It’s approaching that season and whether we like it or not, it’s time to start talking about Fall beers and what to buy and what to laugh at in the grocery store. Who am I kidding though, “like it or not”? Of course we like it or other wise I wouldn’t be writing and you wouldn’t be reading. So let’s get on with the dance and let me introduce to you the first official “pumpkin” beer of the Fall season 2012, Punk’n by Uintas Brewing Company out of Salt Lake City, Utah.
There is a reason that this beer hits such high marks with me and I’m not going to tell you because it’s in my stupid video. Okay, I will. I love the orange, brown and yellow packaging. I also love the fact it’s a milder pumpkin ale that doesn’t destroy the palate with nutmeg and cinnamon just to shout “I’M SEASONAL! HEAR ME ROAR!” It’s light, not over bearing and when you swallow it, it’s gone. Everything that I deem holy in a craft beverage.
For the specificities of this beer click here for more info. I don’t have the energy to write ABV percentages or the fact that it has cloves from space. All you care about is taste and all I care about is posting a video to make VeggieMacabre’s theme song worth the money I spent on it.
So go out and grab a six-pack of this and relax while watching Friday the 13th part VII. It’s a personal favorite of mine. You know I would never steer you wrong. Well, not intentionally.
This evening I am going to take a break from work to discuss beef jerky. But my loves, this is no ordinary beef jerky. This is beef jerky that will fill your mouth with blistering heat and pump you with so much sodium that it will turn your shoes to sandals with a minor explosion of water retention. That’s right, tonight the good people of Slim Jim have introduced to me a new line of beef jerky that has three distinct levels of heat starting with chili and ending with habanero in what promises to be a dry meat chewing inferno of bliss. It is my pleasure to bring you “Dare”, by Slim Jim.
I have always been on the fence with beef jerky because, while it is delicious at first, it gets old quick. There’s so much salt and chewing involved that before you know it, you need to drink anything insight otherwise you’ll turn into this:.
But that’s when they get you. There isn’t a beef jerky eater alive that can quit with just a few pieces. The salt brings you back for more and before you know it, an entire one pound pack of dried cow has been ingested and your sodium intake for the year has been maxed. It’s a vicious cycle and to avoid such a fate, stick to dried bananas. Lucky for us, Slim Jim has added a bit of pain to mix things up.
There are three varieties of the Dare Slim Jims starting with “Kinda Hot Chili Pepper” then to “Freakin’ Hot Jalapeño” and finally the king daddy, “Really Freakin’ Hot Habenero”. Unfortunately the cruddy gas station from which I bought the said beef jerky only had the “Kinda” and “Really Freakin’ Hot”. To be fair, I don’t like reviewing the middle child. What could I say about it other that “hotter than but not as hot as…”. So, I will review the opposite spectrums and we will just assume jalapeño is…medium? Okay, let’s begin.
Kinda Hot Chili Pepper looks pretty benign from the green packaging and the fact that it’s only rated one chili out of three on the illustrated heat scale. But what do I know? My entire sense of what is hot and what is not is a bit skewed since I put ghost pepper sauce on crackers. Makes you wonder why I would review spicy food and who would even listen to me?
Well, I opened this green bag of chewing meat and tried a piece or…erhrm…five pieces and though it was dried to the point of wood, after ten minutes of chewing, it was really good! I was a bit surprised that the heat-sense only really presented itself after you swallowed. It’s more of a back-of-the-throat sensation than mouth or sinus sensation which I like. I wasn’t expecting anything in the way of heat but was quite surprised that this tasted so good! Now don’t get me wrong, the sodium levels and mandibular workout is intense like any dried food item with the same little packet that states “do not eat” but as far as a different and mild taste, this is a happy place.
Now we jump to the other side of the Scoville Scale and take on “Really Freakin’ Hot Habanero” and it’s bag or red. I know this will be hotter than the Chili but I hope it doesn’t go for the hot but no taste. Sometimes food can lose it’s way and forget that spices are there to complement and not kill.I forget this too. Actually the other day while at a business lunch we were at a Tai restaurant and the waiter accidentally confused my Panang Tai-heat 5 with my coworker’s Panang Tai-Heat 1. The result was fist hiccups, followed by sweating, followed by exasperation and then profuse swearing. He had to go home by 1:00. Everyone in the office thinks I now have a problem.
The first thing I noticed when I opened the bag was a smell that reminded me of doggie daycare. I know that sounds terrible but facts are facts and the oder of habanero spices on dried meat just hits the olfactory and brings up memories “Arf House: School of the Gifted”. So when you get this pack and open it, turn your head.
Another noticeable difference is the texture. The Chili Jerky is extremely brittle and dry like bacon that has been frying while the cook gets caught up in another episode of Big Brother only to be reminded when the smoke alarm brings him back to reality. This Habanero Jerky is much softer and not nearly as tough. But that’s not what makes this beef jerky sexy. It’s actually a bit spicy! My first piece I swallowed the juices a bit prematurely and had quite the episode. After a swig of beer I was right back on top and can say, while not as tasty as the milder sister, this one has a kick that will make up for the 460mg of sodium and 35mg of cholesterol.
So, overall, this was a shitty review. I had to do it because when I saw “Really Frickin’ Hot” beef jerky, I just couldn’t wait to find the middle flavor. Had I known that Chili would be such a winner, I probably would have held out. Overall between the two I have to go against my entire being and say the milder wins. Although I am fascinated by peppers that can put a grown man in the hospital when all he wanted to do was zest his burger, this time taste won out. That doesn’t mean that I won’t still fill my mouth with Habanero beef jerky and three spoonful’s of ghost pepper sauce just to say I did! I ain’t no Nancy!
I know what you’re thinking so don’t even say it; it’s too early. While it is too early to chat Halloween it is not too early to yap about Fall Beer because, shit, it’s already out in the market! I declare this my official duty to tell everyone what is available and drinkable that is orange, black and alcoholic. You can say it’s a silly hobby but I say your haircut is silly. I kid, it looks fine.
The first review of 2012 I bring you Blue Moon’s annual Autumn sample pack. I have reviewed these in the past but this year they did a little something different. Listening to their fan base, the company allowed a select number of Blue Moon drinkers to choose this year’s flagship beer and man, they did good. They did real good. I only review this pick because to review the others would be dull and to be honest, nine minutes of me yapping is too much. Let me present you with this year’s Blue Moon Fall Beer that is 100% Great Pumpkin: Caramel Spiced Apple Ale.
P.S. The new intro song is actually named “Veggiemacabre Reviews” and that makes things a bit more official. Or something like that.
Adding to the long page of “where did you goes” here comes another segment that lets people like us spy on people like them. And by them I mean stars that no one links to look for. It’s a strange hobby of mine but it keeps me from my other hobby; shopping cart racing. So let’s kick this diddy into off with a little known film from a little know director called Stanley Kubrick.
Well, well, well…it’s Danny Torrence (Danny Lloyd) from the greatest Stephen King book turned Stanley Kubrick film, The Shining. This is one of my favorites and it is so hard to say why. Even people who hate horror movies tend to really like this film. It’s as mysterious as the bear suited person going down on that guy when Shelly Duval is running around like a moron wielding a 3 foot knife with jelly wrists. (horrible sentence) But there is one character that is just cute as a button!! Little Danny with the boy who lives in his mouth, Tony, have the Shining; a psychic gift that proves helpful when his father (Jack Nicholas) loses his shit and tries to “correct” them. And by “correct” I mean chopping them to bits with an ax. Danny saves his mother (Shelly Duval) and himself by losing the deranged psycho in a frozen maze and they ride to safety in a snow cat.
Sorry for the recap of a movie more famous than refrigerator but really, besides a made for TV movie in 1982, Danny Lloyd never worked in Hollywood again. I guess he grew up as a normal kid and The Shining became just something he did in 1979. If that was me, I am pretty sure my girlfriend would snap at the end of each day with, “We know! We all know you were in The Shining! You don’t have to tell everyone you meet!”
Turns out Danny grew up an above average dude and resides in Missouri teaching high school science. And from those who had the pleasure of interviewing him they say he is very private but extraordinarily nice. I say a class act and only does signing events for charity. Tony on the other hand, total jackass. Heard he’s in a methadone clinic dating Heidi Fleiss’s thumb.
Of all the movies that I write about in this series of “Where Did They Go” on a scale of 1-10 , Pet Semetery 2 ranks as a òó. That’s two angry zeros. This movie made me throw an apple at my TV a couple years ago. I am not ashamed to say that. But that’s not what I am here to write about, I am here to write about Jared Rushton who played the most supreme asshole, Clyde Parker, but it’s okay. He was beating up Edward Furlong and somebody needed to.
Jared had an amazing career through the last part of the 80’s and most of the 90’s. From Disney’s Honey I Shrunk The Kids to Big, it looked like Jared’s career was rocketing with no end in sight. That is until 200o when he dropped from Hollywood altogether. But you know what happens when guys like Danny Cooksey, Edward Furlong and now Jared Rushton do when life on the big screen gets downgraded to a one star Netflix pick? That’s right. They join a band. Jared sings and plays guitar for Deal By Dusk. I wonder if they do a rendition from Big? You know…
“The space goes down, down baby, down, down the roller coaster. Sweet, sweet baby, sweet, sweet, don’t let me go. Shimmy, shimmy, cocoa pop. Shimmy, shimmy, rock. Shimmy, shimmy, cocoa pop. Shimmy, shimmy, rock. I met a girlfriend – a triscuit. She said, a triscuit – a biscuit. Ice cream, soda pop, vanilla on the top. Ooh, Shelly’s out, walking down the street, ten times a week. I read it. I said it. I stole my momma’s credit. I’m cool. I’m hot. Sock me in the stomach three more times.”
God I am a tool.
Okay, I know that the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind is not a horror movie but the scene when Barry (Cary Guffey) is abducted is about as scary as any horror movie around. Just the thought of red lights and records playing by themselves is enough to make me pee the bed. Please…observe below.
Is it just me or do you think Steven Spielberg picked Cary because he looked just like the aliens that appear later? Just a thought.
Cary isn’t too dissimilar to Danny Lloyd in the fact that he had a brief career as a child actor only doing a few made for TV movies through the late 70’s and early 80’s. Honestly, none worth even mentioning because they are too difficult to find. After his stent in Hollywood he grew up a normal kid and went on to receive a marketing degree from University of Florida, got an MBA, married a girl and is now a financial planner for Merrill Lynch in Alabama. How’s that for normalcy? Good for him.
I have more to write about but to be honest, I am actually filming a hot sauce review in a few minutes and I am testing one now. Let’s just say I am sweating through my fingers. Can that happen? Anyway, I can’t type for a bit. I’ll be back with part II!
It isn’t very often that I have buyers remorse on eBaby and this time is no exception. While strolling the virtual aisle of eBay in the “nerd” section I stumbled across and item that I could not say no to. Actually, I am shocked anyone could say no to this. May I present to you…
…the Lando Calrissian Disguise Kit. Holy cow!
I know that this is just a novelty item but it’s nice to see LucasFilm Ltd has a bit of a sense of humor. Now if only they had official Star Wars Colt 45 12 packs for sale. Now that would be more of a VeggieMacabre-type item for review. Until they do that, you’ll have to just watch this. Enjoy!
Casserole of Disaster 