Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Sunday, November 27, 2011
The Exotic Beer Weekly - This week Mythos
This Week: The Legend
of Mythos.
You'd be excused for mistaking Mythos for an
obscure 4th generation pokemon, but in actuality it’s a Greek beer.
Supposedly brewed by the Gods on Mount Olympus in the days when the
gods walked the earth (or at least walked Olympus), Heroes fought for
love and honour, and critters like Cyclops, Minotaurs and gorgons
skulked about looking for evil deeds to do (I jest of course, its
only been around since 1997).
The lid popped off with a satisfying thwop,
releasing an almost sweet smell. I took my first cautious sip,
hopeful that the gods would favour me on my endeavour, however I was
dismayed when the froth overfloweth like a tidal wave from Poseidon.
I expected it to have a mind-shattering,
world-view-altering effect; the ground would open, the seas would
roar, the mountains would crumble into dust and rain down on the
world like so much manna from heaven in just a perfect affirmation of
life and everything in it. What I got was a surprisingly smooth,
mellow taste with almost no bitterness, and just enough carbonation
to remind me I was drinking lager. This is an incredibly tasty lager,
kind of sweet, very smooth and very easy to drink. I enjoyed it so
much I'd even consider buying it again. And at only $13 a 6-pack, why
in Hades not?
I award Mythos Hellenic Lager 4.5 Pegasus out of
5.
[editor's notes; "Mythos" means “Myth” in Greek. Go figure.
And please
excuse Michael's use of olde English “overfloweth” in a piece discussing ancient Greek.]
Spirit Sunday - This Week Krupnikas Honey Liqueur
This
week: Krupnikas Honey Liqueur ($34 (500mL))
Take
a moment now to remember the last time you had honey. Was it on
toast? A scone, maybe? A few drops in tea? What aspect of the honey
drew you use it on this occasion? Its sweet taste or sticky texture?
I bet you're smiling right now as you think about honey.
Krupnikas
is none of the things you were just thinking about. It's thinner than
you'd think but thicker than you'd want, far more sour than sweet,
and just generally not very much like its alleged source.
Interestingly,
none of these things are good enough reasons to stop me from
recommending it. Indeed the way that it shrugs off so many aspects of
its origin make it all the more exciting. At a hearty %40 alcohol by
volume, its a strong liqueur, and has enough body to not burn like
poison all the way down.
Like
any over-proof liqueur its can be difficult to smell without
cringing, however I implore you to persevere; its bark (smell) is
worse than its bite (taste). For any spirit buffs out there it resembles a slightly sweeter, less sustained form of Metaxa, and for any Metaxa drinkers out there I ask only this question; why?
It
mixes better with hot drinks over cold, perhaps in a hangover of its
honey upbringing. This probably puts it firmly in the 'Winter drinks'
category, but that's ok.
Krupnikas
Honey Liqueur rates 3.5 stars.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Sunday, November 20, 2011
The Exotic Beer Weekly - This Week Kingfishers
This week: Slumdog Kingfisher
With a population of over a billion people I'd be
slightly worried if India couldn’t produce at least one person who
knew the ancient secrets of brewing a half decent beer. Luckily it
seems somebody did know how, and they called it Kingfisher Premium
Lager (although it took them til 1978 to do it).
The best selling beer in India, and winner of
several distinguished beer awards, it's apparently the ‘King of
Good Times’, though this is as hard to swallow as water from the
Ganges. As a light, full-bodied beer that has an almost fruity
aftertaste it certainly goes down smooth, with almost no head at all.
It definitely is a good flavour, and I did enjoy it whilst I was
drinking it, as long as I ignored the bitter, almost metallic smell.
However, the claim that it is the King of Good
Times is perhaps a little exaggerated. I think of it in the same way
I think of Bollywood films; sure they’re fun, whimsical and
delightful, but I forget them as soon as the movie’s over. It’s
just an average, run-of-the-mill lager, everything a beer should be,
and nothing more.
This isn’t a bad thing; in fact its light
refreshing flavour is the perfect accessory to a good curry, or a hot
summer afternoon in Delhi. And at $17 per 6-pack, and 5% alcohol,
it’s certainly good value and this bumps it up half a star. If
Ghandi drank beer, I’d wager he’d drink Kingfisher.
I award Kingfisher 3.5 Taj Mahals out of 5.
Spirit Sunday - This week Hamada Syuzou (Japanese Sweet Potato Shochu)
This week: Hamada
Syuzou (Japanese Sweet Potato Shochu)($39)
This week's selection
of Schochu has been largely influenced by my girlfriend, who once
called me her "sweet pat-ta-to". Sickly sweet, I know, but
we all have pet-names, don't deny it.
Schochu baffled me at
first. The bottle is frosted with a reddy-orangy colour, while the
spirit itself is clear and a little syrupy. This disappointed me as I
had hoped it would be the other way round. Immediately the novelty of
the sweet potato origin seemed diminished; I wanted more mystery and
excitement.
I had three glasses of
the stuff and found each one decidedly different. The first was like
a combination of cheap tequila and Bacardi, which wasn't very good.
There was no magic sweet potato moment where I tasted mashed tubers
or even smelled my favourite vegetable. Something happened, however,
with glass number two. After my second sip I tasted something
tremendous; just after the spirit left my mouth and before it fell
all the way to my boiling belly I found it. Sweet potato, clear as
day for about 1.25 seconds. My mind raced back to the grilled sweet
potato I'd eaten a few weeks ago in a salad. I even had a flash of
some sweet potato mash I'd done while entertaining several months
earlier. It was incredible.
But it was quick, and
try as I might I couldn't find it again. It was as if the spirit had
chosen one, and only one, moment in which it would reveal its true
form, and at all other times choose to taste like a sour white rum. I
never found the taste again, and by my third glass chasing the dream
I began to feel a bit silly and called it a day. Strangely the
experience was almost spiritual. The unique use of an unexpected
source left me a little bit rattled. I still have some left in the
bottom of my freezer and will leave it there for a while I think.
Maybe one day I'll try and find that taste again, but for now all I
can do is remember it fondly.
And so I split this
weeks rating into three parts. Glass one rated 1.75 stars. Glass two
rated 4.125 stars. Glass three rated 2.875 stars.
Hamada Syuzou Shochu
averages 2.3106 stars (approx.)
Friday, November 18, 2011
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Sunday, November 13, 2011
The Exotic Beer Weekly - This week Radelbergers
This Week: The Radelberger Manifesto
I must say I expected
better from Germany. From the country that gave us Marxism,
liederhosen and Oktoberfest, I'm certainly dissapointed. I've heard
German beer is well respected by scholars, and Becks is highly
esteemed in this reviewer's own humble opinion.
The same can't be said
for Radelbergers. As my first foray into the pilsner territory, I
must admit I had very little idea what to expect. It had a dark
earthy flavour that was not in and of itself entirely unpleasant,
however it was not pleasant either. It was simply adequate. Even
thought the bottle was only 330mL (and a respectable 4.8%) I found
myself wishing by halfway through that it was over. Much like
bratwurst, its like a full meal in itself when all you wanted was a
sausage. I found this beer much too heavy to enjoy.
At $18 by the 6-pack I'm certainly not
saying Radelbergers was bad, just that it could have been so much
better.
I award Radelbergers
2.5 Germans of 5.
Spirit Sunday - This week Lemon Z!
This week: Lemon Z
(500mL) ($34)
I admit to a serious
tactical error in choosing Lemon Z for this week's spirit. It wasn't
until I opened the stylish frosted bottle I realised the mistake I
made. As a teenager I remember a party where, instead of grown-up
drink, we had several bottle of lemon essence, a synthetic baking
product that's 85% alcohol and 15% burning pain. I had a bottle of it
to myself, drinking it 50/50 with coke if I remember correctly.
That night my vomit was
so acidic it burnt a yellow hole in the carpet near the table I
blacked out under. The incident, and the day that followed, have been
singed into my memory as one of supreme discomfit. Herein lies the
difficulty with this particular review.
Lemon Z might be very
nice. In fact it might be the nicest lemon liqueur of its kind in the
world; I just couldn't tell you. Every sip gives me the kind of
shudder one only gets when reliving a very painful, alcohol-related
memory. I tried it on ice, as the bottle suggests. I tried with an
assortment of fruit juices. I almost tried it with coke but got a
particularly bad series of shivers, given the combination of smells.
Unfortunately this
means I have to split this review into the practical and the
theoretical. Practically I can't give Lemon Z any more than 1 star. I
realise however that this is entirely due to my on prejudices, and so
I'll give it a theoretical rating based on what I think I might think
about it had I never spent an evening in my youth swigging poison.
Theoretically Lemon Z
rates 3.5 stars.
Friday, November 11, 2011
Limeicks #6 and #7
Of all the chefs the most normal,
Was Dave, the incessantly formal.
Though he had good range,
His dishes were strange,
With most punters thinking them awful.
After ingesting 4 dozen oysters,
Simon's stomach began to feel boisterous.
He spewed up his bile,
With tremendous guile,
Into his pocket, avoiding a roister.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Monday, November 7, 2011
Limericks #4 and #5
A
fruit loving fellow, John Trapple,
became
romantically involved with an apple,
the
situation turned grim
when
they slipped out of their skins,
she
withered, going brown and bedraggled!
A
suave secret agent's new widget,
could
remove bras no matter how rigid.
He'd
tried it on most,
Of
the girls near his post,
But
strangely it made most of them frigid.
Sunday, November 6, 2011
MIchael and The Exotic Beer Weekly - This Week Sapporo
The Exotic Beer Weekly.
With MIchael Wiggins
and occasionally PAtrick.
Some background info with MIchael.
I'm
just an average Aussie drinker. Not a connoisseur by any stretch of
the imagination, but I like to think that under normal circumstances
I can tell the difference between stout and, say, red wine.
Convinced of the
superiority of Australian beer, I was raised on a steady diet of
Toohey's New. When feeling slightly upper-class I'd tipple on Pure
Blonde. When funding was desperately low, VB. The most risk I ever
took with culturally diverse beer was drinking Corona without lemon.
So upon realising that
there was literally an entire world of beer out there, an inkling of
an idea sprung into my mind, where it quickly matured and diversified
like yeast and hops fermenting into beer. I decided it was time I
gained some of this 'culture', and have some good times in the
process. I will drink beer from all those countries I never dared to
before, and, assuming my faculties remain intact, rank and review
each one. And thus, Exotic Beer of the Week is born.
This week: Domo Arigato
Mr Sapporo
I was a little wary
when choosing Sapporo as my inaugural Exotic Beer of the Week. I had
been told that Japanese beer was decried in most circles. However, my
spirits lifted like bubbles rising to the surface of a cold brew when
the good folk at Sapporo convinced me, through advertisements, that
“the Japanese didn’t invent beer, they just perfected it”. I
got a little more excited when I read that it was brewed in Canada,
and any country that gives the world Jim Carrey cant be too bad,
right?
Anyway, at $16 a
six-pack the price was right, and that sealed the deal. After taking
my first cautious sip, I was pleasantly surprised. That same tangy
after-taste I've come to know and love, with a slightly oriental
twist. At 5% alcohol, it’s a little stronger than standard
Australian beers, but you can hardly notice; it goes down so smooth.
I found that I was savouring the taste, actually enjoying this beer.
I suppose like everything the Japanese do, and their beers are no
exception. They have spent centuries perfecting their technique to
brew, and with solid results.
I award it 4 ninja out of 5.
PAtrick Celebrates Spirit Sunday - This week Monte Alban Mezcal
PAtrick and
occasionally others review the most potent drinks.
But first, background info.
We here at the IPN Blog and asscociated feel we have a responsibility to take on the hard jobs. To put our lives and minds on the line, as it were, to provide the best possible entertainment for the several people who view the IPN Blog.
It is with this in mind that we decided to take on that most volatile and nausea-inducing of passtimes; spirits.
Each week, on a Sunday, we'll review a spirit or liquer, weeding out the losers and bringing you the advice you need to make an informed choice of poison. Enjoy.
PAtrick
This week: Monte Alban
Mezcal Con Gusano (MAMCG) (the one with the worm in it) ($49)
Tequilla and its cousin
Mezcal always seem to test me in unexpected ways. This time the
challenge came in the form of an ethical dilema around the mysterious
agave (arh-gar-vee, I think) worm, pickling in the bottom of the
bottle.
I understand that there
is some sort of tradition, and that the whole affair has some
ancient, mystical significance to the Mexican people, but it still
feels, well, icky. The gentle pop as you bite the creature's head off
and the ooze of whatever goo is on the inside impedes true enjoyment.
Thankfully though, the worm mouthful is only one of the 20+ shots
you'll get from the bottle.
Like a true wanker I
enjoyed MAMCG over ice and in increasing amounts. At the low
temperatures it's easy to drink, beating any tequilla I've had yet.
Taken as a shot it kicks hards (as good shots do), however we didn't
have any lemons with us and can't provide a lip-sip-suck rating. We
did, however, have strawberries, and give the lip-sip-bite
combination a 3.5 star rating.
Overall, it presents
great novelty with the worm, and great tastes either straight, shot
or mixed. The price is restrictive however, and so should only be
kept for an occasion or as a build up to a big night.
4 stars.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Friday, November 4, 2011
Limericks #1, #2 and #3
A sword swallower from
the far East,
encountered a most
fearsome beast,
but he was simply to
slow,
pulling the sword from
his throat,
and precarved himself
for the feast!
This spoon is so
shockingly bent,
that last time I had
ice cream I went,
to scoop from the
bowl,
just to see I'd dug a
hole,
by my right-hand
nieghbour's back fence!
A Hollywood bimbo,
Lauretta,
boasts of her legs that
there're no better!
A mile long each,
and gold like a beach,
though impractical,
you'll never forget her!
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
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