Dogfish Head Craft Brewery - World Wide Stout

Gobs of slickened plum and oleaginous grape charred aromas.  Raisin berry crisp with toasted cherry spice and a sweetened burnt booze finish.  The bottle sums it up.  18% (at least).

Gladiators would approve of the gratuitous barley usage.

Lentil and Halibut Sliders

Lentil patties made with wheat flower, carrot, cucumber, onion, cumin, black pepper, and garlic salt. Seared halibut bathed in beer-garlic-onion-butter sauce.  Each topped and bottomed with avocado, heirloom tomato, and a toasted bun.  Wrapped in lettuce, roasted bell pepper, cilantro, and soy sauce.

                   Lentils have changed and regulated my life.

Koloseum Gym (Fullerton, CA) - R.I.P.

The only true divide is between those who, unfortunately, choose rubber plates over iron.

TeX-mas Tree Tripping

Tejas Gato Con Una Cola de Épica

Boundary Bay Brewery - Cabin Fever Winter Ale

Tis the season for sugary sweets & malty sweets.

After being pummeled into butter induced slow motion with a co-workers short bread and coconut macaroons it's only proper to continue the downward trend into gluttonous oblivion that will define these next weeks.

Boundary Bay Brewing is located in charmingly quaint Bellingham, WA. 

Herbal toffee and smoked raisins.  Roasted cereal spiced infused sugars. Finishes with a warming dry tang.  7%.

Turn off your mind.

                 The best part of this month are the lights.

New Glass

Out with the old and in with the new, more rugged, imperial pint glass built for full contact & full brim drinking.

Inaugural beer is Left Hand Brewing's Twin Sisters Double IPA.  Equal parts sticky mango honey sweetness and syrupy rye citrus crush. 9.6%.

Thanks Em.

13th Floor Elevators - The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators

Austin's 13th Floor Elevators drop a blotter full of blues and reverb into the ears that will have you swirling and synapsing into the chasm with no reason to reappear.

Disc 2 includes the intended running order stereo mix and five other original mixes.

1. You're Gonna Miss Me
2. Roller Coaster
3. Splash 1
4. Reverberation
5. Don't Fall Down
6. Fire Engine
7. Thru the Rhythm
8. You Don't Know
9. Kingdom Of Heaven
10. Monkey Island
11. Tried To Hide

At least one downtown Houston condo building doesn't have a 13th floor.

Snow Day

Seattle is awesome when it snows unless of course you're stuck in a 6 hour commute resulting in a beardcicle inducing 5 mile walk.

Coffee, gym, reviving the blue torpedo, Brahms, Hawg Jaw, and choco-smoked Abominable Winter Ale. 7.5%.











Sometimes, if you react like the pheasant from Bambi, you survive.

Rolling

Spring rolls with shrimp sautéed in butter, cayenne, garlic, & scallions then cooled with avocado, carrots, cilantro, and green pepper.

Great Divide Brewing's Fresh Hop was twice the cost of the food. 6.1%.

They're Coming to Get You

Refusing to admit Halloween is over.

Midnight Sun is Anchorage's aptly named brewery and their imperial chocolate pumpkin porter, TREAT, is just that.

Aromas of cloven swirled vanilla and savory oiled smoked cocoa.

Roasted oak coated pumpkin crust with cracked cinnamon & spiced nutmeg spine. 7.8%.

Acid Witch boil an auditory potion in Samhain spirit with their second full length, Stoned.

Macabre and ominous pacing like fuzzy classic rock screwed out with sinister psychedelia, Halloween III, cornfield mazes, and drunken horror party accidents.

Complete with the coolest throwback Beistle inspired die cut decoration.

1. Satanic Faith
2. Witchfynder Finder
3. Trick or Treat
4. Thundering Hooves
5. Live Forever
6. Whispers in the Dark
7. If Hell Exists
8. Stoned to the Grave
9. Metal Movie Marijuana Massacre Meltdown
10. Sabbath of the Undead

H A P P Y H A L L O W E E N

Lurking the Imposter

Apparently elections are around the corner. Is there a candidate running on making Halloween a national holiday, allowing growth hormone to be readily available, and ensuring my hard earned tax dollars go to education?

Great Pumpkin

Growler of 'The Great Pumpkin' helps ease missing Elysian's Fest.

PUNK'N Harvest Pumpkin Ale - Unita Brewing Company

Vanilla lacing, autumnal color, and crisping clove aromas.

Fairly natural pumpkin starch taste with a spiced finish.

Can't pass up the chance to try a new pumpkin ale.

Quadruple Pumpkin Corned Beef

Corned beef coated in brown sugar, ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg then dropped in a dutch oven on low with DFH 'Punkin' Pumpkin Ale, Elysian 'Night Owl' Pumpkin Ale, Elysian 'The Great Pumpkin' Pumpkin Ale, and freshly plucked pumpkin pieces.

Cooking between the lines, that's what makes my life worthwhile.

Bourbon Aged Roast Pumpkin

Trumps a living dead pandemic. Huge thanks to the finely fanged folks at Fremont Brewery.

Treats

Acid Witch - Rabid Werewitch
Black Tusk - Witch's Spell
Bolt Thrower - Plague Bearer
Church of Misery - Where Evil Dwells
Destroyer 666 - Witch Hunter
Dishammer - Werewolves on Wheels
Drudkh - Glare of Autumn
Electric Wizard - We, the Undead
Eternal Elysium - Rest In Peace
Gates of Slumber - Feast of the Dead
Heathen - Goblin's Blade
High on Fire - Speedwolf
Kilara - Succubus
Melvins - At The Stake
Municipal Waste - The Thing
Orange Goblin - We Bite
Overkill - Raise The Dead
Portal - Omnipotent Crawling Chaos
Pungent Stench - Viva La Muerte
Ravens Creed - Bloodbath
Saint Vitus - Zombie Hunger
Samhain - Halloween II
Sourvein - Septic Werewolves
Villains - Headless Excruciator

Apple Snails - Iron Teeth Torture

Black Moth Super Rainbow - Neon Syrup for the Cemetery Sisters
Bozo Cyclops - Memphis Cadaver
Brother Dege - Mexico
Dax Riggs - Blood Music
Dead Man - Season of the Dead
Frank Sinatra - Autumn in New York
Grails - Reincarnation Blues

M. Ward - Undertaker
Mark Lanegan - Carnival
Nick Drake - Harvest Breed
Pentagram - When The Screams Come
Tom Waits - Cemetery Polka
William Elliott Whitmore - Rest His Soul
Witchcraft - Wooden Cross (I Can't Wake The Dead)

Being undead will be the death of me - BC

Mr. October

The Great Pumpkin - Elysian Brewing Company (2010)

It's back to the 1st beer reviewed for the 1 year anniversary post.

Taken in at cozy, windows open and corned beef cooking in the oven, room temperature.  Frosted buttery pumpkin aromas with a cinnamon seed brittle bite. One of my favorites.  7.7%.

                     Electric Wizard - Black Masses: 11/01/10

To Heavy for Wraps Salmon

Net Caught King Salmon, Egg, Amana Orange Tomato, Cucumber, Tomato, Red Bell Pepper, Avocado, Mango, Lemon, Romaine Lettuce

Dark O' The Moon - Elysian Brewing Company (2010)

I think '09 was the first year that Elysian put this into the bottle.  No better start to the best month.

Shifting cinnamon, ginger, & cocoa aromas.  Coated in a hide of confiture de lait and rabietic roasted pumpkin marrow.

As it warms both hypertrichosis & ravenous spiced chocolate kick in.

Does not mix with silver.

Lunch of Champions

Alaskan Salmon, Onion, Lemon, Kale, Tomato, Buttered Sourdough
                                        Hypno-Vista

Spook Stuff for Hallowe'en (1960) - 99¢ Record #9

More 33 1/2 RPM sound effects for the season.

Can't fail with descriptions like "Witches and goblins take off for Halloween shenanigans on the moon" and "A cowboy escaping from a prairie fire on a stormy Halloween night."

Tracks:
1. Prologue - Witches Rehearse for Halloween
2. 18 Spooky Sound Effects for Your Ghost Stories
3. The Haunted Mine
4. A Deserted Prairie Ranch
5. A Cemetery at Midnight
6. Halloween at the Haunted Castle
7. Spooky Zoo Party
8. Hobgoblins and Spaceships
9. Hey Diddle Diddle Spook Stuff

Halloween, where the weirdest wildest sites are seen - Oscar Brand

Ichabod Coors

                       Harvest Moon Pumpkin Ale is Ichabod.

Snake Bite Porter - Silver Moon Brewing

Silver Moon Brewing is located in, one of the many homes of the western rattler, central Oregon.

Fresh buttery roasted coffee and creamy cocoa. Faint vanilla fused with silky caramel and a Count Chocula fanged pine finish.  5.2%.

Riboflavin flavored, non-carbonated, polyunsaturated blood.

Breakfast of Champions

                 Sockeye Salmon, Eggs With Asparagus, Fruit

Alaskan Brewing - Double Black IPA (2010) + Sounds to Make You Shiver (1974)

Alaskan Brewing Company is out of Juneau, AK.

Oily smooth chocolate roasted pine and berry aromas rise up from perched russet hued foam.  Chocolate spiced coffee with honey glaze and a subtle hop tang. 8.5%.

Sounds to Make You Shiver is a fun LP with creepily layered and eerily evocative haunted house effects on side one and an auditory delicatessen of the macabre on the other.

With 42 days to go the mood is gearing up.

Tracks:
1. A Night in a Haunted House
2. Witch Laugh
3. Count Dracula and His Victim
4. Screams & Groans
5. Moans & Groans
6. Cats
7. Dogs
8. Banging Shutter
9. Phantom Piano
10. Creaky Door & Breaking Windows
11. Thunder & Wind
12. Frankenstein's Monster Breaks Loose
13. Hooting Owl

Cable television is upchuckerous.