Lagunitas Hop Stoopid Ale

 

Beer Style: American/ imperial IPA

Taste: extremely hoppy; slightly bitter

Aroma:  sweet malt mixed with hops

Look: light brown

Alcohol percentage: 8% aba

This is my first beer review, which I hope to do on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.  I will try to review a variety of different beers including commercial beers, my personal homebrewed beers, and friend’s homebrewed beers.  If you know a beer I should try or brew beer yourself, please send it to me for a review.

I am a fan of big hop aroma and flavor in a beer, but I believe that some IPAs and double IPA’s go too far into the bitter category.  This beer exists in a nice in-between realm.  It is made with a hop extract, which according to the bottle is not something that is normally recommended in craft brew.  It has a deep hop scent and a nice hop flavor, that doesn't quite match the aroma.   I think it is an easy drinking beer for a 8% aba beer.  After drinking a full 22 its bitterness becomes evident.  The only other beer that I’ve had that has this strong of hops and flavor was a special release beer that I had at the Anderson Valley Beer festival, that Lagunitas tapped on limited release because they dry-hopped the keg and it was incredible.

I enjoyed this beer, and I enjoy many Lagunitas beers because of their hop content, their flavor and their individual mythology.

Grade: A-

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Delight.

I just finished reading Barbara Kingsolver’s latest, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

I picked it up off of the library’s display shelves, thinking that I might get to it, being that I have been reading a lot lately about food and the environment, including The $64 tomato and The Omnivore’s Dilemma.  As it turned out, I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I ended up forcing my girlfriend Meghan to read it, and feeding off my friend Anne’s responses to it.

Its an easy read about Kingsolver and her families’ transition to a local diet based around an old family farm in Virginia.  It discusses each of the trials and joys through a year of growing and raising their own food, and basing their diet on seasonal foods.  Not only does it include her poetic prose about how wonderful it can be, but it also brings in two different perspectives, her husband and teen daughter.   along with their points of views, the reader is treated to a set of recipes that follow the families’ year.

I felt that the book was informational, enjoyable, and easy to follow.  I’m sure that it helped that I am currently procuring a garden and it discussed some of the things that I have come up against like too many squash to handle.  To me it read like a softer and more positive perspective on the slow food movement and Michael Pollen’s Omnivores Dilemma .

I thought that the lifestyle they live is interesting and even attainable to us city folk, but it does have its pitfalls.  In an economy like ours, even though we may want to focus on the environment and local organic agriculture, it is extremely difficult.  There are many discussions about how to truly change the way food is consumed we need to make it accessible to all, including the poor and disadvantaged.   The government’s food stamp program now works at farmer’s markets, but its difficult to justify a purchase of a small bag of vegetables you might get from a farmer’s market compared to the two bags you might acquire from a cheap supermarket.  Growing food is also surprisingly easy, but its difficult to have enough land or sunlight to grow enough for a family of 4. 

After reading this book, I have changed the way I look at food and will change my diet based on seasonal and local vegetables (that I can afford).  But I think we need to continue to look for ways to bring these ideals to the mainstream lowest common denominator.  With the way things are going, we will develop these things through need not want or personal philosophy

Listening to Boards Of Canada

Waltzing with Bashir

Last night, I finally took the time to Waltz with Bashir.  Its been sitting on my coffee table for a little over a week now.  Meghan and I really wanted to watch it, but knew that it would be an intense viewing experience, so we waited for the right time.  And after a oppressively hot day, that time came:

In the first few frames of this movie, we knew we were in for a treat.  The opening scene was images of vicious dogs running amok on a town only to terrorize a man living in the upper story of an apartment building.  I was of course trying to connect the metaphor of the dogs with the powers of War.  It turned out to be a mans dream, a constructed recollection of the Lebanon War. The man was assigned to shoot dogs as they approached a village so that villagers wouldn't be aware of their entrance.  One night he shot 28 dogs and each of them came to visit him in a dream.

The rest of the movie flowed in a similar manner, between documentary-style interviews and the seeming acid-induced memories of war.  The use of Animation played an important part in the construction of the film.  And its cut from animation to real shots at the end has a deafening effect.

Dreams, reality, PTSD, and memories all collided in peoples re-telling of their individual war stories, while the director/writer of the film tried to piece together his fractured memory of the Sabra and Shatilla Massacre, through other men’s recollections.

The Film brought up very real aspects of war, the kind of things that we don't often see or want to see in a war movie.  It showed the weakness and fragility of the soldiers, it showed the incoherent destruction that war brings, and it really personified how PTSD works. 

I was floored by the integration of the images and sounds of the film:  Water and its symbolism ran throughout the film, guns took literal and figurative meaning as guitars, phalluses, and fragility. Music played an important part in the ebb and flow of the film: specifically a scene in which the soldiers are being hunted by a young boy with an RPG and a classical waltz plays and a dance that encapsulates the insanity of war and the title of the film.

From what little I do know about the conflicts that happen in Israel and Palestine, I entered this viewing experience with a critical eye.  I didn't want  an unfair view of what is happening, I believe that the film also has a very critical viewpoint.

I believe this is required viewing for anyone who wants a deeper understanding of what war is.