We sure did rip through the first week of October, didn’t we? Holy Hannah! I am working on a shitload of beer reviews as well as other projects to boast VeggiemacabreTV and brother, business is a boomin’. I find the work thing and life thing to be a bit of a compromising situation though, so while I want to do it all I can only do it some. But I promise it will be great. I hope.
Here is me rambling in my work clothes and trying to give some new insight with this thing I call a hobby. Be well and see you in a sec!
Okay okay I know. By the stroke of midnight I really meant by the stroke now. Typical me in the blogging world to over promise and under deliver but with my new position in the real world and less time to sit on my duff and drink beer while syncing flash animation advertisements to Flock of Seagulls (yes, I really do this), I have found that quality over quantity reviews win the day. I know that these reviews aren’t for everyone because, well let’s face it, beer isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. But I do hope to add a little something for everyone. After this review I will just tack on a review as a bonus to real articles going forward. We still have a way to go this season so lets jump in and pop the top of the first two brews. Don’t tell me you forgot the bottle opener!
The HEX Ourtoberfest from Magic Hat Brewing Co. located in Burlington, VT is one of the first beers that I nearly broke my neck taking a double-take while walking past the beer aisle last week. It has one of the greatest looks, art and names of any spooky-time beer that I have seen since…ever, really. It screams colonial creeps with the iron gate logo and the name “Hex” font-ed in thorny branches. But like Bugs Bunny taught us, just because it looks hot doesn’t mean what’s under the dress isn’t a rabbit with nuts. How does it perform?
It definitely has the autumn hue that an American made October brew tends to have. The taste, however, is very different. Right from the first taste you get less a hoppy/spice taste and more of a tart/smokey flavor. It was an awesome surprise especially after thirty pumpkin spice beers to have a roundhouse kick to the palate to clean it of pie and paint it with smoked molasses. I never thought I would say “smoked molasses” in a positive way. The Magic Hat Brewery states that it has a blend of fermented apples, caramel and smoked cherry wood malt that gives it the different taste.
I will say this about Hex and that is if you are looking for a very different blend that will keep you interested in seasonal beers, this is your homecoming date. It’s a smokey sweet lighter beer that makes you want to chop wood. The strange part is that this beer is only available until October 15th. I am not really sure why they made such an early date in the season to pull Hex but if you have the means and you can find it, I highly recommend buying this and maybe extras to keep in the cellar.
I give it three singing Elvises.
Hello Weyerbacher Autumn Fest Brew, how are you? I love the name Weyerbacher. I assume it’s German because I keep wanting to pronounce it “Vierbocker” in a very WWII German officer accent. “Vee have vays to make you talk.” Anyway, this is a great full body brew from Easton PA that doesn’t really break away from the fray when it comes to another American Oktoberfest type beer. Same copper color and mildly sweet malty taste. What I love about this beer, of course, is the awesome farm-scape scene with the creepy scarecrow and harvest moon-lit yellow sky. I really wish I could line the walls of the house with prints of all these beers but perhaps my life shouldn’t imitate art. It’s already a satirical cartoon.
I give it two flying toasters.
A couple of nights ago while reviewing these beers I decided that putting catnip in the bottom of a Frankenstein’s monster mug would make for a good title page shot. I forgot how fat the cat is and when he got his head stuck, Frank’s monster was the loser.
I was thinking the other day that it seems there are a lot more seasonal beers than I remember from years past. Not being the know-it-all about brews like some others, I went to a local friend who is a professional brewer and he confirmed that there actually are more Fall beers and this trend has doubled over the past three years. When I first started the Fall beer review five years ago, I had no idea that there were a specific season for these types of beers. All I wanted to do was drink beer, wax nostalgic verbiage and carve a pepper. Since then I have had tons of emails, beer reps asking to review other beers, some pretty awesome t-shirts and stickers given to me and gained a lot of knowledge about my favorite beverage. All in all, this has been a fun topic to cover over the years. Now that I have reviewed my first seasonal pack, Blue Moon, I have seven more beers to cover. Time to stop operate heavy machinery and check to make sure I am not pregnant because there is going to be some drinkin’ happening up in here.
Outside the local Co-Op this foreboding character is perched with a sign stating “Tard a Skarin'” and I couldn’t be happier to see it. I love homemade scarecrows and small town Halloween decor. I don’t know why but I think it is the sincerity that wins me over. Anyway, this was just half of what put a smile on my face. Behold the amazing!
Son of a bitch look at all this Fall beer! I know that there is no way to accurately review all these so it is a bit of a Sophie’s choice to determine which ones to buy. I think I will go with the ol’ standard and choose by appearance. Let’s take a look at the winners of this years review.
Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to the lineup of this year’s review. I am sure these are familiar to some of you but I tried to also include a couple local breweries from North Carolina. This will be fun and I think I will do one or two a night just to keep it accurate. Last time I did a full review with more than three beers my self-check system told me I was no longer a fair judge. It’s a pretty safe system too.
If you are not familiar with this game, it is on every table at a Cracker Barrel restaurant. If you are unfamiliar with Cracker Barrel, I will save that for another blog because it needs to be discussed. Anyway, the point of the game is to leap frog the pegs taking the “leaped” one out and at the end you should be left with one. If you have more than two left, the game says you are an egnoramoose. I have already tested each one of the beers set for review and my new test system told me I may not be a fair judge anymore.
Aw hell.
Expect the first two beers by the stroke of midnight.
I have amazing memories as a kid, strolling the aisles of Kmart looking for the perfect costume or Halloween decor. It was the king of the super store back then and if you wanted to dress as Chewbacca or E.T. there was no better one-stop-shop than the well recognized large red K. But like any strong racehorse, eventually there is a faster more sleek horse that will do it better, more elaborate and in this case, far more Halloweenie and make the racehorse look like the smelly pony that gives all the kids at the party a rash. This is how I compare Kmart to Party City. But in all fairness, you can’t by a toaster at Party City. Let’s take a look at the faster horse first. This is Part City. GET DOWN!!!
Here we are and don’t they all look the same. I don’t know about you but I am never too excited about Party City. You can find them in most all large strip malls that include a Ross, Target and Babies-R-Us so if you are like me and may get stuck on a shopping excursion, this is the time of the year that Party City can save ass. In April…shoot me.
Great Nell Carter’s Ghost! This is how you do Halloween! The smell of rubber and latex permeates the air as the musical score of the moment is a cheesy 1990’s Nightmare On Elm Street rap. It wasn’t blaring loud like a Hot Topic but I could definitely tell it was about Nightmare On Elm Street by the Fresh Prince style lyrics, “…burned up like a weenie and his name was Fred.” This is something to be blogged about!
With so many different Halloween items all thrust together in a couple aisles, it’s easy to have it turn into a casserole of nonsense but it blends really nice. You have the gore with the gore, the zombies with the zombies and the cutesy with the cutesy without having to search through mounds of severed heads and viscera just to find a bunny in a pumpkin.
Zombies are still a huge hit I guess. The store is about 3/4 zombie while the rest is fog machines and plastic axes. It amazes me how desensitized zombies have made young kids. I saw a mother holding her, I guess, three-year-old and asking her if she wanted the zombie window cover or the ghosts. The zombie window cover was this:
Cute! Her arm is almost chewed off
Well, I guess that is the way kids are these days with there Iboxes and there Xphones. Had I seen that on someones window as a kid I would have skipped the house and gone right to therapy. Long over are the days when Tim Curry blended in with his green screen asking if anyone has seen his tambourine.
"Mr. Lucas, this is an ARF Troooper. It's also dog talk."
For the kids and adults who would rather just pick out an already manufactured costume, Party City is renown for having about three hundred different themes and characters. This one caught my attention because as a kid who grew up in the eighties and absolutely hate the direction George Lucas took Star Wars, I couldn’t help notice this kid’s costume of an Imperial..ARF Trooper? What the hell is that? Are they the K-9 unit of the universe? God, I just don’t know the world anymore. Luckily they still sell these:
Ah the oldie and goodie. It’s nice to see the old masks are still a seller here and above all else, the villains like Jason, Pinhead, the weird Motel Hell pig mask and Mike Myers are among the most popular. I especially love Chucky with his mullet. To cost justify one of these, though, a kid at age twelve will have to be Freddy until he is twenty-seven.
Well, leaving Party City you have to dodge a swipe by the new Freddy. To be honest, he’s no Englund but I kind of like him. The movie made me a believer that a new generation of kids need to die in their sleep. Especially the ones who are responsible for Twilite and hipster apparel.
Now that we have seen a brief part of Party City’s Halloween presentation, lets take a look at the girl who still wears her high school letter jacket to the bar…Kmart.
Right away I knew Kmart was not the place to be by the mostly vacant parking lot on a Saturday afternoon. It is almost sad in a way because on my way in there were three employees smoking around the coin-operated rodeo duck and the sound of a rolling soda can blowing through empty lanes of the lot. This was the sign of a department store put out in the pasture.
As I went in there were no signs stating it’s the Halloween season like Target. No, I had to wander for a while before eventually finding it. I actually have a video of me doing so. Enjoy.
As you can see, there is less fanfare about the holiday Kmart used to own. Perhaps it’s just this particular Kmart but I really have a sense that this company is circling the drain and forty years from now I will be telling my grandkids that there was time when I used to ride my bike to the Kmart to buy slap-bracelets for five bees. Because that was the style at the time.
As you can see, the licensed Halloween ‘Totally Ghoul” is still putting out everything and anything for this asthmatic contender of a department store. I really like Totally Ghoul too because it is not cheap in design and it is cheap in price. Without breaking myself I can buy enough pumpkin lights to trick a 747 into landing on I-40.
This is proof that “Totally Ghoul” has nothing new in it’s product line for 2011. I remember Matt writing about these years ago and while I find this comforting to see a demon clown from years past, it is also a sign of the times. I don’t know why but I really love that guys tongue and his ability to floss with rope.
But this trip was not all for not! Oh no, it has inspired a new costume idea. Remember that disfigured white tiger in a zoo? Yeah, I thought it was pretty funny too. Imagine if he had a best friend who was a gorilla?
Man, a lot has been happening over here at VeggieMacabre.TV and the fun is far from over. If you care to check it out you’ll see there are a few changes but the Halloween theme is still the main focus until November first. I’ll be focusing on the annual beer reviews, spooky road trips, various video nonsense and pretty much anything that doesn’t reflect my age. And if you couldn’t tell that from visiting, then I am an astronaut who has an affinity for fine chinchilla-skin socks that I raise on a farm in the South Hamptons. Whatever.
As you can see a few menu items have changed including a “Say Hi Here” page and you really should say hi there. Seriously, say hi there and like it on Facebook. A lot.
Also I have changed the article page and turned it into an interactive book with links to various articles from today and years past. I fully intend to make this the War and Peace of the web. War and Peace if Tolstoy was into beer, horror and running. I don’t think he was, was he? Anyway, this is pretty cool and not too difficult to browse.
Tomorrow is when I rock the FIFTH annual Fall Beer Review. If I had a kid when I started these he/she would be talking and not shitting his/herself anymore. Stay tuned and wang-chung.
Casserole of Disaster 