afternoon out

Last day and last Saturday!  Time for a field trip!  I haven't been down to La Tienda de la Cerveza in a while, so this seems like a good excuse.  Besides the wide selection of bottles, there are also six taps and a number of tables in the back.  I was a little early, those damn summer hours (they open at 6pm on Saturdays in the summer), so a little walk around the block to work up some thirst was necessary.  They had juuust opened the door when I came back, so I walked right in and was allowed to look around.  They have pretty summery beers on tap, naturally.  Although I don't know about that rauchbier.  Maybe if we could get a pizza or something.

So, first I had a little of the wheat with guayaba, thinking it would be a little sweet and tangy, but I found it too close to champagne for my liking.  Very dry.  I went with Prairie Era in the end.  It's a hoppy farmhouse ale, just a bit darker in color than the wheat, and a more noticeable aroma.  Just a bit sharper, but no IPA citrus.  Rather than bitter, the taste is closer to sour.  The hops start to come up and bite you after a couple of sips, with a sort of gingery punch to the tongue.  It's not the cleanest drinking, a little sour aftertaste accumulates at the back of the mouth, although not enough to be disturbing.  Not bad at all for the time of year, although we're lucky to be having reasonable evenings at the moment.

La Tienda de la Cerveza: c/Ruda 12

unfinished business

It's another beer fair at a friendly neighborhood market, Mercado de Vallehermoso.  There are several places that serve craft beers with their food inside, and La Birratorium is right across the street.  Plenty of opportunities for whatever you feel like.  I decided to take advantage of the food offerings for lunch, and try Craft 19's pastrami sandwich.  I got Tempest Brewing's Brave New World IPA to go with it, thinking it would be a good combination with the saurkraut and mustard.  It was excellent, in fact, although the beer was much softer than expected.  It has a bright and clear color, the head dissipates quite rapidly, and it was served lukewarm, so authentic, I suppose.  It starts with a very mild bitter flavor, none of the sharp citrus notes of American IPAs, and goes a bit sweeter later on.  Really very good with the slightly spicy and acidic tastes of the food.  Without that pastrami and pickles I might have been a little disappointed, or I would have chosen a stronger beer to begin with, but as it was I was quite pleased.

First look

Deli pickles, yay!

Then I wandered over to Drakkar to see their northern offerings.  Lots of Estonian beers at the moment.  Still feeling like a lighter beer is the thing (it's damn hot today) I chose Põhjala's gose.  It's a bit cloudy, darker than the IPA, also little head, and a strange kind of grainy aroma.  It is immediately sour in taste, wakes you right up, and then dies off quickly after you swallow.  Not any strange aftertaste here.  Maybe I just got used to it, but it seemed to get less sour over time, calming down to only slightly attention grabbing.  It does have a finish that seems like it should feel drier than it is.  This gose is practically juicy.

North Brewing had the attraction of a serve yourself cask.  I went over to see why everyone was crowded around the place and ran into an acquaintance from beer fairs past, who asked me why I didn't have my notebook with me.  I did, just not in my hand.  He recommended the cask beer, the only one at this fair, Sputnik cask pale ale-ambar.  The lemony colored beer is quite tasty, and surprisingly sweet.  It's subtle for an ambar and on the sweet side for a pale ale, so whatever you are expecting from it, you'll probably be surprised.  There's kind of a dusty feeling to it too, and it is slightly cloudy in the glass.  A good suggestion!

When the crowd has vanished

Don't spill, don't spill...

I hadn't had any dark beers, and there was a stout on tap overseen by La Birratorium, but it was a bourbon stout and I'm just not feeling that today.  Beavertown's Luponic Plague NEIPA might be a good thing to shake off the early summer heat, though.  It really looks like a Lemon Julius, very pulpy in appearance with practically no head at all.  I was warned that it is very hop heavy, and it's pretty clear from the scent that it's true.  It's served nice and cold, but there isn't a lot of strong flavor...at first.  There's a little snap at the end of the swallow that keeps you on your toes.  While also a tad dusty, this NEIPA feels like it has some natural lemon juice as a big part of the recipe.  It becomes a very bitter, rather astringent tasting beer, not quite clean enough for be a good palate cleanser.  While I like to try new beers, I think I'm happy to know not to keep an eye out for this one in the future.

Just tucked into the super-spicy food place

So I could have had porter with tobacco...yeah, no

Have a kilo of happiness before leaving

And now, the other two German films from last weekend.   Spoilers, if you really need them for 80 year old movies!
 
Spione/Espías/Spies is a film from Fritz Lang that seems a lot more for the general public than his famous Metropolis.  It’s got spies, action, love, betrayal, even a train crash.  The evil mastermind of the story has a day job as a bank president, but when he’s playing the evil genius he lets his hair down.  His latest scheme is under the eyes of the secret service of...whatever country this is.  Lang and Thea von Harbou seem to go to great lengths to not identify the European country it takes place in.  It’s not France, because they say in the beginning that the French embassy has had some important paperwork stolen, while the secret service was basically useless.  They do come off as quite incompetent, although maybe this is how real secret service agencies really are - full of moles and double-agents who exploit their gullible colleagues.  The only one who appears to be good at his job is agent 326, whose name we never find out, although when he is first summoned to the station it’s through a paper addressed to Hans Pockzerwinski.  He uncovers one mole immediately on entering the boss’s office and takes up the case to investigate what plans their nemesis has.  An agent has been deployed to stop 326 already, because the bad guys are always one step ahead of this secret service, and they meet at a hotel where he thinks he has saved her from police corruption and perhaps an abusive boyfriend.  Who she shot.  They of course fall in love, which the mastermind uses to manipulate his agent while 326 does his best to make up for his bumbling co-spies.  The head of security for the Japanese embassy warns him about the female agent, plus he discovers her negotiating state secrets from an army officer of another unidentified country.  He is sent to the signing of a treaty between his country and Japan, a treaty that is the object of the mastermind’s latest scheme, for some reason, and he goes by overnight train.  Evil henchmen unhook his car from the rest as they roll through a tunnel, it conveniently being the last one on the train, and he wakes up and realizes the danger just in time to see another train come zooming through.  The female agent hears about the accident and races to the scene, managing to get into the wreckage and find her beloved actually outside the smashed train car, under rubble.  Plan after plan by the secret service gets foiled by internal espionage, and finally the female agent is put in custody of the evil organization, along with 326’s right hand man.  326 has to get them out of a death trap in the mastermind’s bank, besides finding the mastermind himself.  They manage to do find the secret lair, barely, through clouds of gas that were meant to suffocate the prisoners and keep the police and secret agents busy while the mastermind made his escape.  He appears through most of the film in a wheelchair, but looks like he’s going to leap out of it to attack somebody in more than one scene.  It’s actually no surprise when he does get up and walk away from his prisoners towards the end.  And naturally he gets captured, when 326 realizes he has yet another job as a clown - who is an “undercover” agent for his own agency to boot!  They go to the clown’s performance and stand stonily in the crowd, guns visible in holsters, while the clown pretends to shoot balloons and other things with a pop gun.  Except he also shoots at a couple of officers before he realizes he’s surrounded, so maybe it’s a real gun after all?  And when he sees that there’s no escape, he shoots himself in the head and yells, “Curtain!” while the crowd applauds enthusiastically.  It’s a damn weird ending.

Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse/El testamento del Dr. Mabuse/The Testament of Dr. Masbuse is also a Fritz Lang film, but from a few years later.  This one is a talky.  It’s also a police thriller, based on a novel, and a sequel to a movie I have not seen.  Dr. Mabuse is a mad genius, so mad that he has been confined to a mental hospital where he incessantly writes out instructions for committing crimes.  Some of them are run-of-the-mill robberies, but there are also what are basically terrorist attacks.  The whole point of Mabuse’s activity is to instill fear and destroy hope in the populace.  He’s something of a prototype for Christopher Nolan’s Joker.  Although he’s locked up, somehow his plans are being leaked to a criminal gang and the police want to know how, dammit.  The police commissioner is taking the case rather personally, since a young man he sponsored for the force has been driven mad by what he has discovered about the gang.  They find Mabuse’s name scratched into the glass of the man’s apartment and talk to the head of the hospital, only to discover that Mabuse has died the night before.  Another doctor from the hospital is gunned down in his car, which leads the commissioner to talk to the head of the hospital again.  The doctor is acting more and more suspiciously, but there’s nothing to connect him directly to any of the criminal activity.  He does see Mabuse in spirit, but you might think he’s just hallucinating due to overwork and stress, or is one of those people who go into psychiatry to solve their own problems.  One of the gang members is getting tired of his life of crime, however.  He has fallen in love and wishes he could go straight to give his girlfriend a more stable life.  Like any gang, though, it’s much tougher to get out than in, and the other members lock both of them in the “meeting room” where they receive instructions from an unseen man behind a curtain.  It turns out there is only a cutout silhouette and a loudspeaker on a table behind that curtain, and no way out of the room, that has a hidden explosive somewhere.  In desperation, with no way to break out, the repentant criminal cuts open a water pipe, hoping the water will protect them from the explosion, which might blow a hole in a wall for them to escape before they drown.  The hole actually ends up in the floor, all the water rushes out, and the pair follow it, ready to run to the police.  The commissioner has captured some of the gang and works it out so the doctor has to come to the station to recognize them.  None of them recognize each other, but when the other one shows up and says his name, the doctor reacts.  He then says he only repeated the name because the commissioner said it, which is still kind of weird, but no proof.  He returns to the hospital and the ex-criminal goes with the commissioner to see if they can catch him doing something.  They go into his office when the ex-criminal recognizes his recorded voice as that of his former boss, plus they find the plans to blow up a chemical factory and cause terror.  They are too late to stop the attack from happening, but they manage to catch the doctor watching from the woods and they chase him back to the hospital, where he gets into the room where the commissioner’s protegé is, where Mabuse himself once was, and the doctor begins to tear up the plans that Mabuse had left behind for him.

so many things

Along with my NEIPA, I picked up an American IPA from Birra y Paz, oh so long ago.  It was the name and the label that really convinced me, Las Uvas de la IPA, with a pack of odd representations of...stuff.  Anger at various stages, I suppose.

That shopping cart doesn't even have ammunition in it

Immediately aromatic, with a striking hoppy smell.  Pours nicely, with a heavy orangeish color and off-white head.  The scent has perhaps a touch of pine.  The flavor is sharply bitter, much heavier than anything I've had recently, but it feels like a good summer drink in spite of being a little thick.  The bitterness is refreshing and not undermined by any sweetness playing down the strength of the hops.  This is a fairly powerful beer, both in alcohol at 9%, and in feel with its robustness.  A little too strong flavored for a mealtime beer, unless the food itself is pretty light.  Quite nice by itself, I don't feel the need for snacks, although I do not think it would be the best idea to chug this one down on an empty stomach.

Supplier: Birra y Paz
Price: €3.95

It's German Film Fest time!  I've only seen two yet, so the other two will come with the Vallehermoso review next week.

SPOILERS!!!
  
Die Vierhändige/Cuantro manos/Four Hands is part of the horror collection they are showing this year.  Horror!  Huzzah!  It seems like something Germans should be able to do.  As this is a festival, sometimes people involved in making the film come to talk with the audience afterwards, and the director was here for this showing.  According to him, the German public is a bit finicky with its films, preferring the more intellectual offerings (uh, Fack ju Goethe, anyone?) and this type of dramatic horror isn’t so well represented.  But it does do well outside of Germany.  The story is about two sisters whose parents were murdered in their house when the girls were very young.  For some reason they still live there twenty years later.  The younger sister wants to join an orchestra as a pianist, while the older sister still seems to be heavily traumatized by witnessing the crime.  She is extremely nervous about her sister’s well-being and checks up on her constantly.  Then, they hear that their parents’ murderers are being let out of prison and the older sister kind of flips out.  She chases the younger one through a parking garage and they are both hit by a car driving through the aisles like it’s supposed to.  The younger sister wakes up in the hospital and is told that her sister was dead on arrival, which upsets her, but on hearing from the police that threatening letters had been sent to the murderers, she seems determined to get on with her life.  She starts seeing the doctor from the hospital who told her about her sister, but when they start kissing in his car she reacts violently and leaves.  When she arrives home, she now appears as the older sister and furiously tears the house apart looking for her discarded things.  The sisters switch consciousness several times before the younger sister asks for help.  She realizes the older sister has tracked down the murderers and is planning to do something to them, possibly kill them to avenge their parents.  They talk to each other by leaving messages on the old answering machine and the younger sister resorts to chaining herself to the bed.  It doesn’t work; she comes to in her car, driving down the highway, and screeches to a halt, narrowly avoiding an accident with another car.  When she stops the car, she hears yelling and pounding from the trunk.  The female murderer is inside.  The younger sister decides to scare the woman out of town to save her life and knocks her out with chloroform before tying her to a tree, getting the story of the botched robbery out of her, and telling her to leave if she wants to keep living.  Presumably, the woman leaves because when the older sister gets her turn and shows up at the woman’s workplace, they tell her she has disappeared.  The male partner is still around, though.  He’s going to get his.  However, the younger sister has started to research both the murders and the car accident.  She finds the psychiatric reports saying her older sister was too racked with guilt to get over her trauma, and sees a photo of herself lying on the ground, covered in blood at the scene of the car accident.  She appeals to the doctor (who her sister threatened to kill) and he brings her to the psych ward.  When he says she doesn’t look that crazy except for her tattoo, the younger sister realizes that she isn’t possessed by her older sister’s protective, vengeful ghost, she is possessing her sister’s body and still trying to live a normal life.  She runs home to lock herself up, and the murderer breaks in and finds her.  The doctor comes to see if she’s alright, gets beaten by the murderer, the now older sister escapes the chains and kills the murderer with a coat-rack to his back.  She prepares to cut her own throat while sitting on the plastic covered couch, but then she sees the answering machine with a message on it from her sister, a message that screams, “It’s my life!  I want my life!”  The older sister decides that she has an obligation to stay in the world, so her sister will have some way to keep living.  She does go to some kind of treatment and at her sister’s funeral seems to be much calmer.  But, when she gets home there’s a message - her sister playing a piano part, which she joins in on.  The director said the movie is meant to tell us that whatever trauma we experience will never go away, but our can live our lives well by accepting it.

Der Hauptmann/El capitán/The Captain turned out to be a true story.  A German soldier deserts in the final days of the Second World War and comes across a car with a captain's uniform inside.  There's nobody around, so he puts on the uniform and practices giving imperious orders, when he is surprised by another soldier who mistakes him for a real captain.  The "captain" takes this lost man under his command and they go around picking up other soldiers apparently separated from their units.  He tells people he's taking stock of the situation near the front under the direct orders of the Führer, and finally he ends up at a prison camp where he decides to execute all the deserters in spite of the protests of the camp director.  An English bombardment destroys the camp and kills most of the people who are left, so the "captain" takes what men he can gather and starts an express trial tour.  He blows into town, kills a few "traitors", and has himself a party.  Finally, the military police catch up to him and arrest him.  He is tried for his crimes, but the examiners say his actions weren't so strange given the circumstances, and in the end he is given a very light sentence.  He escapes anyway, and walks out into the woods, over a carpet of human skeletons, and disappears into the darkness among the trees.  I thought it might be a story with a sort of "Catch Me If You Can" atmosphere, where the fraudulent officer is trying to stay under the radar and not have people examine him too much, but no.  The guy was a psychopath.  He had no problems killing and ordering others to kill, so his desertion doesn't seem like the act of a man just tired of having to commit violence.  He didn't even seem to enjoy it very much, it was just a thing he had to do.  The movie ended with the actors roaming a modern city in their Nazi costumes, harassing people in the street while the credits rolled.  The director was here for this movie too, and he explained that he really wanted to make a film that busted a few legends and myths that Germans had about the end of the war and people's behavior at the time.  At least, I think that's what he said.  He didn't have his own mic and the interpreter's mic had really bad, fuzzy sound.

Halfway through!

irregularities

It's not that I don't enjoy beer fairs, it's that I like to have some idea about when I can expect them.  They always seem to appear out of nowhere.  It seems like it was only a few months ago that Beermad was down at Caja Mágica, and here they are again.  Now, I can't let opportunities to go waste, so went down too, for one day at least.

I was thinking I could give myself a pretty good variety, alternating between light and dark beers.  Nómada was looking a little lonely when I arrived so I darted over and chose the pilsner.  A little something different.  Naturepils is unfiltered and unpasturized, so I expect something interesting.  It's dirty yellow, with a light head, not too aromatic.  The flavor is very soft, just a touch of bitter, and with a mild grassiness in the aftertaste.  It's unintrusive, a good sipping beer, could even be gulped at 4.2%.  The flavor is steady and unchanging from start to finish, harboring no surprises, what you start with is what you finish with.

The wind is a little unpleasant, although we're under a roof it seems like rain could easily be blown in.  I'm wandering a little deeper for the next glass.

La Volet was sandwiched in between a couple of busier stands with food and music, but the offering was attractive enough.  I went for Antiga, the old ale, hoping for my dark side to be fulfilled.  It is a nice chocolate brown, with a mild appley aroma, but the scent is pretty light too.  It's a little bitter at first sip, toasty, not so sweet as I feared it might be, just a little bit of apple flavor bubbles up in the end.  Mostly, though, the beeriness is in the forefront to be savored.  There's a bit of that left on the tongue after every sip, building up to a nice bitter over time.

I'm feeling the need for a nice black beer, and there is a coffee porter at CCVK.  It's the same color as Antiga, but with a creamier looking head.  I don't detect any aroma at all.  I wonder if the wind and food smells have something to do with that?  The beer is a little thin at first, but then a nice coffee taste wafts up.  It's very smooth and only slightly sweet, not tart like some, even coffee, porters.  It's a dort of afternoon beverage, to be relaxing in the garden with, hoping not to get rained on.  Ar 6.5% it's deceptively unchallenging in flavor and could get you to drink three or four before you know it.

Hmm, yeah

Maybe an IPA will have more character.  I stop by Cervezas Sanfrutos for one, and it appears it will do the trick.  It's kind of a dull yellow but bright and citrusy in aroma.  The taste is a little darker than I expected, slier, like the beer put one over on you.  I taste a smirk.  Besides that, it's a pretty standard IPA, nicely hoppy and with a good clean bitter flavor.  It's more energetic than the previous porter, sort of a sunny afternoon/warm evening sort of beer.  I personally would like it for conversation, although some might find it too distracting.

I found my beloved stout at Monkey Brewing, although I wonder if I've had it in the bottle; the name sounds kind of familiar.  (Yep)  It's a nice dark brown, with a fluffy kind of head, not a lot of aroma here either.  It's a very nice sweet and flavorful at first, but I get a touch of sour at the end of the swallow.  The sweet builds up but stays under control, nothing too syrupy.  I keep thinking it's a little bit coconutty, but maybe that's wishful thinking after seeing Galactic Nuts on tap.

Cotton candy?  It's a damn carnival!

To finish up, I think a light beer will be best,  I've already had an IPA, so maybe a lager?  Four Lions is just across the aisle with a Helles.  It's straw yellow, one of the beeriest drinks in appearance of the day.  It smells like a beer, with the typical graininess.  The taste is bitter, slightly grassy, and fizzy.  There's a weird kind of sting at the end of the swallow.  It's nice, but a little dusty, not as refreshing as an IPA might be.

Door wide open this year

So many beers, so many festivals!  Oh wait, so little time!

Gee, what are they doing here?

big little beer comes to town

Summer is upon us and the beer fests are brewing.  Beer week will be this month, for one thing, not to mention German films.  Then there will be more localized neighborhood activities, like at Vallehermoso later on.  When will I have time for a quiet bottle at home?!

This weekend Founders decided to celebrate its presence.  While that was the name on the program, a good number of other craft breweries had stands at Conde Duque, from a variety of places.  It was most the US and, to a lesser extent, Spain that were represented.  Instead of just buying the glass at this fest, you bought a ticket which came with the commemorative glass and two tokens.  Most of the beers were two tokens, but a few more powerful ones were a little more, so you had to get more tokens at booths that a friend likened to needle exchanges.  It's a sunny afternoon, a little warmer than I like, time to get some refreshment!

I wandered around to get a feel for the offerings, but at one end a man jumped out at me and said, "Would you like to try some beer?"  That...is why I came, I think.  This man was pouring for Wylie Brewery, and the two taps were an IPA and a NEIPA.  I tasted a little of both, and while the IPA was very good, strongly flavored and robust, I had to go to the NEIPA.  I was hot, dammit.  Little Ego NEIPA is light, fruity, a jewel of its type.  There's just enough bitter to make it beery.  It's an opaque beer, a little cloudy, and thoroughly thirst quenching.  There is something of an odd aftertaste, a kind of hovering bitterness at the back of the throat, but it is a remnant of the real flavor, not some mutation of it.  Good start!

As always, I seek out the dark beers, although sometimes they are few and far between.  I came across a coffee vanilla stout, product of Proof Brewing and couldn't pass it by.  The aroma is pretty light, like old fashioned vanilla toffees.  The taste, however, is strong in vanilla, moderated with some stout smoke.  It's not too syrupy, a plus in this weather, sweet but not very heavy.  It is a little sharp, though, no cream stout this.  Coffee Vanilla Royal Bloodline hits the right notes of the black beers for me.

I felt like alternating dark and light as much as I could and went looking for something on the bright side.  People Like Us was there on the end of the line of stands with a blueberry Berliner Weisse.  How about that?  The color is an eye catching dark pink and it's a fizzy looking beer..  The aroma is not exceptionally strong, not does the taste punch you in the mouth.  It's slightly sweet, but a bit dry, kind of a champagne-like flavor.  It's a very nice summer beer, with those blueberries to take the edge off the weisse, although it is a bit demanding.  The name is Wall of Bureaucracy, which, I was told, relates to the beer namer's impressions of Berlin: there was a wall and Germany is full of bureaucrats.  This young man is one of the autistic employees that they make a point of hiring to give them opportunities to thrive.  Good for them, and good for him.  Although it sounds like he's a really bit angry, the names of the beers could be understood as tongue-in-cheek, and well accepted by professional malcontents such as myself.

I was distracted by the national beers, not going for a heavy dark as I had originally planned.  Río Azul of Seville was there with a saison and I just heard a voice telling me to try it.  Flora has a very normal sort of beer appearance, and something of a musky scent.  It is much lighter than expected, with the taste living up the name, on the sweet side, sort of a clovery taste.  There's some honey too, but also a bitter undertaste.  It's a snappy beer, leaves its mark on you.  The sweeter parts of the flavor stay on a little longer than the bitter, which is something of a welcome development.  It doesn't have that perfumy sort of sweet either.  Very natural and pleasant, a beer that you can enjoy, not one you just throw back and forget about.

Now it's really time for a dark beer.  Back on the other side of the patio was Triple Crossing and their Black Dolphin with Coconut.  Well, ok.  It's a stout.  Give it a chance.  It's surprisingly light in aroma, just slightly nutty.  The taste is very smooth, with no hint of that 14% (!) alcohol.  It's really a summery kind of stout, with those deep flavors dark beer drinkers like but in a fluffy feeling mist of brew.  It's certainly creamier than the coffee-vanilla, and the taste veers into cotton candy territory.  The light kind of sweetness makes it truly a dangerous beer, one of those that will sneak up on you even if you know the content beforehand.  It doesn't get heavier or more syrupy either, remaining delicate and delectable to the bottom of the glass.  Approach with caution, but definitely approach.

One last one for Friday, Avery's Lilikoi Kepolo.  I felt like something a little fruitier after that stout.  And it is fruity, a peachy scent, I'd say, and a very yellow, beery color.  The taste is a mild sweet and sour, with some peach cutting through.  It's a happy, bouncy taste - or maybe I'm being influenced by the band playing a cover of "I'm Just A Girl".  The beer maintains its flavor all the way through, not getting heavy, syrupy or sour.  It's much like a peach lambic, in fact.  There is an aftertaste that registers with me as caraway, which is a little bit weird.

Saturday starts much the same, bright and sunny, probably a bit more crowded.  On Friday I could usually squeeze onto the end of a bench, but there's hardly a space now.  I decide to start off strong with Leftöver Cracker.  It's a pumpkin milk stout, from Russian brewery Zagovor.  It's rich black and bubbly, takes a while to settle.  There is evident pumpkin spice in the aroma, a rather autumnal beer, but I love my stouts anytime, anywhere.  It's much less sweet than expected, very smooth, eggnog like in texture.  There's a bite that reminds me of rum infused eggnog, although it might just be psychology working; the additional spices are what you get in eggnog, and pumpkin pie, so that should explain that.  It's not too strong anyway, at 7.6%.  The aftertaste is surprisingly dry, doesn't linger or leave any stickiness behind, but cleans up after itself.

In the interest of alternating, I go for an IPA next.  Califa's Imparable Pomelo is just asking for a taste.  It's a clear straw yellow, with kind of a spicy, cilantro-y smell.  The taste is sharp and herbal, not even bitter for a few seconds.  The grapefruit takes a while to kick in too.  It is decidedly less "clean" than the stout, with the late-coming bitter taking its time clearing out, but it would be considered a much more summery choice by many, I expect.  Quite nice.

I didn't go all the way back in extremes for the next one, stopping for an amber ale from 3 Floyds.  Something about the name, Smashed Face Amber, is a challenge.  It's orangey but clear colored, the aroma mostly...beery.  It's sweet tasting and citrusy, not the bitter citrus of IPAs, but sweet dessert oranges.  Not much aftertaste with this one either, although I keep expecting some bitterness to kick in.  Things remain calm, however.  Not as much of an impression as the others, quite honestly, but a tasty beer, nice for sipping, to go with a snack, a good book, or a good conversation.

I am sometimes compelled to try something new at fairs and festivals, with the thought that I probably wouldn't buy these beers at other times.  But, I know I do get odd things just to try.  Maybe I should do some adding up of styles.  Anyway, what really caught my eye was the sign assuring passers-by that the raspberries for Mikkeller's Spontandoubleraspberry sour were collected by Danish virgins in white dresses like fairies.  Some way to get attention.  Very pagan.  Goes with the territory, I suppose.  So now that my attention has been captured, I can't just walk away from that without a glass of sour.  It's the right color to be fake blood, but really too thin in consistency.  The scent is sour, lambic-y, hints of sweet fruit though.  The taste is quite fruity and tangy, a lot like Mort Subite, but for me more palatable since the flavor is more natural and less sharp and syrupy.  Like real raspberries, instead of enhanced raspberry flavoring. 

Uh oh

It was about this time that it started raining.  We were in the open patio, although there were some umbrellas over the tables, and herds of attendees flocked to doorways for a little bit of protection.  While we were squeezed into the doorway to the library a security guard told us we had to keep the exits clear for safety reasons.  And nobody moved.  A couple of people argued that they had paid for their tickets to a beer fest, not a shower, and if there wasn't adequate protection in the patio they weren't moving from the doorway.  The guard said she was obligated to tell us the rules, and eventually just walked off, leaving us to shelter where we were.  The rain let up after a few minutes and we scattered among the stalls again.

I've only had one stout today?  Unacceptable!  So there's Finback's Nave Nave Mahana to make things right.  It looks right, smells right, tastes...sweet.  It's not overly sweet, however, and now that it's kind of damp out, a little extra sugar picks you right up.  I don't identify the source of the sweetness, it just seems like a lot of milk stouts, but apparently pineapple is involved.  I think I might have hesitated if I'd seen that first, but as I said, the fruit doesn't make itself plainly known.  Despite being a black beer, it's a chipper, bright drink, balancing out a rainy early evening.  It keeps well as it warms up too, maintaining a pleasant sweetness without getting too heavy or sour.

I thought I would end the day with that stout, but by this time other people had come to poke around and there were extra beer tokens to be had.  I feel bad about not using them, I mean, really.  So I had a mystery IPA.  It was fetched for me, that's why it's a mystery, and I did not ask the provenance.  It is a fairly standard ale, good color and head.  Not exceptionally bitter, and no "special" flavorings that I can detect.  Of course, it was raining again by that time, so I was a little distracted with drippings from the edges of patio umbrellas.

OK, seriously, the last tokens!  I only have two left, so no more stouts.  It's coming down pretty good, so I think something sunny might be the right send-off.  Revolution Brewing had two tempting treats, but Deth's Tar was a four token stout, so out of my range now.  I don't feel like waiting around in the rain for two more tokens.  But, there is also Freedom of Speach, a session sour.  With peach, as you might guess.  That's sunny enough for me.  It's a very pale color, clear, slightly fizzy.  Not nearly as tangy as Spontan or Imparable, but just sour enough to balance the identifiable peach.  It's a little bit silly to be drinking such a happy, bubbly beer under an umbrella in a downpour, but that's just one of life's weirdnesses.  Here's to rain and unfrozen peaches!

Another day for you...