Fucken beer reviews, aye.

Man, that was some weekend just now. Most of the folks associated with this here blog attended a certain function on Saturday, all with the intention of enjoying a few refreshing beverages, eating a quesadilla or two and warming the house of some dear friends of ours. Things quickly turned from this:



To this:



Except with heaps more peeing on dudes. I've had about 3 hours sleep in the last two days and just gotten home from one of the roughest days at work I can remember. What to do now? Get stinking drunk on great craft beer and write about it for my own amusement is the only sensible thing that comes to mind. Off we go.

BEER #1: Victory HopDevil

What a treat it is to have Victory's beers available on our shores. I've had everything from their range that we get out here multiple times, and it's pretty much uniformly terrific. Summer, while officially over, shows no sign of relinquishing it's sticky grip on this part of the country, and if I had my druthers I'd have a fridge full of Prima Pils and maybe a couple of Helios saisons with which to ride it out. This beer, also, is really fucking good.

Pours a red-tinted orange with a wispy tan head. Still and maybe a bit flat, but gosh it's a pretty colour. Pretty standard nose of pine needles and caramel.

Big malt presence, more than even the nose lets on. Bread dough, caramel, maybe a bit of honey. At the same time the hops are going to work too. Pine, citrus pith, some earthy/herbal flavors. Not super-complex, but strikes a really good balance. Incrediblly full and silky mouthfeel. After each sip your palate feels properly coated with goodness.

Textbook US IPA. I like it an awful lot.

More to come, probably (not).

But wait:

Beer #2 - Weyerbacher Double Simcoe IPA

Weyebacher Double Simcoe IPA is a widely acclaimed melodramatic 1987 Malayalam film written and directed by P. Padmarajan, which is based on his own novel of the same name.

It pours a hazy amber with a finger of off-white head and on weekends it volunteers at a homeless shelter because it's just that kind of guy. Smells of caramel, pine and a hint of black tea. Boy this has some hops. Resinous. Hints of pine, Fanta and crayons. In a good way. Lots of malt, also. Like a delightful breakfast cereal that makes you drunk. Chewy. I am acutely aware that it is 9% alcohol but it's not it's fault.

Full of goodness and makes me want to listen to Pantera. I think I'll go to bed.

Manly cooking (a cautionary tale)

So, I'm cooking dinner (lamb chops, yawn) on the BBQ. Things are going ok, flames are licking at the grill, getting it up to temperature with their flamey talents... Suddenly, sputtering! No, could it be!? Out of gas! The flames try their hardest, but they soon die out, imparting only just enough heat to the hotplate to raise a mild sizzle from a chop.

Undeterred, I pushed on. Figuring all I needed is fire, I went and found some pieces of wood & newspaper, with plans to apply some fire to the aforementioned items. The application of fire to paper & wood proved to be troublesome. Whilst it was working, it sure was taking it's sweet time spreading, and the small areas which were alight were simply not enough to pump out the heat to cook the meat.

In a haze of smoke and frustration, I considered my options...

1. Admit defeat and cook upstairs on the hotplate, LIKE SOME KIND OF IDIOT.

2. Use extremely flammable chemicals to kick things up a notch.

Being the smart guy I am, I opted for #2. I went and perused the selection of flammable liquids on hand. Kerosene? Nawh, flash point = too high. Methylated spirits? Perhaps. Petrol? Passé, but usable. Hello, what's this? Shellite!? Ding ding ding, we have a winner.

I hurry back to the BBQ with the trusty bottle o' Shellite in hand. Some spots of flame are still struggling on, bless their little hearts. Being as careful as one can when one is applying Shellite directly to fire, I decant a little bit into the bottle lid and delicately toss the contents of said lid onto the BBQ. In what can only be described as 'pretty badass', a sizeable fireball erupted from the BBQ. The paper & wood was now very much on fire. As were several sections of the BBQ's front panel, some floor tiles, and the bottle lid (still in my hand) which previously held this angry, angry liquid. Literally anything that had touched Shellite, or anywhere the Shellite had dripped, was now on fire.

So after putting out the numerous spot fires, I was generally pleased with how it all went. With a slightly higher heart rate than before, I went back to cooking. However, soon enough, the fire began to die back down, as if beckoning me to dowse it once again with it's favourite beverage; Shellite.

Being the smart guy that I am, I decided I would give the fire what it wanted... but on my terms. Rather than needlessly risk things being on fire again (floors, BBQ's, me, etc) I devised a more "safety first" strategy. Apply the Shellite to the chops, then apply the chops to the fire.

Duh.

So, I liberally splashed the "marinade" into a separate dish and gave each chop a dowsing. Then in true Australian style, I literally threw the chops onto the barbie, one at a time. With each chop, the inferno grew larger. Finally I was left with a tremendously roaring blaze which was probably visible on Google Earth (and you wouldn't even have to zoom in that far). As each chop exhausted its payload of liquid fire (the inferno raged around it, not in/on it), I pulled them out to inspect.

Total cooking time varied per chop from 2 to 3.5 minutes. And you know what? They were cooked to perfection. What's more, they were actually pretty damn good. They tasted just like regular chops, but with the added taste of satisfaction that comes with dangerously large fires in a domestic setting.

Posted by "The Fireball Kid" Andrew "A-Train" Trainingtonson Quotationus Markus Excessivity III