Random thoughts on Life, Music, and Beer.

Beer Tasting

Saturday, May 31, 2008 - 02:21 PM

Carrie and I went to a beer tasting Thursday night at Sam’s Wine and Spirits.  This was a free event sponsored by Merchant du Vin.  Merchant du Vin is a beer importer that focuses on small, mostly family owned, breweries that specialize in classic styles of their region.  Some of the breweries they work with are Samuel Smith and Ayinger.  They also work with a few of the Trappist breweries.

(The astute out there are saying “Hold up. Merchant du Vin?  Wouldn’t they do wine?  Shouldn’t it be Merchant de Bière?” Well, the host explained that the founder, Charles Finkel, started out importing wonderful regional wines.  But, when he went to visit these wineries, they would take him out to their local pubs and drink these wonderful local beers.  He decided that he needed to bring these beers to America.)

The host really knew his stuff (sorry, I don’t recall his name).  He wasn’t just some salesman sent out to pitch the beers.  He’s a beer lover and a BJCP certified judge.  He’s actually been to some of these breweries.

He started out with a couple of lagers (the only two lagers we would taste that night).  The first was The Samuel Smith’s Organic Lager.  Neither Carrie or I much cared for it.  There are few lagers that impress me, and this didn’t do the trick.  The second was a Czech Lager from Zatec.  This one was very nice, and both Carrie and I enjoyed it very much.  It had a nice malty aroma and more of a hop note that you don’t normally get with lagers.

Then we tried the Samuel Smith’s Imperial Stout.  We both enjoyed this one tremendously (and Carrie’s not much of a stout drinker, so I was surprised she like this one).  I’ve had their Oatmeal Stout before (several times, actually, it’s one of my favorites).  The Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout is the original oatmeal stout, and the definitive example of that style.

Next we tried two more of Samuel Smith’s offerings, the Pale Ale and the India Ale.  I like both of these, preferring the Pale Ale over the India Ale.  Carrie didn’t care much for the India Ale (she tends not to like hoppy beers - although this beer wasn’t nearly as hoppy as some IPAs) but she did enjoy the Pale Ale.

The next beer was the Ayinger Brau-Weiss, a hefe-weizen beer.  Weizen is a favorite style of both mine and Carrie’s, but we’ve never had any of the Ayinger offerings.  This one did not disappoint, it’s a very good example of the style.  And, if you’re used to putting lemon in your weiss, I wouldn’t recommend it with this beer.  While lemon adds a nice bit of zest to many weisses, I think it would take away from the flavor of this one.

The rest of the evening was spent in Belgium, so to speak.  We had two Westmalle Trappist ales, the Tripel and the Dubbel.  Both were very good, but we both preferred the Dubbel.

The last two beers were both lambics from Lindemans.  The first was the Cuvée René Gueuze.  To me, this beer is an acquired taste (I didn’t much care for it - it was much too tart).  Then we had the Pêche (peach), which Carrie enjoyed very much, but I thought was a bit too sweet.

We had a pretty good time and discovered some beers we really enjoyed that we might not have otherwise tried.  We picked up some of the ones we liked the most when it was over (as well as the Classis lambic from Lindeman’s, which is black currant flavored, and I hope I enjoy it better than the peach).  We noticed several other people from the tasting in the store shopping afterwards, as well.  So, I guess giving people free beer is a pretty good marketing strategy.  (Actually, the point is to educate people about the beers, which is one of the company’s goals.  But, hey, it works.)

How to Purchase Concert Tickets On-Line

Friday, May 30, 2008 - 10:51 AM

Wherein George describes the “convenience” of ordering the WXRT sponsored pre-sale tickets for the The Allman Brothers Band/Ratdog concert through Live Nation’s website.

Buying tickets:

1. Log into radio station website’s “VIP area” to get link to pre-sale site, click link to go to pre-sale site.
2. Find/click link to purchase pre-sale tickets.
3. Link opens new window which redirects back to the same exact page.
4. Repeat steps 2-3 several times.
5. Give up out of frustration.
6. Try steps 2-3 again five minutes later, successfully enter ticket purchase page.  Woohoo!
7. Select 2 tickets at price range desired, fill out captcha, click to find tickets.
8. Look up where seats are located on venue map, decide to release tickets and try again to see if different seats come up (big mistake right there).
9. Select 2 tickets at price range desired, fill out captcha, click to find tickets.
10. “Sorry, there are not enough adjacent seats available to fill you request.  Try a different seat option or try again later.”
11. Go back, select 2 tickets at “best available” instead of desired price range.
12. “Sorry, there are not enough adjacent seats available to fill you request.  Try a different seat option or try again later.”
13. Repeat previous steps selecting different options, all with same results.
14. Wait five minutes and try again.  Same results.
15. Call venue to see if show is already sold out (highly unlikely), told that they can’t check that at the moment, but they could send an email to see if something’s wrong with the system.  They suggest I try again later.
16. Wait five minutes and try again.
17. This time, it works - shows same tickets I passed on last time!
18. Decide those seats are good enough, and continue with transaction.
19. Balk at parking fee, convenience fee & transaction fee, which in total amount to almost another ticket (if I had chosen the lowest ticket price option, the fees would actually total more than the price of another ticket).
20. Decide “Screw it, I can’t get to the box office tomorrow, and even if I could tickets might actually be sold out by then.”
21. Fill out credit card, address, etc.
22. Click to finalize purchase, get error “Sorry, we are having technical difficulties with our billing system.  Please try again later.”
23. ARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
24. Wait about 5 minutes and try to finalize purchase - FINALLY goes through.

I really want to know how they justify an $11.75 (per ticket) convenience fee for this.  It goes without saying (but I’ll do it anyway) that this really wasn’t all that convenient.  (And even if it were, and the website worked like it was supposed to, it’s still really not worth $11.75!)

(Note: the quotes on this page aren’t exact quotes of the errors I received.  They’re paraphrased to the best of my recollection and only serve to give an idea of what I experienced.)

If IT Made the Rules

Wednesday, May 28, 2008 - 02:55 PM

What to do in case of User Error…

(If you’ve never worked in a tech support position you probably won’t find this funny.)

Nice Freeze Frame

Tuesday, May 27, 2008 - 08:34 PM

This post is inspired by a game invented by Scott Meyer called “Nice Freeze Frame”.  (And, btw, if you haven’t checked out Scott’s comic, Basic Instructions, I highly recommend it!)

Carrie happened to pause the TV at this precise moment:

Now that’s a funny freeze frame!

Efficient Hydrogen Technology

Thursday, May 22, 2008 - 09:49 AM

It’s amazing that the auto companies have been (supposedly) working on this for years, and claim that it’s not efficient enough to be feasible, but this guy just decides to go ahead and do it on his own. I’m glad there’s still room for innovation from individuals in this country, because the large corporations just aren’t able to anymore. (Or, more likely, are happy with the status-quo, and are unwilling to innovate.)

Unfortunately, the oil companies will put every effort imaginable into suppressing this.  (I envision some laws in place by the end of Bush’s term in office that will make implementing this technology highly restrictive.  Call me cynical.)