RedRum Beer

In the debut installment of my ultra-novice beer blogging, we looked at an India Pale Ale. This time around, we're going to look at two different varieties of red beers.

The style guideline for Irish Red Ale (thanks to my friend for linking me to it) says that it should be easy drinking with "an initial sweetness and a roasted dryness in the finish." The reddish color is achieved by roasted barley. Irish red ales are "malt-focused", and usually don't have a noticeable aroma of hops, although several recipes I've found have called for the addition of Kent Goldings hops. A brief Googling turned up this site with three distinct Irish red recipes, and indeed all of them call for roasted barely. The other components seem to vary somewhat. One of them calls for adding honey, another adds chocolate.

2. Killian's Irish Red

Image source (via Google Images)

Killian's Irish Red, named for George Killian Lett, who founded the brewery that crated the originally recipe in Ireland in 1864. It was originally an Irish Red Ale, but is now brewed in America by Coors and is now considered an American style amber lager. The transition was done to give it a broader appeal, and making it a lager took out some of the fullness of it, and reading around on stuff like beer-advocate.com it seems as though people who are big beer aficionados have quite a disliking for it for that reason. This is apparently not unprecedented, though, as makes a note that beers classified as such can be brewed as lagers. Personally, I've always really liked drinking Killian's. I don't doubt that there are better red ales out there which are truer to the whole tradition of the style, but I certainly think Killian's is a good beer and its readily available. I know there's several bars I've been to that have had it available on tap, and if you want to buy a 6 pack of it you can buy it pretty much anywhere.

3. Berghoff Famous Red Ale

This was on tap at an Irish pub in Downer's Grove which I decided to try on a whim. I ended up liking it enough such that I ordered it again the week after when I was there again. The name comes from the historic Berghoff restaurant in Chicago which is now closed, but there's still a line of beers being produced with the Berghoff name, now brewed in Wisconsin. According to Rate Beer's entry for it, its brewed with "Brewer's Two-Row Malt, Caramel 40 Malt, Carapils Malt and domestic hops" and its classified as an American Pale Ale. Two-Row Malt is used as a base for American style beers, Caramel malt--so named for its crystallized sugar--gives (appropriately enough) a caramel flavor and adds to the redness of the color, and carapils are used in pale ales to "balance body and flavor" without adding color. Reviewers on Rate Beer seemed to largely hate this, one review describing it as tasting "metallic." I think it does have a bit of a harshness to it, but I think metallic is a bit of a strong word. It certainly wasn't harsh enough to not make me want to drink it twice.

I've had a number of other red ales in addition to these. I think I've had enough of them to say that really like it as a style, seeing as I really like what are considered some of the "bad" entries of the style by those who study this stuff closely. Perhaps I'll post about more varieties down the road.



Sources: Wikipedia - Killian's, BJCP Style Guidelines, Real Beer.com, Rate Beer - Berghoff, and anything else I linked to above but maybe didn't put down here

The Confounding Collapse of the Cubs (alliteration is fun!)

It's been a long time since I blogged about the Cubs, partly because I've been busy with other stuff, and partly because doing so would just be too damn painful. The team that seemed pretty much poised to dominate a weak division again at the start of the year has been stuck in a malaise, with almost no offensive output to speak of. Currently, the team is a game under .500, sitting at 34-35, putting them tied for 3rd in the division, 3.5 out of 1st. No one else has really asserted themselves as a leader in the division--and really the entire NL has just been sort of a big blob except for the Dodgers, who are sitting pretty with a big lead in the NL West at 47-26--and so the Cubs certainly still have plenty of time to get themselves right and take over first, but that doesn't really make the baseball that's been on display in recent weeks any less frustrating to think about.

There's been no singular reason for the team's poor play, but first and foremost among any reasons you want to throw out has to be the injury to Aramis Ramirez. The Cubs haven't really been able to find a good replacement at all for him at 3rd base, not only to replace his offense but also his defense. Much of the playing time at 3rd has been given to Mike Fontenot, who hasn't been a complete wreck defensively, but certainly hasn't stood out as being excellent either. This would be fine if he were able to put out some decent numbers offensively, but as of my writing this, he's hitting .222 with a .670 OPS. Recently, some time at 3rd has been given to call-up Jake Fox, who has hit the ball well thus far, but who is even more of a liablilty defensively. Fox was absolutely tearing the cover off of the ball at AAA, but he's just now getting to the majors at 26 because he's never proven that can can play a good corner outfield at the major league level, let alone at the hot corner. The Cubs's struggles at 3rd base once again raises the spectre of the off season trading of Mark DeRosa for questionable pitching prospects. Last year was a career year for DeRosa and, as I've written before, the Cubs were probably using a mentality of "buy low-sell high", banking on the fact that DeRosa's 2008 numbers were probably a one time thing (although, judging by what he's done so far with Cleveland, maybe not). But even still, even a Mark DeRosa who produces anywhere close to his 2008 output would be a tremendous safety net for what has been the most severe injury for the Cubs this year (severe both in terms of its effect on the player physically, and its effect on the team).

The lack of a good 3rd baseman has been the least of the Cubs's problems, however, and while injuries are always a risk that has to be considered, some of the other issues with the Cubs have been hard to explain. Alfonso Soriano--who, for all his faults, is usually good to be penciled in for an average of at least .280 for so with a bunch of home runs--is currently hitting a meager .229. After hitting .284 in April, his average has gone way downhill from there, and is currenly a sub-Mendoza line .195 in June (as usual, I'm getting my stats from Baseball Reference). Milton Bradley, who has improved to an extent, and is at least managing to stay on the field for the most part, is nevertheless hitting just .238 on the year with anemic power numbers of 5 HRs and 16 RBIs. And last year's Rookie of the Year Geovany Soto, is hitting .231 with 6 HRs and 21 RBIs, and has garnered attention this year more for looking like he got kinda fat, and for having tested positive for pot during the World Baseball Classic than anything else this year. Add all of these disappointing performances up, and here's what you get statistically for the Cubs through 69 games. Compare that to what they did over the same period last year:

2008: .247 Avg., .324 OBP, .400 Slg., .724 OPS, 292 runs
2009: .283 Avg., .361 OBP, .442 Slg., .804 OPS, 380 runs

Its not even particularly close. Aramis Ramirez has been the team's best power hitter in recent years, and there's reason to believe that things will get better when he returns (that is if he can return this year in a healthy enough state to be effective), but clearly a lot more has to change than just Ramirez's absense.

The bullpen has still had issues as well, notably Carlos Marmol, who has still proved difficult to get hits off of, but who has seemingly lost all of his control, walking a staggering 35 guys in 34 innings pitched. What's kept the team from spiraling into a complete nose dive has been the starting pitching, which has been solid all year. Carlos Zambrano, Ted Lilly, and Ryan Dempster all have ERAs under 4.00, and Randy Wells, who pretty much came from out of nowhere, and who was originally meant as just a brief fill-in guy during Zambrano's DL stint, has an ERA under 3.00 in 8 starts. I think the Cubs' rotation is one of the best in the NL, but who knows if its going to hold up at this level, so it would certainly behoove the Cubs to get the problems elsewhere on the team sorted out sooner rather than later. An added wrinkle is the that the Tribune Company's sale of the team is going along at a sluggish pace, and current frontrunner to buy the team, Tom Rickkets is having trouble raising capital for it. As such, many have speculated that the Cubs might not have much wiggle room to add salary at the trade deadline. And so it becomes doubly important for the Cubs to try and work out their struggles from within.

New Feature... BEER!

I haven't blogged about the Cubs in a while. I'm going to try making a post in the near future, but I'm really not looking forward to it. Cubs baseball has been something of a trainwreck for a while now. In the meantime, let's metaphorically drown our sorrows by blogging about beer. I've thought about doing this for a while, because I like trying out new beers and I've been curious as to just how big a list it would be if I compiled all the beers I've sampled. At some point though, it occured to me that I basically don't know much of anything about beer. I know what I like, and what I don't like, but I don't really know anything about brewing, nor what exactly the different varieties of beer actually entrail, nor how beer is generally described by people who know what they're talking about. So I figure the best approach to this would be to basically try learning as I go, so that's what I'm going to do. As I find beers to write about, I'll try and scour the interwebs for what more seasoned drinkers have said about it, and find a little information about the style of beer and how its brewed. I'll add my own thoughts as best I can as we go along. But a lot of it isn't going to be my own thoughts whatsoever, so I'm going to try to remember linking to all the sources I'm getting this stuff from.

Let's start off with an India Pale Ale:

1. Lagunitas IPA

(Image source, via Google Images)

IPA, if you're not privvy to beer related acronyms, stands for India Pale Ale. Seeing as this is the first post on the subject, lets keep it simple from the outset and take this one step at a time. First things first,

What's an ale?

Ales are brewed with "top-fermenting" yeast, meaning that it rises to the top of whatever its being fermented in. Lagers, conversely, use "bottom-fermenting' yeast, which sinks to the bottom. Ales take less time to brew than lagers and tend to be sweeter. They're usually fermented in a range between 60 and 75 degrees fahrenheit.

Okay, so what the hell is a pale ale?

Getting the obvious part out of the way, pale ales are pale in color. Evidently, there's actually a scale for judging the color of a beer, with the very generic name "Standard Reference Method." Evidently, Pale Ales are usually 8 to 14 degrees SRM. They came into existence in the 18th century in England after brewers there began incorporating coke into the brewing process (presumably that's coke as in the byproduct of smelting, not cocaine). The usage of coke allowed a more controlled burn during the "kilning" process--drying wet grain by way of an oven--which allowed for the brewing of a paler colored beer. The darker colors of beers that were traditionally brewed at the time came as a result of the grain literally being scorced in the oven where it was kilning. Before this, it wasn't possible to brew beer with this sort of a color. About.com desribes the traditional British Pale Ale as having "a malty profile and just enough woody or lightly floral hops for balancing" Over time, other styles of pale ale have been producted elsewhere, in places such as the US, France, and Germany.

So lets put it all together now... what the hell is an India Pale Ale

India Pale Ale's are named such because they were often exported to India from London in the early days of Pale Ale brewing in London. As innovations made it possible for the beer to survive the trip there--such as the use of hops, which are natural preservatives--a large market opened up for them and the denizens of British-controlled India developed quite a taste for them. IPAs usually have a high alcohol content, from 5.5% to 7% in most modern versions, while sometimes over 8% in the old batches brewed in the 1700s. IPAs generally make use of carapil and crystal malts (see here for a description of these) and are described by the North American Brewer's Association's website as "possess[ing] a nose of perfumey alcohol, fruitiness, and malt, although newer versions frequently overshadow the malt with strong hops." The types of hops used vary from British and American styles. The American style calls for hops which project a citrus flavor, which I think I detected drinking the Lagunitas, although really what do I really know at this juncture. I've been drinking beer for a long time, but this is the first time I've thought about it nearly this much.

Getting that out of the way, lets see what people who presumably know way more than I do are saying about the Lagunitas IPA. Its sitting on a B+ overall rating on Beer Advocate and an 87 on Rate Beer. Reading individual reviews, they seem to be kind of all over the place, but if there's any consensus it seems to be that the beer has a pleasant earthy, "grassy", aroma to it, and that its very drinkable, alhtough perhaps not as flavorful as it could be. I suppose I can be confident enough in my beer-tasting palette to at least agree with the basic premise this. I'm not really one who likes to try and project some sort of aura of rugged masculinity by embibing in the strongest, heaviest beers possible. To use another term that I just learned, I'm prone to "sessinonable" beers, that are more about taste than hitting you heavy with a ton of alchohol. Lagunitas is 5.7% alchohol by volume, which is at the lower end of the range for IPAs, but IPAs are still high compared to most other pale ales. With Lagunitas, I didn't get much of a harshness from it. It was definitely a very drinkable, "sessionable' beer. I liked the taste of it, I don't know if I loved it. Its something that I would drink again and certainly wouldn't refuse if it was offered to me, but perhaps wouldn't go far out of my way to get my hands on it. I don't think I've tried enough IPAs yet to really determine if that's because I'mw just not hugely crazy about IPAs as a style, or because I didn't like Lagunita's particular take on it. Perhaps that will change in the future. We'll see.

For the next addition of this, I think I'm going to write about a beer that I've been drinking for some time now, and is probably more well known than Lagunitas: Killians Irish Red.

Sources:

Wikipedia (articles: Ale, Pale Ale, India Pale Ale, Standard Reference Method)
beer.about.com
North American Brewer's Association

Wall-E

Wall-E (****)

Despite how much many of them seem to be universally loved, for the most part I've avoided the big animated movies that have come out of Pixar and Dreamworks in recent years. I don't really know why. I certainly can't say that I consider them beneath me, being "kid's stuff", because I spent a significant portion of my Memorial Day watching the Teen Titans marathon on Boomerang. But all the praise for Wall-E, from every age group, was too difficult to ignore, and I finally got around to watching it a couple of weeks ago. It really is one of the best American animated movies I've ever seen, and certainly one of the smartest, and not in a "how many pop culture references can we find a way for the furry animal characters to say" sort of way. It doesn't try and present itself on two different levels, one for kids and one for adults--like if a cartoon walrus puts on a pair of dark sunglasses and a baseball cap and starts rapping so all the adults can say "Oh I get it, he's like the black guy of the animal world! I can suddenly identify with these made up cartoon animals!". It just is what it is, and its something that anyone can appreciate.

A big thing that separates Wall-E from what's become the prototypical CGI animated movie is that it doesn't feel like it has to move at a mile-a-minute pace. For quite a while, the title character is the only character on screen. Wall-E--who looks a little bit like the R.O.B. robot that Nintendo created back in the '80s and brought back in viritual form for the last Smash Bros. game--has been tasked with cleaning up the massive piles of garbage which have littered the entire earth. While the work is done, all of humanity (I think? Maybe it was just all of America) is living aboard a giant mothership adrift in space on what is supposed to be a five year "cruise." The project is much more work than they estimated, however, and over time most of Wall-E's robotic companions have broken down, leaving him alone to endlessly build towers out of little cubes of garbage. Wall-E has enough of a human personality to get bored and lonely, and so he spends his downtime collecting random trinkets that he deems worthy to not be lumped in with the rest of the trash in an old cooler and watches VHS tapes of old musicals. Except for the lyrics of said musicals, and a still-working video billboard in which the President at the time of everyone's exodus from Earth, played by a real-life, in the flesh Fred Willard, explains how super great and awesome everything is going to be during their short jaunt into outer space, there's no spoken dialogue whatsover for probably the first third of the movie. Its quite an unusual move for a such a big, Hollywood, family movie, but the filmmaker's realized that it was simply unnecessary. The story is told simply and clearly through the movie's visuals, and we become indered to Wall-E through all of his various little mannerisms. Words would have just cluttered up the brilliant simplicity of the whole thing.

The main plot gets into motion when Wall-E's solitude is broken up one day when a much sleeker looknig robot with a female voice rockets down to earth. Her name is Eva, and she's searching for plant-life for reasons initially unbeknownst to us and to Wall-E. Initially she is focused only on her directive, and actually tries on a couple of occasions to blow up Wall-E with the obnoxiously powerful laser gun she's equipped with for some reason. Wall-E, however, wins her over eventually by sheltering her in his big tank-like home during a sandstorm, and dancing around to the tune of old musicals using a trashcan lid as a top hat. Eventually, Eva's mission takes them to the mothership of the starfleet drifting out in space, where the social commentary becomes even less subtle. Apparently hundreds of years with nothing to do except shop for whatever the myriad video screens abord the ship tell them to has caused humankind to degenerate into pudgy fatsos who ride on hoverchairs everywhere and whose muscles are too atrophied for them to walk anywhere. We meet the captain of the fatsos, voiced by Jeff Garlin, who doesn't seem to actually know much about being a captain, because most everything on the ship is completely autonomous. He hasn't completely lost the human spirit though, and evenutally finds himself in a 2001-esque rebellion against the ship's computers.

Even after we get to this point of the plot though, the movie isn't all this overt. Its not as silent as the opening of the film, but we get a lot of funny, yet weirdly poigniant moments, like a scene in which Wall-E has to catch up to Eva floating through space, so he shoots a fire extinguisher to propel him in the opposite direction, and we watch him glide around as little specks of foam drift away. There are a lot of moments like that, and its because of moments like that that the movie sets itself apart from most other animated movies. Its heartfelt, without seeming like a Hallmark card. The characters can express themselves without bursting into spontaneous singing and dancing with Randy Newman lyrics. A tremendously fun movie.