Spectre’s Sayings

Two words: too sour. Smelled doughy and grainy, and the flavor was way too sour. No noticeable hop aroma or flavor.

Millstream has put out some really lovely beers. But this isn’t one of them. Give this one a pass.

About the same color as a nut brown ale, this lager has a small head and nice lacing. The aroma is very nice: sweet-smelling, with hints of cloves and fruit, it kind of smelled like a Belgian dark strong ale.

It’s a beer with a substantial mouthfeel, as would be expected with a doppelbock, but it’s pretty smooth-drinking. It doesn’t tend to linger on the tongue after swallowing.

There’s a big, malty taste, but the hops are quite noticeable, especially at the finish. On one swallow, I happened to swish the beer in my mouth, and was rewarded with blast of carbonation coming out of solution, as well as the taste of alcohol hotness - as if this was a young big beer. This beer has an ABV of 7.2%, so I’m not entirely sure whether I should be surprised at that.

I’m not usually a fan of the bock beer styles, but I thoroughly enjoyed this one. I’d definitely drink it again.

I hope everyone had a pleasant Memorial Day yesterday.

Yesterday evening, I made my way to Camp Butler National Cemetery. My first stop was at my grandfather’s grave. Camp Butler is really a beautiful place. I think it’s a very nice tribute to veterans who have passed away.

One thing that is striking about the place on Memorial Day is all the flags. Along the roadsides, there are large U.S. flags flying from new aluminum flagpoles. There’s a little space at the head of a circular drive for ceremonies, and this space has the flags of the 5 armed services around it. The drive itself has the U.S. flag flying along the exterior perimeter, while the interior is lined with the flags of the 50 states.

What’s even more impressive is that upon each an every grave a boy scout or a cub scout placed a flag. The vast majority of these flags are, of course, U.S. flags.

From the road, however, I noticed one little section where I saw German flags.

So I got out of the car to take a closer look.

This little section of only two rows was the POW section of the cemetery. There were several German soldiers, a handful of Italian soldiers, and a single Korean soldier buried there. The dates on the headstones were either 1944 or 1945. I should like to learn a little more about how these WWII POWs came to be buried in central Illinois.

Behind - and at a 90-degree angle from – the POW section was the much larger Confederate section of the cemetary. This is not surprising. Camp Butler began its existence as a Union training camp, but was quickly turned into a POW camp during the Civil War.

The scouts placed U.S. flags on the graves of the Confederate soldiers too, but there were other, smaller flags on these graves – the Stars and Bars of the Confederacy:

Memorial Day is certainly a time to stop and reflect.

Yahoo News is reporting that scientists have discovered a “frogamander” fossil.

I’m on vacation this week, so blogging will be light to non-existant.

Normal blogging will resume next week.

I had a good time at the Brewers’ Heritage Festival is St. Louis on Saturday. The ground was soggy due to recent weather, but it didn’t rain during my session.

I got a nifty little tasting glass which resembles a miniature version of a pilsner glass. There was a logo on one side, and a 3 oz. indicator mark on the other.

It was a well-attended event on Saturday. There was a lager tent, an ale tent, a food tent, a festival tent, a stage, and a merchandise tent. Brewers lined the side of the Ale, Lager, and Festival tents on the side of the tents in the direction of the exterior of the venue. This allowed for short lines parallel to each other - one for each variety of beer. The organizers set up small bar tables throughout the tents, around which people stood and tasted. This encouraged people to move away from the lines, which further aided movement to and from the lines.

The homebrew that I tasted was a very interesting light-colored rye beer. The festival brew was a dark lager - that is, a lager brewed using dark-colored base malts. An interesting idea, I must say. Four different breweries took a stab at making the festival brew. I was very pleasantly surprised by Anheuser-Busch’s version. If they made it commercially available, I would buy it, and consider it their second-best beer (after the Michelob Porter).

Schlafly’s Imperial Stout was the only stout I tried, and it appeared to be a very young beer. There was a noticeable hotness to the alcohol. I’d recommend cellaring that beer for a while.

My brother tried a smoked beer (not a porter, interestingly enough). I took a whiff, and it smelled for all the world like a smoked ham. I couldn’t imagine drinking something that smelled like that, but he said it tasted very good.

I ended up trying a lot of different beers, including two different types of porters, blonde ales & lagers, a dortmunder Helles, a couple of red ales, and my favorite of the day, a Vienna lager. There were other beers that I tried and enjoyed too.

Here’s a few pictures I took by holding my camera up over my head:

And my drinking buddies (who also happen to be related to me) who came with me:

A good time was had by all.

I’ve just been horrified at the images of suffering I’ve seen on the television from China yesterday and today. The number of dead and missing people is just incomprehensible. All I can do is pray for those people.

A nickle per kW/h solar energy? That’s Sungri’s claim.

New Scientist wonders: Did Earth once have multiple moons?

I’ll be heading down to St. Louis on Saturday to attend the St. Louis Brewer’s Heritage Festival. I’ll be bringing my brother and my cousin along. This will be my first beer festival, so I’m quite looking forward to it. Let’s hope the weather is nice!

CNN.com: Penny prices pinched by rising cost of metal.

It’s been confirmed: bureaucrats have no sense of humor. They pulled down the funny stop signs.

via Autoblog.

Catholic News Agency has an article about the swearing-in ceremony that took place today. From the article:

The date on which the ceremony is taking place is significant to the history of the Swiss Guard. May 6, 1527 marks the day that 147 members of the Swiss Guards lost their lives protecting Pope Clement VII during the famous sack of Rome by the troops of Emperor Charles V.