2012: Year End Report

I had such a good time looking over information about myself last year that I decided I would do it again. Thanks to Google Analytics I know I had more unique views than last year, and people spent more time viewing each page than in previous years, which I am hoping suggests that more people who visited my site this year were actually looking for me!! Or how to find Kodiak Ridge Beer. Or how to make a Coors Light Cake. 

But anyway, here is "I'm pretty sure you didn't find what you were looking for" 2012 edition:

1. "Girl Beer Blog" -- Just kidding! You DID find what you were looking for!
2. "мексиканское пиво oz" Translates to: Mexican Beer. 
3. "Cynthia Myers" - I'd forgotten I'd even mentioned the 1968 Playboy Playmate
4. Hangovers from not drinking  
5. my burps taste like blood -- gross. 
6. my burps taste like nail polish -- also gross.
7. box of penis -- again, whats wrong with you people?
8. free porn official site blogspot.com - I'm really hoping this person had to search A LOT before finding my page...
9. Lx lodged in your mouth - WTF internet?
10. My mom thinks I make up pain


So, there was a lot of porn related searching there, and I didn't even include to searches with the words "boner" in them. The internet is a sad place. Most of the other searches were how to talk to awkward people, or how to talk to people if your awkward. My advice: Don't try. Just blog about it. People love that. 

Going where no Kim has gone before...

After a long break with no beer reviews, I give you Romulan Ale. Although judging by other online reviews, this beer was never a huge crowd pleaser, my review still comes with a huge asterisk: this particular bottle of beer is at least four years old and before being given to me*, had been stored, unrefrigerated, in a clear glass bottle. It has no sell-by date or information on it (except a warning about the risks of consuming alcoholic beverages, so I at least know it was brewed after 1996 when those labels became mandatory), so I'm thinking the best case scenario for me here is to walk away without food poisoning or death.

 Being as Romulan Ale is ALSO the name of a fictitious beverage on the show Star Trek, it was hard to do research on the internet. My Google search mostly came up with fan fiction, cocktail recipes, and episode recaps. The beer was produced by a member of the Miller family, Cerveceria La Constancia, a brewery in El Salvador (a country not known for its fine beers)-- that's pretty much all I could find.  Romulan Ale is listed on my favorite beer rating website as an American Adjunct Lager, ITS NOT EVEN AN ALE!! And it is available for purchase on Amazon.com, but I wouldn't buy it if I were you.

This is the most scared I have ever been to drink a beer, next to that time when I was five years old and I drank the beer that had been sitting out next to my parent's bed overnight.

Enough stalling. On to the pour... Large amounts of sediment was stuck to the bottom and sides of the bottle. Although I was anticipating the rotting vegetable smell of your standard American Adjunct Lager, this beer had no smell. If this review were a horror movie, this would be the part where the victim walks into a silent, darkened room and yells "Hello?" and hears no response, but the killer is in the room, and you know it. I am the victim in that example, in case there was any question.

With it's electric blue color and spotty carbonation throughout, our first reaction was "Is this actually beer?"; I would say the blue raspberry color would encourage under-aged drinking, but having tasted it, I assure you, it discourages drinking at all ages.

Long story short *insert gagging, running for something to wash my mouth out, and fear here* It was terrible and absolutely undrinkable. The grainy corn garbage had turned. THAT'S RIGHT, I would have considered grainy corn garbage taste a VICTORY.  It was like blue, liquid bread mold. My mouth might never forgive me. I'm kidding. My mouth has seen a lot worse.

Grade: D- Not the worst beer ever, but nearly the worst beer ever.

*Thank you, Gordon Sharp, for your generous donation.

Thanks, Pinterest

So, like a lot of people, I've gone bat-shit crazy over Pinterest. I got married in July, which means I've said "I got the idea for Pinterest" so many times its become a habit for me to say it anytime anyone compliments me for any reason. Luckily, most compliments I get come to ideas I got from Pinterest, so it works out. Cute hair? Great Recipe? Awesome Gift Idea? Yeah, That came from Pinterest.

Some ideas are better than others. Yesterday I decided to do the "Make your wedding invitation leftovers into a Christmas ornament" project-- which turned out not-awful, considering the end-result was meant to look like a bunch of cut up pieces of paper stuffed in a clear ball I got from Joann's Fabrics.

This was the inspiration:

This is what mine looked like:

See? That's not awful. Tacky as shit, but not awful. And that's what makes Pinterest great. It makes ordinary, lazy people feel like they can be crafty. Its like getting ideas for home decor out of a magazine, if that magazine was Highlights. 

I should have taken a picture of my attempt at reception art, which involved red string and nails... But it was terrible, so I destroyed it. They can't all be winners. 

The Official Beer of NES: Tailgate

When I saw this black and orange six pack at Grocery Outlet, I knew I wanted to review it. But then I saw it was a hefenweizen and I recoiled.  It calls itself "The official craft beer of tailgating". Because when I think tailgating, I think small artisan batches of hefenweizen. But, I guess if I'm going to drink a canned hefenweizen, it might as well be the official hefenweizen of tailgating. Why not.


My suspicions that this was some sort of bastard cousin of the Gameday beers was wrong. Tailgate Beer is a new brew, founded in 2007, and is based out of San Diego but brewed in Monroe, Wisconsin by Minhas Brewery. Heard of Minhas? That's because they make Trader Joe's beer. From what I can tell, Tailgate is actually a small producer. I know I should have gotten that from the 'craft brew' denotation, but considering all the beers I review call themselves 'premium', words don't mean anything to me anymore.  But it is interesting to note that the term 'craft brew' does not mean a whole lot. Any brewery that produces 6 million barrels of beer or less per year is a craft brewer. There are over 2 thousand breweries registered in America, and less than 50 of them produce enough beer to not be called a 'craft brew'.

The company was founded by a 21-year-old, but the cans look like they were designed by an 8-year-old who was inspired by an old NES game. Likewise, the website is a sports themed mess that slowed down my browser like I was visiting a free porn site. Or, you know, what I imagine visiting a free porn site would... Nevermind. Anyway, All that being said, the website's FAQ page made me laugh; its snarky and informative. I kind of wish I'd written it. (check is out here). On to the pour...

Its light and clear, which is uncharacteristic of a hefenweizen, but if there had been shit floating around in it, I wouldn't have been too thrilled with that either. The technical classification is American Pale Wheat Ale, but it smells like any bland Adjunct lager I've ever had. Just don't smell it more than you have to. Its got a little bit of ass-stench to it. Its also got that malty syrup taste that I'm not a tremendous fan of. Those were the cons. The pros being its a light, drinkable beer with very little after-taste. The taste is improved with a little bit of lemon juice. 

Mike gives it a C+ when ice cold, but a C- when slightly warm, where I give it an overall C. 

There's the right way, There's the wrong way,

And there's the Kingway.

It sounds like the name of a discount grocery store, but it's actually a beer from China that I bought at a discount grocery store. It was the only 6-pack of its kind, and sitting in a ripped box and covered in dust, it wasn't hard for me to know which beer to pick for this installment of the beer blog.

Although from China, Kingway is a European Pale Lager. Now, I know Euro Pale Lagers are not something we deal with everyday on this site, so let me explain briefly how that differs from an American Adjunct Lager: It doesn't. 

So, moving on, the brewing company, Guangdong, was founded in 1990 and as of 2004, Heineken has owned 21% of the brewing company, which may have something to do with the label stating its brewed "In the German Brewing Tradition".

The website for Guangdong looks like it was made by a mid-western family to post their yearly Christmas letter. That aside, its the most informative beer website I've seen, covering everything from ingredients, to information for the stock holders, to annual reports, or as I like to call them, "the Kingway Christmas letter".  The website states that they vow to make sure every bottle of beer is 'flawless', and boasts 'Green Technology', which means brewing without the use of formaldehyde. Wait. WHAT? I had to do research, and apparently, trace amounts of formaldehyde is used in not just Chinese beer, but most beers, to prevent bacteria from growing in the can. Bottled beer does not contain formaldehyde, but even at trace amounts, with the amount of beer that I consume, I'm probably going to end up pickling myself.
But back to Kingway. It received the China Best Brand award in the 'green food' category in 2002, 2004, and 2005, which is super prestigious, considering how well known China is for its beer. 

It had a good pour; good head, proper lacing, clear golden color. I feel like there was a bait and switch, because all the really positive stuff ends there. It had an off-putting smell that was not at all beer scented, but neither Mike or I still can't place it. Old potato? No. I don't know. Its drinkable, just don't give it a chance to get warm. Mike tasted the rotten vegetable taste often present in american adjunct style, but I didn't. I did however experience a mildly unpleasantly, thick, sweet mouthcoat. And gave me awful after-burps.

I give it a C-. It had good presentation, I think if it hadn't been as old as it appeared to be (there was a stamp on the bottles that may have suggested it was brewed in 2010), it could have gotten a solid C.

The California State Fair: People Watching that Moves You!

California has a massive state fair, so massive that just being a state fair isn't enough. Every year it has to have a theme. This year's theme was "Fun That Moves You", which seemed pretty unnecessary because as far as I'm concerned, no one I know actually goes to the state fair for 'fun'. We go for two main things, to eat so much food that we nearly die, and to judge strangers as they eat so much food that they almost die.

So, with our agenda set, we started out for the California State Fair on six dollars night. We were hoping cheap ticket night would attach prime people-watching material, only to find out that people go to the California State Fair not just to see, but to be seen. I was deeply disappointed by the amount of updos, and sleek dresses. Don't get me wrong, there was plenty of XXL Micky Mouse shirts and fanny packs to go around, but I wasn't wading ankle deep in dirty screaming children. Wait. Am I complaining about that right now?

On to the food. I don't remember where I first heard this, but I've had a lot of people tell me that no one should eat more than two hot dogs a month. I didn't know why, but I figured, since everyone seemed to know it, so it must be true. I found an article online that said eating a hot dog is the equivalent to smoking a cigarette. I guess it makes sense; you tend to really crave both when you're stressed out, and if you have one at a kid's party, you're instantly racked with guilt. The American Institute for Cancer Research produced a study that suggested eating a hot dog a day could increase your chance of colon cancer by over 20%. All that being said, I really, really wanted a hot dog.

And they're not hard to find at a state fair. But I didn't want some plain jane chili dog, or a hot dog on a stick. This was the State Fair. I needed something special. Like a hot dog wrapped in a doughnut. 

Yeah. A maple glazed doughnut cut in half and stuffed with a hot dog for $5.75. That was exactly what I was looking for. As we were ordering, a little girl came up behind us and read the sign "'Doughnut Dog?' GROSS!" and then ran away. I feel like that was fate giving me one last chance to turn back, but the food truck guy had already gone out back to get the doughnut out of his trailer, so I felt obligated to stay.

Seen here, being modeled by Mike, it was actually a pretty good dog, but the mix of frosting and  tubed meat was kind of gross. And the doughnut, which was probably fried early in the morning, was extremely stale by 7pm.

Here is a close up of the Doughnut Hot Dog. I'm still struggling with what we would have topped it with. The options of yellow mustard or ketchup sounded too gross to try. As we were eating this, I couldn't help feeling like we were being watched. And judged. 

Oh, Schlitz. You caught me.

So, in honor of the 4th of July, here's a not-so-bad beer review:

To be fair, there is very little that is mass produced, with the exception of hot dogs and BK Mocha Joe, that isn't terrible. So when I find a beer that is distributed nationwide that it even mildly drinkable, I celebrate it as a victory.

 

Schlitz is doing its best to cash in on it's own vintage mystique, going as far as to using an old picture of Playboy's Miss December 1968, Cynthia Myers, as their mascot. Who, just for reference, passed away last year at the age of sixty-one. That's right, their advertising angle is so old, it's literally dead. Schlitz's slogan, which hasn't changed in over 100 years, is "The beer that made Milwaukee famous", but could just as easily be, "The beer that you associate with old people."

Or is that just what they WANT you to think? This isn't a new trend for Pabst Brewing Company. They pretend their market is old men, but in actuality, its young men who dress like old men. I'm talking about hipsters. Finally, something that will match my maroon knitted beanie cap...

Although you should probably just drink it straight from the bottle, the pour has a clear, bright yellow color and very lacy, lingering head. With an alcohol content of 4.6%, this American Adjunct Lager has very little about it that is unlikable. That being said, it is also highly unremarkable. Its not all that refreshing; I wouldn't crave one after yard work or anything. But that's okay, hipsters don't do yard work. And it's lack of excitement plays right into the hipster mentality. 


You're drinking it. Its not great or anything, its just, you know, whatever. 


Now, I'm not a professional by any means, but THAT should be Schlitz's next official slogan...