Musings from the basement...

For Jim Koch and Sam Adams, variety is the spice of life

April 5, 2017 0 Comments

The following interview and article was conducting and written in 2013. I’m presenting it here after it first appeared on my separate beer blog, Celebrating the Suds. If you have one of the best selling and best known craft beers on the market, it would be easy to understand putting your time and resources into expanding its reach. When that beer is a pioneering brew like Boston Lager by SamuelAdams, it’s especially easy to understand. Jim Koch, founder of Samuel Adams, doesn’t see it that way. For him, being safe is boring. “The day I want to make the same beer every day is the day I retire,” Koch told me during Philly Beer Week. “It is as exciting today as it was in 1984…
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Craft Beer

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SUNDAY SIPS: 5 Big, Beastly Barleywines

April 2, 2017 1 Comment

Barleywines are an older style of beer. Big, boozy, and perfect for setting aside in the cupboard for a few years, these are beers meant to be sipped (preferably with a nice cigar). These are five worth checking out. Lagunitas Olde Gnarleywine The barleywine, especially the American variation, is a big, bad style of beer known for its refusal to compromise. Don’t believe me? Try a sip of Gnarleywine by Lagunitas. The aroma is like a rich spiced pudding. The taste is brimming with rich toffee, dark fruits, cinnamon and brown sugar, and molasses – but this is an American style barleywine, which means all those rich malts are countered with plenty of bitter hops. And unlike most barleywines, this one actually masks the burn…
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Craft Beer

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Classic MS-DOS games, rare board games, and more: my latest Youtube shenanigans

March 27, 2017 0 Comments

You may or may not know that I co-host a goofy little Youtube show called Nerd Out With Me, formerly Hours in the Attic. We drink beer and talk about nerd stuff we like, usually older stuff from ye ol’ days o’ yore. It’s fun. I like doing it. And these are some of the recent episodes we did. Fun stuff like our favorite MS-DOS games, a rare early edition of my favorite board game, Axis & Allies, a sneak peek at a totally outlandish B-movie called Attack of the Killer Shrews, and a review of a SUPER COOL indie party game called Diss Jockey. So check them out. My fave MS-DOS games are better than Tig’s:   Axis & Allies is an old, old…
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Geek Stuff, Videos, Works by Eric

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SUNDAY SIPS: 5 Sudsy Gems From California

March 26, 2017 0 Comments

This week, it’s five brews from what is arguably the best brewing state in the U.S., California. You can’t throw a stone without hitting a good brewery there. Here are five good beers from Cali worth checking out. Firestone Walker Easy Jack Few states can match Pennsylvania when it comes to having fantastic brewers, but among those that can is California, arguably the top brewing state in the U.S. That’s thanks to folks like Firestone Walker. All the attention goes to their anniversary beers and monsters like Sucaba, but they are masters of the little beer, too. Take Easy Jack session IPA, for example. Easy Jack is the smaller sibling of Union Jack IPA, but being smaller is no knock. The body is light and…
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Craft Beer

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Why Are Marvel’s Blu-Ray Releases So Mediocre?

March 21, 2017 49 Comments

These days, Marvel Studios make THE tentpole action flicks. With a combination of fun characters, good direction, solid stories, huge spectacle, and a formula that just works, they’ve created an ongoing, interwoven geek movie franchise that has every other studio scrambling to catch up. Make no mistake, I’m an unabashed fan. I don’t pretend they are classic cinema — they’re just comic book movies — but they do something important: they consistently make me feel like I’m 12 again, only without all the self-loathing and zits. From the tense drama of The Winter Soldier to the charming adventure of Ant-Man to the hilarious space adventure of Guardians of the Galaxy, I love this stuff. So do a LOT of people. Marvel movies are YUGE. Four of them…
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Comics & Graphic Novels, Films, Geek Stuff, Random Musings, Rants

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