July 13, 2007
This weekend they are calling for temps in the high 70s and low 90s and maybe rain on Saturday. Me + Re-enactment = Rain. WeÂ’re prepared for a torrential downpour sometime Saturday afternoon. Hey, why should I start having dry canvas now?
If any of you are in the area and want to see a good battle, this is the one to attend. Of all the re-enactments I do, this one has the best battles. Plus if you stick around you can help me cull off some of the overstock left over from all the beer reviews. I think IÂ’m bringing 6 different beers to this event. 12 bottles of the last four reviews and two growlers from Carlyle.
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July 12, 2007
The other day I was talking to Ktreva when I explained to her a story about some escapades I had in the past. That’s when I uttered the phrase, “We didn’t know what to do, so we just wung it.”
Ktreva, “Wung it?”
Contagion, “Yea, Wung it. You know the past tense of wing it.”
Apparently from the shade of red she turned and the barking laughter she did not think that was the proper form.
What do you think?
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But I have a new and interesting problem. It appears that some spammer is spoofing my e-mail address and sending out tons of spam under my handle. I started wondering about certain failure to deliver addresses I was getting and an angry e-mail from some guy I didn't know about sending him crap, but it all came together when I received an e-mail from myself regarding getting a new loan.
If I ever knowingly run across a spammer, I'm going to kick them in the groin until I sprain my ankle.
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July 11, 2007
The main reason I started doing these reviews was because of a bad beer incident that happened to myself in April 2006, Damn you Camo Silver Ice High Gravity Lager!!!! I thought maybe if I sampled beers, my good readers and others wouldnÂ’t end up drinking a beer that wasnÂ’t fit to run farm machinery on. Sure, I like trying the different beers, but if IÂ’m only doing this for myself, then IÂ’m not going to waste your time posting them on here.
So let me know, do you get anything from these reviews or are you just skipping over them to something else?
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It comes in the squat 12 oz brown bottle. The main label has a picture of a bulldog with a monocle holding a pint in his left hand. In big red letters above the pictures is the word BULLY! In the same script below is read PORTER. On the red neck label there is a little blurb about the beer itself as well as the breweryÂ’s logo. I do believe they are trying to give this beer an English look.
There is a dark coffee color to the beer with a hint of dark red. Light reluctantly passes through it, and itÂ’s too dark to tell if there is any cloudiness to it at all. It pours a very thick tan head that is long lasting. Heck IÂ’m almost done with the pint and there is still a head on the beer. It leaves some lacing on the side of the glass.
You can smell a combination of roasted coffee and chocolate malts easily. There is a citrus and floral hop background to the scent that is almost completely overpowered by the scent of the malts. The taste is a nice combination of coffee and chocolate roasted malts. There is a slight hop bitterness to the finish, but it helps add to the flavor and isnÂ’t distracting. It has a mildly bitter aftertaste, but it isnÂ’t lingering or unpleasant.
It is a medium bodied beer with a high level of carbonation. To be honest the carbonation is a little on the strong side for my likes, but not unpleasantly so.
IÂ’m very pleased with this beer. I should not be surprised since after the last couple of times sharing a pint with Bloodspite, I know he has a good taste in beer. IÂ’m going to be heading through KC in a couple of weeks, I may have to stop and pick me up another six-pack of it. Overall IÂ’m going to give this a 6.5 out of 10.
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July 10, 2007
As soon as I walked up to the desk to check in, I swore I heard Tammi talking. I just couldnÂ’t see her, and I was more interested in checking in and getting the bag of firearms out of the lobby. Sure enough after dumping off the luggage in the room we found Tammi in the bar with T1G, Og and Jon. We had time to grab a beer when Oddybobo and Zonker arrived. While we were sitting there talking Bloodspite arrived. He was all frazzled and worried looking, something about traffic, driving 8 hours and no air conditioning. Fortunately he shut up and put his beer hole to good use.
We all went to this microbrewery in Naperville. They told us for the size of party we had it would be an hour and a half wait, or we could go up stairs and just grab some tables first come first serve or wait until ours were ready. Harvey and TNT arrived just as we stole some tables from the locals. IÂ’d review the beer, but honestly I know they had some that sucked and some that were decent. It didnÂ’t matter; most of us were swilling beer like there was no tomorrow. After dinner we went back to the hotel to drink some more. (DonÂ’t you judge us!) Redneck, Leslie and Shou joined in the fun.
Saturday Harvey, Bloodspite and I headed to Buffalo Range to hook up with Graumagus, Og and Curious for some shooting. We had a lot of fun at this range. We did learn two things though. First, Harvey and Bloodspite underestimate the amount of ammo that can be burnt in two hours shooting. Secondly, Bloodspite's “twins” are inconsistent as all hell. The safest place to be is directly in front of them when shooting. EVERYONE that shot them was all over the place. They felt nice and handled well, but I guess when you store them in a chaw can the rifling gets mess up! (Sorry buddy, their dogs!)
Saturday night we went to Klas in Cicero for dinner. Teresa was there waiting for us. She even made me kiss her ring again. How cool is that? Biloxi also joined us at the restaurant. After dinner some presents were given to T1G and Og made speech. Any rumors about me drinking straight from pitchers are unsubstantiated at best. Such things would be highly uncouth.
I also brought my camera with. At one point in the night I turned on the motor drive and was taking paparazzi style pictures. My memory card holds over 1,000 pictures, I had 638 left Sunday morning. Looking at these pictures there are some really good ones. Unfortunately many people there did not want their pictures taken for fear of photoshopping reasons. Apparently one or four of the bloggers in the room have a history of such things. Thus in order to get them to cooperate I promised that I would not post any of the pictures on the internet, supply them to someone else who might or knowingly provide them to anyone that may photoshop them in any way. Thus if you want to see the pictures, tough. IÂ’ve burned them onto a disk for my own keeping.
Saturday night after the restaurant we went back to the hotel for even more drinking. (DonÂ’t you judge us!) I never realized how much beer a group of bloggers can consume. Fortunately IÂ’m a lightweight so I only had a couple Saturday night. Again much fun ensued. There were stories and jokes. People having a great time, and some NASCAR fan that wanted to us to all blog about NASCAR.
Sunday went well, we crawled out of bed around 10:30 AM. As I was passing through the lobby there were a group of bloggers there. At this point I would like to say to all of you, IÂ’m sorry. I donÂ’t remember who was all there, I was feeling a might out of it. I believe it was Tammi, T1G, Jon and ZonkerÂ…. But I could be seriously wrong. Especially after stepping outside into the daylight. For the first time this month I cursed the sun for being that bright life-giving star in the sky.
Some people had left long before I had, especially those that had flights or long drives ahead of them. About 2 in the afternoon while Ktreva and I were eating lunch, Bloodspite calls and leaves some kind of garbled voicemail for me. Folks, IÂ’ve heard of drunk dialing, but he was driving dialingÂ… then again he may have been drunk driving dialing from the sounds of the message. Between the cell-phone static and that thick Missouri drawl of his, I could barely make out what he was saying. Well except that he was about 130 miles from the Possum Roundup. It must be a Missouri thing.
Speaking of roundups, hereÂ’s the best part of a blogmeet post. Who all was there. This is done in no particular order what so ever. Just the order in which I found the link to their blogs.
Ktreva: Well hell, I married this one. She threw herself on that grenade. But she did look dead sexy in that dress Saturday night. Yea, I donÂ’t know how I landed her either.
Oddybobo: This is my second time meeting her in person, and she is just as sweet, beautiful and wonderful as I remember her being. Even if she did try to tackle me and put me through a wall in the hotel.
Zonker: This is the first time I met him, unfortunately I didnÂ’t get much time talking with him. He seems like a nice guy, IÂ’m just going to have to force myself to not be so shy next time and actually strike up a conversation.
T1G: The birthday boy himself. As I said in his birthday comment, heÂ’s like the older brother I never had. Only drunker, less articulate and with a worse haircut. Farking hippy!
Tammi: Smart, funny, beautiful. And contrary to some rumor, she is not monstrously tall. I donÂ’t know where that came from, but itÂ’s just wrong!
Og: Great guy and fun to talk to. I just really wish he would stop trying to take his clothes off around me. It seems every time I turned around he was picking up his shirt, unbuckling his belt or licking his nipples. Hey, if IÂ’m going to be traumatized, so are you.
Jon: This was my first time meeting him; IÂ’m glad he resurrected himself from the blogging grave. Great guy to talk to and heÂ’s the perfect designated driver. Plus I have some GPS navigation system envy. The next time IÂ’m in his part of the hand IÂ’m going to have to look him up.
Bloodspite: IÂ’m damn glad he talked the Bloodspouse into letting him go, even if it was with a promise from me to keep him out of trouble. DonÂ’t you all laugh at once. Good guy to joke around with, especially since he likes to advertise that he grew up where they filmed Deliverance. Plus he brought me a six-pack to do a review on. Looking forward to being able to kick back a couple of dozen more beers with you at some time.
Harvey: The Blog father himself. Some of you might not believe this, but Harvey has some skills. He picked up my Colt 1991 Model 80 .45 and was getting “kill shots” at 50 yards with it. I’m re-thinking my position on pissing him off. But I'm definitely getting him back to the range sooner or later.
TNT: Short, Sassy, SexyÂ… and looks like a pirate with underwear on her head. Yet, she pulls it off with a certain flair. However I need to make sure that she and Ktreva never go shopping at an outlet mall together again. They cut into my beer money.
Redneck: This is another blogger I met for the first time. I actually spent some time talking with him; he seems almost as shy as I am. However, by the end of the night I couldnÂ’t understand a damn word he was sayingÂ… but I think he was talking about fishing.
Leslie: This is a second meeting for us; unfortunately we did not get much quality time together. Actually I think my shyness and her sense of self-preservation kept it that way. One of these days IÂ’m gonna finish that conversation we tried to start at FritzÂ’s a couple of years ago.
Teresa: The lovely and regal Teresa. It was just an honor that you let me kiss your ring again, and this time you didnÂ’t even slap me. Thank you for gracing us with your presence. IÂ’m looking forward to our next meeting.
Graumagus: IÂ’ve known Grau for years, but damn I didnÂ’t realized how much he likes to drive. I think he spent more on gas then beer. He also needs to get a rifle that is Contagion proof. Damn cheap Russian ammo jamming up the bolt!
Shoe: This is the first time I met her, I didnÂ’t really get a chance to talk to her. In fact IÂ’m trying to remember if we ever exchanged words outside of and introduction and salutation. She seems really nice. Damn my shyness!
Biloxi: Another first time meeting for me. He sat at the same end of the table that I did at dinner. So we actually were able to talk and have some conversation. He was nice, polite and just fun to talk with.
Curious: Okay, I really only spoke to him briefly at the range. In fact I didnÂ’t even realize he was a blogger until that night at dinner. But it was nice meeting him anyway.
I think thatÂ’s everyone. If I missed someone IÂ’m sorry.
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July 09, 2007
Since, I could not in all moral conscious let that happen, I'm heading to save that bottle of Jack Daniels from being dumped down a drain.
Wish me luck.
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July 08, 2007
But until then, I will leave you with this question, “What is a possum roundup?”
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July 06, 2007
A couple of growlers of beer from Carlyle. CHECK!
1,000 rounds of ammo. CHECK!
Shooting bag full oÂ’ firearms and firearms accessories. CHECK!
My good camera. CHECK!
Suitcases packed, CHECK!
My beautiful wife. CHECK!
Contents of the nightstand. CHECK!
No kids, CHECK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yea, itÂ’s going to be a good time.
I hope to see a lot of you there. If youÂ’re not going, youÂ’re going to miss out on a good time, good people and some good beer.
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July 05, 2007
After work we met there to check it out and see what it’s like. The place was packed. We just wanted to sit at the bar, but there was no room. We ended up having to get a table in the dining area. The place was filled with your yuppie suburbanite crowd. Sadly enough since I had just come from work, I kind of fit in wearing my shirt and tie. Yea, it’s that kind of crowd. To make matters worse, the atmosphere was crap. This is your standard cookie cutter, Chicago chain restaurant in the mall look and feel. I guess it's fitting since it is a chain brewery. The only thing different was the big stainless fermenting silos in a glass-partitioned section of the building. Really, they could take those out, add more tables and slap a “Panera Bread Company” sign out front and you wouldn’t know the difference. Anyone that lives in the Chicago area knows EXACTLY what I’m talking about.
We kept telling the serving staff we didn’t want food, we just came to sample some of the beer, yet they kept trying to sell us food. I guess it’s their job, but it was annoying. Then AFTER we ordered our first pint and are discussing which one of the four brews they had we wanted to try next the waitress advised us that they have a “sampler” tray. Yea, that would have been nice to know prior to half way through the first pint. But it’s new, so I’m going to cut it some slack. However, you think they would advertise it on their beer menu, but they don’t.
But lets get down to the nitty gritty of the whole thing. What was the beer like? These arenÂ’t going to be my normal reviews, as I didnÂ’t bring a note pad, and IÂ’m pulling it from memory, so youÂ’re just going to get the basics here. BTW, I may screw up the names a little, remember, no note pad.
American Light Lager: As I read their description I told Bruce it was going to be like a Miller Lite, Bud Light, or Coors light. When they brought the samplers they described this one almost EXACTLY like that. It was very light bodied and watery. There was almost no taste to it, and the scent was minimal. It was like a watered down Miller Lite. It was weak, lacking, and very disappointing.
Benedictine Bock: This was one I was going to choose for my second pint before we found out about the sampler. Again there was almost no scent to it. In fact with all the background smells, I really couldnÂ’t single out this beer, and it was right under my nose, literally. It was also light bodied and watery, but it had a darker richer color. The flavor was rather disappointing. It was weak and they described it as having a hint of chocolate to the flavor, but one couldnÂ’t really taste it. It was better then the American Light Lager, but not by much.
Double Pull: It’s half American Light Lager and half Benedictine Bock. I’m going to sum this up by quoting that old anecdote, “Two wrongs don’t make a right.”
DukeÂ’s IPA: They described this one of having a grapefruit flavor to it. They werenÂ’t wrong. It smelled like grapefruit, it tasted like grapefruit, and if they jammed any more hops into it, I think the bitterness would have caused my face to implode from the pucker. Now, I will invalidate my review of this beer up front. I do not like IPAs, so itÂ’s hard for me to review them honestly. IÂ’m pretty much set at hating them. But from what the staff said, no one has liked it. I about fell out of my chair laughing when Bruce suggested they hook up a hose to the tank itÂ’s in and wash down the parking lot with it. I donÂ’t know what the parking lot did to him, but damn, thatÂ’s just harsh.
Bad Axe Stout: This was the pint I ordered first. I like stouts, IÂ’m fonder of the European stouts over the American ones, but I still like all of them. Rarely do I find one that I donÂ’t like. Well, I canÂ’t say I didnÂ’t like this one, but IÂ’ve had many more that were better then worse. It was a light-medium body. There was a good creamy feel to it, but the overall body was again watery. It was way too bitter for a stout, they went too heavy on the hops. There was something amiss with the malts as well, and Bruce nailed it on the head; it tasted burnt. I think they were trying for a good roasted malt flavor, and over did it. It really was not a complimentary flavor to the beer.
That was it for their beer on tap. They have some others coming up in the following months and they have some seasonal ones as well. Overall I was not impressed at all with the quality of beer. I found it to be rather disappointing. Yet, I am going to give them another chance. In October IÂ’m going to head back and see if maybe a couple months of practice might help out the brewmaster. Then I can also check out the quality of their seasonals. At this time IÂ’m just not holding my breath.
The worst part is that after leaving I felt like a bad man. Not because I didnÂ’t like the place or their beer, but because I went to a brewery other than Carlyle. The urge to drive down there and drink a couple of pints to plead for atonement (and wash the bad flavor out of my mouth) was over whelming.
People if you are in the Rockford Area and want a good locally brewed beer. Do yourself a favor and go to Carlyle. What do you expect from a brewery in a mall?
Oh and Bruce has a much shorter and more to the point version of this post.
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July 04, 2007
And if youÂ’re lucky, today while out celebrating youÂ’ll see some women dressed like this.
Yea, she could put sky rockets in flight.
Have a happy and safe Fourth of July.
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July 03, 2007
IÂ’ll let you decide on this tidbit here for yourself.
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Your kindness over the last three months has not gone unnoticed and it was a complete surprise.
Thank you.
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In best Nelson laugh, HA-HA! Better you than me buddy! Four kids, yeah, it was nice seeing you!
In all seriousness, congratulations buddy.
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In the three days of fighting 51,000 American soldiers, from privates to Generals, died in these three days fighting for what they believed in. Some people take this for granted or just view it as a step toward freeing slaves. But anyone that has ever studied history knows that this was much more. Let me put it to you this way, if the South had won this would have been known as the Confederate Revolution.
ItÂ’s because I am a student of history. That IÂ’ve sat quietly for three days, looking at the clocks and ticking off the timeline. Subtly making comments to people about what was happening 144 years ago at that moment. Each time I did it with a tear in my eye. Why? Because those where Americans fighting for what they believed in, and no matter if you felt they where right or wrong, they deserved to be respectedÂ… BOTH sides.
God speed gentlemen, and thank you. Thank you.
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July 02, 2007
Yea, I’m sure they are right. I’m sure all those employers are going to give up that extra money out of their profits. Why wouldn’t they carry the burden of the loss instead of passing it on to the consumer? I mean the price on everything in this area is shooting up. Hell, it’s getting to the point that it’s cheaper for me to buy gas then milk! So I’m sure these companies and business owners are just going to pony up and say, “You know what, we are making too much profit as it is. Let’s not change anything.” Then again, maybe they won’t.
Maybe theyÂ’ll realize that now that the minimum wage has been increased, they are going to have to make up for that difference. Maybe theyÂ’ll cut back on hours, maybe theyÂ’ll cut back on benefits (like healthcare), or maybe they will turn that increased cost around to the consumer by adding to the price of their products and services? And hell, why not? If they just increased the cost of their products by 15% it wonÂ’t have that big of an effect? I mean think about it. All of these people are running around with more money in their pockets. They can afford and extra 15%, right? I mean if the employers can afford to give up an extra 15%, why canÂ’t the consumer?
But what about those that make more then minimum wage? Does anyone think the employers are going to give everyone an extra $1.00 an hour to their wages? There may be some, but if they do IÂ’d be more surprised than expecting it. I know my employer isnÂ’t going to increase my wages any. So I guess that puts me just a little bit closer to the poverty level. Essentially the government just took a dollar an hour away from me. Well, okay maybe notÂ… but thatÂ’s how it feels.
The kicker to this whole thing is that part of the law that increased our minimum wage, will also increase the minimum wage every year on July 1 by 25 cents through 2010. Increased taxes, increased gas prices, increased corn prices, increased cost of living and increased government control.
I really wish these fiscally irresponsible types would stop asking me to pay for their incompetence.
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The sad thing is that this was the last regular season home game until next season. IÂ’m going to miss my regular trips to Carlisle Brewery, my fellow fans at the game, and the after game parties with the players. Sure, I have the play offsÂ… but itÂ’s just not the same. As I told my regular waitresses at Carlisle that this was the last home game, and that meant I wasnÂ’t going to be coming in as often, they told me I needed to make an excuse to stop by anyway. It was a general agreement of the people at my table; Ktreva would not like me saying I had to go to Carlisle to visit with Cougar and Kitten.
T1G used my other ticket at the game. He appeared to have a lot of fun. Although he did complain that the horn I use to distract the opposing team was loud and annoying. Not just to the team, but to him and the rest of the fans as well. Then he would add on, “but it’s awesome.” Of course at the end of the night my voice was still intact while his was starting to give out. Yea, I might be blowing a loud and annoying horn, but he was screaming his fool head off. Although our chanting to the opposing team players they suck was amusing. We did have to give one of them props though, we singled him out and he just waved and said, “Yeah, baby!”
All in all, it was a great time. Now we just need to not lose in the playoffs.
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