and it came in a good quantity too. It was there and flavorful but not going to give you the Homer Simpson Super Sour Ball face. Beyond this, the beer had a lot of off flavors. Underneath the sour was creamed corn, for starters. And before the finish I tasted a soapy flavor. There was also a rather harsh, almost astringent, taste present as well. I wonder if there was a hopping accident. Mouthfeel was thin even for this style, in my opinion, and you could also taste those bubbles.

It finished with a not-unpleasant tartness that lingered.

I sincerely hope I got a bad bottle because this beer was just dreadful. It had a good tart flavor that was in the perfect proportion but all those odd stray flavors were just too prominent. Even lactobacillus couldn't change my impression that I was drinking mostly de-scented Ivory soap.

Junk food pairing: My best advice is to avoid this beer. But, if you're a masochist, try some habenero cheese puffs, if they exist, and rub them in your eyes. Hopefully you will be in such pain that you won't notice you're actually drinking this stuff. Otherwise, eat anything else you can get your hands on in large quantities.

Love Hurts - Doctor Who: Love and War

Paul Cornell's Love and War has a very good reputation amongst Doctor Who fans. Indeed, it is just short of legendary and is generally considered one of the high points of the entire Virgin New Adventures series. Ergo I was very keen on digging into the novel. Once I was done I wished that I had never read about the NSAs. I knew too much about the story from having read DW forums and blogs. I can only imagine what it would have been like to have devoured this book upon its publication in 1992 oblivious to its dramatic revelations and unaware of the reputation it would gain in the years to come.

There will be spoilers in this post so anyone wishing to preserve a little bit of the bliss of ignorance would do well to leave now. I would also admonish folks who are contemplating making their way through the NSAs to, not only avoid my reviews, but to also steer clear of any chatter of them on the Internet. I don't mean to sound melodramatic here but, having read this book knowing a fair amount of what gives it its reputation, I feel that its impact was dulled a bit; like watching a film after seeing a trailer that gave away too much. You have been warned.

Love and War is a rather dark tale. It begins with Ace attending the funeral of her friend Julian and recalling a particular drive out in the country they took together. This tender, if bittersweet, moment gives way to the fate of a couple patrol ships in the far future on the look out for Daleks when they are attacked by one of the more eerie creations seen in DW, a giant sphere made of dead flesh and skin.

The Doctor and Ace land on the planet Heaven, which is rather bucolic until you find out that it's a necropolis. Humans and Draconians had been fighting for ages and the planet was declared a neutral zone where the war dead could be buried and their remains rest peace. The Timelord is keen on heading to the library as he wants to get his hands on a copy of The Papers of Felsecar. For her part, Ace is intrigued by a band of space hippies who wouldn't have been out of place at a Grateful Dead concert. They are gathered in a marketplace of Joycetown selling wares and making music. Our young companion finds herself smitten with one of them, a man named Jan.

Also on Heaven is Professor Bernice Summerfield who is digging up the ruins left behind by the original inhabitants. Curiously enough, neither she nor anyone else have ever found any remains of the Heavenites themselves. Bernice is a woman of 30 and, in addition to being in possession of a sharp tongue, she can also ride horse, acquit herself well in swordplay, and loves a stiff drink.

But all is not well on Heaven as we learn early on when a priest of the Church of the Vacuum, Phaedrus, sacrifices his friend Piers. Eldritch fibers are nourished by his blood and make their way into the gaping wound. In almost no time Piers' body is transformed into a Hoothi, a large fungoid creature covered in more of those filaments and writhing tentacles to boot. The Hoothi have tremendous psychic powers and are like the Borg in that they are a gestalt race. And if you thought that Sawyer from LOST was well-versed in the long game, well, he's got nothing on the Hoothi who are looking at the end game of a plan that has been in motion for a thousand millennia.

One of the elements that gives Love and War its reputation is that The Doctor keeps his cards close to his chest and is highly manipulative. He lets on what he knows in spurts and fits and just when you think he has finally shared everything, you find out that he still had a plan simmering on the back burner. Here, things get very bad as the Hoothi long game nears fruition. Filaments are infecting people left and right and even the dead, of which there are many, are reanimated by them and the Hoothi's vast powers. The Doctor devises a plan which involves sacrificing Jan to the Hoothi to get him aboard their necro-dirigible and appealing to his conscience so that he activates his superpower (summoning flame) to take out the mothership a la the Hindenburg.

This doesn't go down well with Ace who had fallen in love with Jan. She is furious with The Doctor and cannot even face him. When he approaches her, she threatens him. Cornell portrays her anger very well. It was truly sad and disturbing to read the passages showing how their relationship – the one I've enjoyed for literally decades – had been split in two. Ace can longer bear to be in his presence and so leaves The Doctor. You can read about how the TV show's writers had planned to have Ace leave had the show not been canceled and it was a million miles away from the grand betrayal here.

Considering all I've read about the NSAs, including this book, and how The Doctor becomes darker, more manipulative, and so on, these events, while shocking, didn't feel new. The Doctor did much the same thing on TV in “The Curse of Fenric”. In that story he forces Ace to confront her past and engages an enemy who has its own long game. He hurts Ace with insults to get her to lose faith in him to defeat Fenric. Now, that's not the same as sending Jan off to die but it's manipulation in both cases. It's a difference of degree, not kind.

Bernice ends up becoming The Doctor's new companion. It's a nice change. Bernice is not a teenage girl and has a different perspective on life. She is a woman of action and can hold her own in verbal sparring matches with the Timelord. I look forward to reading how she develops and fits into the adventures.

Love and War certainly lived up to its reputation. Quite aside from The Doctor and Ace's friendship being torn asunder, it is notable for delving into Ace's character. There's a lot of scheming to be done so The Doctor is busy concealing that and so we get a peek into Ace's heart. She falls for Jan, even if it feels more like a teenage crush than true love. While the whole love at first sight thing felt forced, I thought that Cornell handled it well from then on. I thought he captured the confusion surrounding teenage attraction.

Relationships set this book apart from the TV show. In addition to Ace's crush, Jan is also in love with a fellow space hippie named Roisa who is in turn in love with the group's priestess, Maire. So you've got Ace's crush, polygamy, and a homosexual relationship and, while this is an action/adventure tale at heart, all of these relationships and their attendant emotional complications give depth to the story. The agonies seem genuine even if the relationships aren't fully realized on the page.

An aspect of the story found interesting was how Cornell foreshadowed the actions of our two heroes. In Ace's case, her relationship with Julian prefigured the one she had with Jan. For The Doctor this came in an odd passage in the guise of one of Ace's dream in which he meets Death again, the first time having been in Cornell's previous NSA Timewyrm: Revelation. Here Death accuses the Seventh Doctor of having “killed” the Sixth Doctor by maneuvering the TARDIS into the Rani's tractor beam (in the TV story “Time and the Rani” - the first to feature the Seventh Doctor. This will be contradicted in 2005's Spiral Scratch.) so that he may regenerate and become Time's Champion while Sixie becomes the Valeyard. (This the first story to refer to The Doctor as Time's Champion.) The Doctor offers his life for Ace's, saying that he'd be good company for the Eternals. I guess this Death is an Eternal, a race we first met on TV in “Enlightenment” with the Fifth Doctor. Unfortunately for Jan, Death rejects The Doctor's offer and asks if he has a suitable replacement. Presumably all of this myth-making will be relevant in future stories.

In addition to all of the tweaking of established Doctor Who conventions, Love and War also succeeds because of Cornell's writing. On one hand this is a fairly standard DW story. It has the feel of a Fourth Doctor horror story and has a base under siege segment. We are strung along as to the nature of the bad guys and their stratagem while we are also kept in the dark as The Doctor schemes away. This is the war part of the title and Cornell contrasts this with love. There are the romantic entanglements as described above but there is also Ace's love for Julian and the Platonic love that she and The Doctor feel for one another. Cornell deftly wove these competing yet complementary strands together for an utterly engaging adventure with great emotional resonance.

Becoming an Einherjar: Night Wolf by Valkyrie Brewing

Back in 2010 Viking Brewing up in Dallas ran into hard time and closed. However, Fate has other plans. Owners Randy and Ann Lee found a buyer for the Viking name, an Icelandic company looking to enter the U.S. beer market. With an influx of cash, the Lees were able to resurrect the venture as Valkyrie Brewing.

It seems that many of the Viking brews were carried over and given new names. Such is the case with Night Wolf, a schwarzbier, which was formerly known as Mørketid.

I poured my Night Wolf into a fancy 3 Sheeps pint glass which I won in the bean bag toss at The Great Taste last month. True to its name, the elixir was dark - black when not held up to the light but a clear and very, very dark amber when given a brief exposure to the sun. I was a bit surprised that there was virtually no head. There was also very little Schaumhaftvermoegen. After taking a swig, the bubbles could get no traction on the side of the glass and gently fell into the beer.

Night Wolf smells fantastic. Most prominent was roasted grain but the yeast was not far off. There was also a faint bit of herbal hop aroma in there as well. Those wonderful scents came through in the taste. Being a lager, it's about letting the grains shine through. The coffee and chocolate flavors of the dark malt lead the way and they are the reason why the schwarzbier is at or near the top of my pyramid of beer tastiness, depending on the day. I am not an expert on German bier styles but it is my understanding that a Munich dunkles is fairly sweet in contrast to the schwarzbier which is more dry and that the dunkels north of Bavaria are noted for being much hoppier than their Bavarian brethren. Having said this, Night Wolf seems to fit the schwarzbier style pretty well although you do get a bit of toffee sweetness just before the finish that leans a few arc second towards a fruity, plum-like flavor.

The finish is where the hops come in with a mild herbal/grassy taste that provides a dry end to your sip. Mouthfeel is smooth and fairly light. People familiar with Sprecher's Black Bavarian, the only other Wisconsin schwarzbier I can think of, will note that Night Wolf has a cleaner taste and feels less syrupy on the tongue. Also, Black Bavarian is a bit shy of 6% ABV while Night Wolf is a much more sessionable 4%.

Viking had some issues with consistency so I was really hoping that this take on one of my favorite styles and my first taste of the brewery's new incarnation wouldn't let me down. And it didn't. To my palate, Randy Lee nailed the dark malt flavors and has made a great session beer for those of us who prefer to avoid the emerging "session IPA" trend. Too bad this stuff is only available in northwestern Wisconsin because I'd love to be taken to the Valhalla of this dark malt goodness more often.

Junk food pairing: Night Wolf goes well with Ritz crackers adorned with a generous serving of bacon-horseradish dip.

Since Valkyrie doesn't distribute anywhere near Madison, I ended up buying my six-pack in Eau Claire at the wonderful Just Local Food Co-op. The prices are eminently reasonable and I was also able to grab brews from Lucette and Lazy Monk, which like Valkyrie, are not available in Madison.

Regrets, I've Had a Few - Doctor Who: Nightshade

Nightshade is the first Virgin New Adventure to not be a part of a mini-series. No Timewyrm and no silver cat. Instead Mark Gatiss gives us a straight-ahead stand-alone episode. Fans of the Nu Who will know Gatiss as having starred as Professor Lazarus in “The Lazarus Experiment” and Gantok in “The Wedding of River Song”. In addition, he has penned several Nu Who episodes as well as having written various Doctor Who audio dramas. Having become a fan at as kid, he must be living the DW fan dream.

The book's prologue features the First Doctor, described as having “piercing eyes” and a “haughty mouth”, stealthily detaching himself from a group of Time Lords and stealing a TARDIS. Although this was shown in last season's finale, I believe that this is the first time our beloved hero's departure from Gallifrey was ever described or portrayed.

The action then moves to the town of Crook Marsham in 1968 where Jack Prudhoe is drowning his uxorial sorrows down at the pub. While nursing his drink, he notices a figure in red outside in the rain. He looks closer and sees that it's his wife but as a young woman. Back in the days when they were happy. Jack rushes after her but meets an untimely demise out on the moors. Over at the Crook Marsham retirement home actor Edmund Trevithick, best known for his role as Nightshade (Americans - think Carl Kolchak, the Night Stalker), is living out his remaining years. One night as he lay dreaming, he is awoken as the windows of his room are blown out and a sinister voice whispers, “Nightshade...Nightshade...”

Amidst these strange happenings, the TARDIS materializes. Ace is in a good mood but The Doctor isn't. The torpor of the previous novel, Cat's Cradle: Witch Mark, has reemerged. He is irritable and listless. He scolds Ace in an unusual outburst when she tries on grey tunic with a Coal Hill School badge and demands she take it off. (That would be the school uniform of his granddaughter, Susan.) And so, when they head out into the town, Ace heads to the local pub and The Doctor seeks some quiet and solace at the local church and monastery.

Ace heads into the same pub frequented by Jack Prudhoe. Ace she whiles away the time, Vijay Degun, an assistant at the local radio telescope pops in and enquires about using the phone as the lines at the telescope are out. Oddly enough, the pub's phone is dead too. Intrigued, Ace hitches a ride in the trunk of Vijay's car. For his part, The Doctor engages the abbot who offers him a book with some history of Crook Marsham. During the English Civil War, the town's castle was destroyed after an eldritch light burst through its wall scaring the bejeezus out of Loyalist and Roundhead alike. The castle is long gone and the site was merely a vantage point for admiring the area's natural beauty until the radio telescope was erected upon it.

Ace finds that things at the telescope are a bit hectic. They are getting enormous energy readings that are pushing needles into the red but none of the scientists can figure out what this energy is nor exactly where it's coming from. Back in town, Betty Yeadon is drawing a bath when the corpse of her brother Alf, who was killed in the Great War, slowly emerges from the tub...

Nightshade is classic Doctor Who. More people die after confronting a memory from their past and eventually the main characters hole themselves up in the telescope facility giving us a tried and true base under siege story. That the baddie lurks in the earth and messes with those on the surface reminded me of the great Hammer film Five Million Years to Earth.

While a good sci-fi horror story, Nightshade does some nice work thematically as well. Gatiss does a nice job of drawing characters who are in some way haunted by their past and thereby make good prey for the presence lurking underneath the soil. And it's not just the townspeople who are confronted by their pasts but also The Doctor who meets an apparition of Susan. The book may be written in a style that younger DW fans can handle, but the notion of reflection upon one's past and how the past can influence the present is a theme that only adults can truly appreciate. Nightshade may not be up there with Greek tragedy as commentary on the human condition but it does offer some grist for the mill.

In Cat's Cradle: Witch Mark The Doctor was fed up with always having to be the hero. Here that trend continues but is marked by a more pensive Time Lord. The classic TV series didn't find The Doctor engaging in much omphaloskepsis but here we find him contemplating his past on a personal level and being forced to confront it. Ace doesn't contrast with the TV very much. She is her usual spunky self rallying the troops and enthusiastically confronting evil. I suppose that she does come across as being a bit more independent than she did on TV. While she continues to look to The Doctor for answers to questions beyond her ken, she is very proactive and does a lot more on her own. “Remembrance of the Daleks” came to mind as Ace finds herself attracted to Robin Yeadon, Betty's son, just as she had a crush on Mike Smith in that TV story. Nightshade also harkened back to “Remembrance” with the racism of Professor Hawthorne who works at the telescope. In the TV show the issue was brought up by a sign in a boarding house whereas here Hawthorne becomes very outspoken in his dislike of non-whites and Vijay in particular.

For the most part, Nightshade revels in the conventions of Doctor Who and, insofar as these go, it's a fun stab at horror. But it also builds upon elements of the classic show incrementally, especially with regards to Ace. The big change is in the portrayal of The Doctor. He isn't just a crusader for good that can make snap judgments on the fates of millions, but he is also an individual that must deal with his past on a personal level. Here he seems to feel regret at how his relationship with Susan turned out.

What puts Nightshade a cut above the average DW story is that Gatiss not only gives us a dark, rainy, and isolated Crook Marsham as the setting for a creepy tale of horror, but also characters whose hearts are like that with shadows casting a pall over them. I suspect that this more troubled, introspective Doctor will continue to be explored in the New Adventures.

That Old Time Religion

These are pretty neat:







The photos were taken by Charles Fréger, a French photographer for his "Wilder Mann" project. Fréger photographed men in traditional costume around Europe.

A primal heart still beats in Europe. Deep beneath the gloss of cell phone sophistication lie rituals that hark back to harvests and solstices and fear of the winter dark. Monsters loom in this shadowy heart, but so does the promise of spring’s rebirth and fertile crops and women cradling newborn babes. It turns out that Europe—at least pockets of it—has not lost its connection to nature’s rhythms.

That connection is rekindled during festivals that occur across the continent from the beginning of December until Easter. The celebrations correspond to Christian holidays, but the rituals themselves often predate Christianity. The roots are difficult to trace. Men—and until recently, it has almost always been men—don costumes that hide their faces and conceal their true forms. Then they take to the streets, where their disguises allow them to cross the line between human and animal, real and spiritual, civilization and wilderness, death and rebirth. A man “assumes a dual personality,” says António Carneiro, who dresses as a devilish careto for Carnival in Podence, Portugal. “He becomes something mysterious.”

Apparently the first photo is a bear. OK, but are we talking a Lovecraftian bear?

I cannot figure out whether the costumes were worn for ceremonies and festivals that are religious in nature or if they were worn for more secular ones that incorporate old pagan elements. Regardless, they are some hoopy costumes. In addition to lots of bears, stags seem to be very prominent as well.

I have to admit, though, that the guy dressed as a tree make me chuckle as it reminded me of The Gamers: Dorkness Rising.

Philosophical Debate Gets Violent

Sounds like someone forgot the Categorical Imperative and used someone else as a means instead of an end in themselves.

Two men in Russia were apparently arguing about Immanuel Kant's philosophy when one of them pulled out a gun:

A philosophical argument over views on Immanuel Kant descended into violent mayhem in southern Russia, leading to a man being shot several times.

The dispute occurred when two men waiting for a beer became involved in an increasingly fractious argument over the work of Kant – the author of canonical philosophical text Critique of Pure Reason – according to a police spokeswoman in Rostov-on-Don, the town where the argument broke out.

The row ended with one of the men producing an air gun and firing several rubber bullets at his opponent.

Fortunately the attacker's interlocutor survived.

Rise of the Runelords Comes to Audio

Last week the friendly folks at Big Finish announced that they are going to produce a series of audio dramas based on the Pathfinder role-playing game. And we're talking full cast productions, not simply someone read a novelization. Big Finish are best-known for producing Doctor Who radio plays featuring the Fourth through Eight Doctors.

I thought this was really neat as some friends and I are in the middle of a Pathfinder adventure, Rise of the Runelords, and we are really enjoying it. The first series of audios will be adaptations of RotR which has six chapters. My only concern is that each audio will only be one hour. The first chapter, Burnt Offerings, took us a while to complete. Either each episode will be the equivalent of going through the adventure perfectly or part of the story will be lost. I'll have to probe executive producer Nick Briggs' mind at Chicago TARDIS come November.

The first audio comes out in January.

While I'm at it, I'll also mention that BF will be producing radio plays based on The Avengers - the classic 1960s British TV show - as well as Survivors, a BBC show from the 1970s chronicling survivors of a worldwide plague. The latter was created by Terry Nation, inventor of the Daleks. (And Blake's 7 too.)

It's Gołąbki Time

With the weather getting cooler, I thought it'd be nice to make Gołąbki. Gołąbki (pronounced guh-wumpkee, or something close to that) are Polish cabbage rolls. I stuff mine with rice and ground beef like my grandmother did.



I was going to use some beef broth but found that we were out of prison base so I ended up using crushed toms loosened up a bit by some V-8. Seasonings were basic - salt, sugar, and pepper - though I did use jasmine rice. I would have used some garlic powder, but I found that I didn't have any of that either. With no prison base, I didn't end up with much sauce.



Despite this, they were still rather tasty. Personally, I like to put some vinegar on my Gołąbki. The red wine variety works quite well.