The beers of Iwakuni: Duvel by Duvel Moortgat

I started writing this review in Japan. Unfortunately while the bottle had survived the trip across the world, the contents did not. I purchased a replacement bottle from Crafted In Simpsonville SC.
I got this in a poarchbomb from Hilgar. It is Duvel by the Duvel Moortgat brewery out of Breendonk Belgium. We will start out with the history of the brewer of this famous Belgian strong golden pale ale. In 1871 Jan-Leonard Moortgat and his wife started a farm brewery in the Flemish countryside which was eventually taken over by their sons Albert and Victor. During the Great War there was a surge in popularity of British beers in Belgium and the Moortgat brothers sought to create their own. In 1918 Albert went to England to learn about Ale and collect yeast samples, one of these samples (attained from a brewery in Scotland) became the strain they use to this day. They finally had a fantastic English styled beer just in time for the Armistice, so they named it Victory Ale! In 1923 they renamed the beer Duvel after a customer exclaimed "this beer is the real Devil" (Duvel is Flemish for Devil). In the 1960's they came out with a lighter version called "Green Duvel" and around the same time they created the "Duvel glass", which is a Belgen tulip glass with a longer than usual neck, akin to the Scottish thistle glass. At this same time Bert, Marcel, Leon, and Emile Moortgat took over the business. The Moortgat family still owns and operates the brewery, but have certainly expanded the business. One interesting note is that Duvel Moortgat bought out Boulevard brewing in July 2015, a brewery I have reviewed in the past.

I received this beer in a 330ml stubby bottle with crimpcap and an interesting bulged neck that tiers into the shoulder. The front label art is a very European white background and classical lettering featuring the brewery seal over the name "DUVEL" "Belgian Golden Ale" "Bottle Conditioned". The reverse is a little more fun. It features two wayfarer sunglasses wearing cherubs shooting arrows at a heart in the famous Duvel glass, above it reads "A Heavenly pour for a Devil of a beer". The epitaph along the sides read "Did divine inspiration lead Jan-Leonard Moortgat to invent his brewery in 1871? Or was it the little devil on his shoulder? It's impossible to know. But we do know what a beer with this heritage deserves a righteous pour. Remember that frothiness is next to Godliness. Celebrating inspiration since 1871!". It is 8.5% alc by volume. I will be using my tall tulip glass, which is the closest thing I have to the Duvel glass. Let's see that head!

Nose from the bottle is like a sour wheat beer, I hope this didn't skunk. It did.

 I've retrieved the replacement bottle from my local bottle shop (Crafted in Simpsonville), now we continue. The glass I was going to use in Japan is still packed up, so I will use one of my other tulip glasses.

Nose from the bottle is a bready wheat with a little sourness and funk. Pours golden straw with an ivory white head, moderate agitation, just hazy enough to not see out the other side of the glass clearly. Nose from the glass is more of a white wine with wheat qualities, a little sweet as well. On first sip, Wow that's hard to describe. It has a white desert wine taste with a wheat quality, it manages to be both sweet and bitter at the same time. It's like a sweet light malt with a good deal of bittering hops that are not overpowering, probably Saaz (Post Script: it is Saaz, and also Golding). Starts sweet malt with honey and white grape, then the bitter hops come in and rides out to the end. Finishes bitter, hopy, and dry with a sweet honey aftertaste. It's a light body due to the high carbonation, a little warming, not particularly acidic. Balance on this beer really swings back and forth between the bitter hops and the sweet malt, it's got an equal balance by aggregate.

Listening to Howlin Wolf. Today's a good day, as I saw a friend I thought had died walking along on the street! He lives and works in town and I am overjoyed to learn this!
In other news, I finally broke down and bought a new drive shaft for the 180SX. Wound up going with a stock one as all of the forums said you're wasting your money on a performance shaft unless you're putting out 600hp. The engine is pretty stock and for the most part I'm leaving it that way, so no need to spend $400 when $100 will do everything you need it to. It gets here Thursday, so tomorrow I'm going to take the plate of my '79 dodge and transfer it over to the 180. Hopefully I can have the American title made up and insurance by Monday.

It's not pretty, but it'll probably work

Switched over a record I bought in Japan. It claims to be the original motion picture soundtrack for Fritz Lang's 1926 lost masterpiece of German expressionist film making: Metropolis. This is a strange proposition but not unheard of, as films of the time were partially stage shows and often came with sheet music to be played. It is immediately apparent that this is not Gottfried Huppertz's Richard Wagner inspired score commissioned for the original film. The First song features Freddy Mercury (of Queen fame) and is one of the most aggressively 80's things I've ever heard. It just becomes more 80's Pop from there. No, this is from Giorgio Moroder's 1984 80 minute restoration, the one that was nominated for two Golden Raspberry's...both for it's musical score. Good lord Japan, the things you people hold on to. This is like staring the ugly reality of that decade right in the face. No need for rose colored glasses here folks.

Final thoughts. Fantastic! this beer not only challenged my descriptive abilities but was also delicious in a way that I don't see in many beers! I give this beer my blurry seal of approval!

http://www.duvel.com/en/history
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duvel_Moortgat_Brewery

The beers of Fountain Inn: Draai Laag Brewing Company's Relic

I purchased this beer at Crafted in Simpsonville SC (my favorite bottle shop). Tonight's beer is Relic, by Draai Laag Brewing Company out of Millvale Pennsylvania. I heard about this one from my friend (and associate of the blog) Hilgar, who informed me of it's rather interesting quality. This beer was made from a yeast strain dug out of the protective wax of a nearly 400 year old cabinet from a French monastery, making it one of the oldest yeast strains in current use. This kind of thing is Draai Laag's prerogative, interesting and atypical French and Belgian styled beers made with a solid understanding of the science of fermentation. Started in 2009 by science geek and fermentation aficionado Dennis after seeing a Jerry rigged brewing system in the basement of an English pub, the brewery thrives on being unconventional and experimental. They currently run a taproom in Pittsburgh called Strange Roots.

I purchased this beer in a 1pt 9oz (500ml) long body slender shoulder crimpcap bottle. I can see allot of sediment at the bottom, but some of the best beers do, just be ready for floaters. The label art features a simple, almost midevel design featuring the breweries hop sword symbol. It states on the bottle "Draai Laag brewing co Relic Ale" and their tagline "Wild by design". The epitaph on the bottle states "Long story short - we came into possession of a French Monastery cabinet dated from the 17th century and, naturally, set to work attempting to extract a yeast strain from the initial layers of wax used to preserve it. Hops were added sparingly, allowing the uniquely earthy, musty and citrusy flavors of the ancient strain to shine". 6.3% abv. I'll be using a tulip glass for this one, incidentally also from Crafted (although I've had it for years). Lets pop the top and see that head.

It makes a fantastic hiss, wisps pour out the top as well. Nose from the bottom is both bready and sour, kind of like a Flanders sour scent. Maybe a little lactic, defiantly musty. Pours an opaque yellow-orange color (about a 7 on the SRM) with a quickly dissipating head, although agitation is fantastic. It is very much a "living" beer. Nose from the glass is still an acidic sour but more citrusy and less musty. On first sip, certainly sour and citrusy. I would say those are the two overriding characteristics, it's similar to either a blood orange or a pomelo. It has a bready characteristic that shows up towards the end, disappears, and then reappears in the aftertaste. Finishes dry and tart with a grapefruit rind taste and a lingering citric acid and bread. A bit of a mustiness comes through as you drink it, but it's not as pronounced as I anticipated. Medium body and fairly acidic, although not quite as much as you would expect from the flavor. A little astringent, kind of enzymatic as well.

Listening to an Israeli Jazz-Rock band called Marbin. Got the vinyl in the mail a week or two ago, but I only recently got my turntable set back up so this is my first time hearing it. Great background music for reviewing beer. My brother wanted to try this beer, we'll see what he thinks... He likes it, he thinks it tastes like the "Red 5 standing by" Flanders red had a love child with a Lambic. I disagree with him on the Lambic portion, but I see where he would get that.
So let's talk about one of the most influential event's you may have never heard of, Starfish Prime. So back in '62, four years after James Van Allen confirmed that the Earth had a series of giant radioactive belts that protected us from waves the of particles flying around outer space, the United States wanted to understand what would happen if you set a nuke off in them because of course we did. This was coming on the tail of the Soviet Union ending their moratorium on testing nuclear weapons in space and we thought it was a fantastic opportunity to redo the (poorly executed) high altitude nuclear tests that we had done in '58 (immediately after finding out about the aforementioned radioactive belts), but without the political ramifications. So we started Operation Fishbowl, and with five W49 thermonuclear warheads atop PGM-17 Thor missiles we set out to do some science. Our first launch, Bluegill, we thought was going off it's flight path so we had it self destruct. Latter we determined that it was doing just fine and we had destroyed a 6.25 million ($51,296,978.48 in today's money) missile for absolutely nothing. The second launch, Starfish, flew for 59 seconds before the missile stopped and just started to break apart (there is a reason we had stopped making Thor missiles two years prior) so we had it self destruct as well. The third one however, Starfish Prime, successfully detonated at 250 miles up from it's launch pad on Johnston Island. We launched 27 rockets with instruments to gather data from the test, and boy did they get some data. The EMP that Starfish Prime created was so large we were not capable of measuring it at the time and caused significant damage to Hawaii's electrical infrastructure 900 miles away. You could actually see the flash from Honolulu. The Beta particles released by the detonation created new, temporary radiation belts within the existing ones which crippled 1/3rd of all low Earth orbit satellites at the time. After that, we knew we had a better way to use the bomb and it's characterized how it's been employed ever since.

Although we still haven't done a great deal to shield ourselves from EMP attack.

Final thoughts. Great beer, really tasty, fantastic to sip. I'd like to try some of this brewers other stuff, they've got me interested. I give this beer my blurry seal of approval.

http://www.strangerootsbeer.com/our-story/
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Allen_radiation_belt
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fishbowl

The beers of Fountain Inn: Narragansett Lager

My Dad wanted me to review this beer because when he was a kid it's what everybody drank (He's from Maine). We looked around and wound up finding it at the Total Wine off Woodruff road in Greenville. So tonight's beer is Narragansett Lager from Narragansett Brewing out of Rochester New York.

Narraganset Brewing Co. was started back in 1890 in Cranston Rhode Island by six business men with a $150,000 loan. Production began that same year, soon it would be New England's largest brewery. It built the first modern bottling plant in 1914 and did quite well until the dark Volstead Act days (better known as Prohibition). It managed to survive by getting the brewery a license from the IRS to make beer for medical purposes, but just barely.  In 1931 Rudolf Haffenreffer Jr (who ran the Boston Brewing Company with his brother Theodore) took over the marketing department (Later the company as a whole) and with some real advertising know how lead to the brewery's brightest decades. Not only did he secure a partnership with the Boston Red Sox, from which the brewery's slogan "Hi Neighbor! Have a 'Ganset!" came. He also hired Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss) to create the brewery's mascot "Cheif Ganset". After his death in 1954, Narraganset became the best selling beer in New England and in 1957 brewed it's millionth barrel of beer. Some years later in 1965 Narraganset would absorb the Haffenreffer brands after that brewery's closing, that same year Falstaff brewing Co. purchased Narraganset for $17million cash and $2million in Falstaff stock, the purchase would not be completed until 1974 due to an antitrust suit being brought against the acquisition. This would prove to be a disaster for both companies. Due to money being poured into the ant-trust lawsuit and not into modernizing the breweries along with poor management decisions and increased competition, the Narraganset brewery closed in 1981 and production moved to Fort Wayne Indiana. This proved to be another disastrous move (due to Fort Wayne's inferior water) and the brand was officially dead in 1983. The original 1890's brewery complex was torn down in 1998 after over a decade of neglect and it's trolley barn across the road burned down in 2005. Falstaff suffered similar misfortunes and mismanagement, closing in 1990. Falstaff and Narraganset were both owned by former subsidiary Pabst until Narraganset was purchased by Mark Hellendrung and his associates in 2005. Since then the new Narraganset has become New England's 5th largest brewery and the United State's 37th largest craft brewer. They completed their new Rhode Island brewing facility in 2017, bringing the brand back home for the first time in 34 years.

I purchased this beer in a tall 16 oz pop tab can.The white can states "Made on Honor, Sold on Merit" "The famous Narraganset Lager""since 1890" and on the side it has the classic tagline "Hi-Neighbor! Have a 'Ganset!". According to the website, it's made with six row malt, Pacific Northwest hops, and Iowa corn. 5% ABV, I'll be having this in the super traditional Orion mug, can't wait to see the head.

Nose from the can is sweet medium barley malt with a tinge of apple. Pours golden with a thick large bubble head, crystal clear with good agitation. Nose from the mug is the same as the can. On first sip, sweet barley malt with very light grassy hop flavor, allot of apple, definite Lager yeast quality to it. Lower medium body, very smooth with a light finish. It's quite easy drinking ans sessionable.

Listening to the music of my father's youth, as this beer is a throwback to it. I am, again, trying to get back on the horse with the beer reviews. I've been hit with a combination of ill health, family situations, and finishing other projects. One of these new projects is the computer I'm writing this blog on. The laptop was insufficient, so I gave it to my sister Mary and built this crypto mining monstrosity. I would have to say it' probably 7-8 times as powerful as my old laptop, it's just incredible. In two days I mined more Monero than I did in two weeks with the laptop, and I don't know how much more Ethereum. And you should see it render graphics, holy crap! In other news, I have to save up to buy a new drive shaft for my 180sx. I decided to just bite the bullet and get a single piece performance shaft for about $400. It's allot, but it keeps with my concept of maintaining the stock look of the vehicle while upgrading the performance. In march there is an event in Georgia for imports, I'm going to try to make it. I'm trying to wrap up allot of projects, and that car is #1. Some of these things could wait for decades, but that car needs to get moving or it's not going to be the nice vintage performance car I bought in Japan. In other news, so this gun control deba... I'm just kidding, this is an apolitical blog.

Final thoughts. Good solid beer. It goes down easy but doesn't get in the way, so I could see drinking several of these. I can see why it was so popular in it's day, way more tasty than most beers of that period. I give this beer my blurry seal of approval.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narragansett_Brewing_Company
 http://www.narragansettbeer.com/our-story

the beers of Fountain Inn: Guinness 200th anniversary export stout

I got this at the Publix on Fairview road in Simpsonville. It is the 200th anniversary export stout by Guinness, out of Dublin Ireland. The anniversary is in commemoration of the first time Guinness was imported to the United States, way back in 1817.
Guinness brewery was started by Arthur Guinness in Dublin Ireland in 1759 when he leased the old St James Gate brewery for 9000 years for a price of IR£46 per year. As entertaining as it was to have such an absurdly long lease, the brewery needed to expand beyond the 4 acres so they wound up buying the land outright some years later. At first brewing ales, Arthur would convert over to brewing the increasingly popular style Porter in 1799, a choice which would characterize the breweries products for the next two centuries. Guinness made it's first export in 1801 of it's West Indies Porter, the predecessor of the Foreign Extra (in my top 5 favorite beers) to London. In 1803 Arthur Guinness died, leaving his business to his son Arthur Guinness. Now this part next is important because it's why this beer even exists, on 16 October 1817 8 barrels of Porter were sold to John Heavy of my beloved home state of South Carolina. This Porter would also be the first beer exported with the new Black Patent Malt, which characterizes all of Guinness's Porters and Stouts. Tonight's Stout is made to replicate the Stout sent across the Atlantic, so much like the West Indies Porter but with a different malt . I'm going to leave the history off there, we will pick up whenever I review a different Guinness beer. There is Just so much history it takes forever to write about it.

I received this beer in an 11.2 oz stubby crimpcap bottle. The cap is cream colored and marked with the brewery seal. Embossed on the shoulder of the bottle is Arthur Guinness's signature. The label is oval with a red white and blue background. It says " 200 Years In America" "Guinness 200thy Anniversary Export Stout" "brewed with black patent malt" "the open gate brewery" "St. James's Gate, Dublin" and at the bottom features Arthur Guinness's signature over the waves. On the reverse it says "This year marks the 200th anniversary of the first guinness export from Ireland to the US. To commemorate this momentous occasion we brewed this beer, inspired by entries from our 1817 brewing logs. In 1817 Guinness was using black patent malt to give it's stouts their deep dark black color. This new brew is complex and smooth with balance of roast and sweet chocolate". The Guinness website says it uses Goldings hops. 6% ABV, I'll be using my HMLA-267 mug that I received as a ball gift. Lets pop the top.

Nose from the bottle is a dark malt coco scent. Pours an almost black dark ruby color with beige head, I'd give it a 25 on the SRM. Nose from the mug is the same as the bottle but with a potato bread and more of a milk chocolate. On first sip, it's rich with dark malt and dark chocolate, not really any hop character to speak of, good balance between the malt and chocolate flavors. Finishes like a hot coco, except cold and with a little bit of alcohol and dryness. It's a really smooth beer, basically no acidity and with just the right amount of carbonation. Solid full body, almost syrupy, not too astringent.

Listening to Kansas Bible Company. So I not only picked up the trailer I was talking about on my previous blog post, but also picked up my 180sx from Charleston! The trailer is great, needs a little work on the inside but I'm taking care of that. The 180 is currently inoperable because I broke one of the yokes off the driveshaft when I removed it so it could be towed. It's not a particularly expensive part, but it still sucks to not be able to use my car. I have to get a new piece for the center console, that didn't make it to America with the car. When they say nothing can be in the car, they mean it! It's still good to have it here. I can't wait to fix this drive shaft, it's going to be so nice. but in other news, my Uncle Mark and I are going to start building AR-15 upper receivers with all of those cool add-ons that people like to take out to a field and have fun with. I'm talking golf ball/tennis ball launchers, fuel filter adapters, chainsaw blades, flair launchers, "unconventional materials". All of that cool stuff you see online but almost never actually see in a store or at the gun show. We will have it already put together and ready to use, ammo and all.

Final thoughts. It's a good beer, I hope it's not just a special edition and this will be available for a while. I give this beer my blurry seal of approval.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinness
 https://www.guinness.com/en-us/our-story/