T(welve)-2

On the second day of Beermas I went and bought for me

Two staring wings

And an icy raven looking needy

I guess I'll have to be a little creative, since there are a damn lot of birds in this song and not that many beers with birds.  Surprisingly few, actually, it seems like something people might like to use.  Symbol of freedom, knowledge, power, why wouldn't you link it to a beer?  Especially in a country where beer has not been the drink of the average citizen until quite recently.  Anyway, I went looking in some less-frequented places, and I got this tentative suggestion.  Almost immediately taken back, since that's a moth, or something, on the can, but what the hell?  Things that fly count.  Also, taking the place of turtledoves, it makes sense to have all the eyes and be a monstrosity, because if there's something you like to look at it's your lover and if there's anything that makes a monster into a masterpiece it's love.  This is Rec Brew with Naked Lunch.

It's strongly aromatic, with a whole tropical fruit basket flowing out as soon as it's opened.  While cloudy, the color isn't very bright, sort of a muted lemonade.  The flavor is less tropical, but still strong, snappy, and a little bit acidic.  It has some elements of certain NEIPAs, being a little throat-grabby, but it isn't quite as strong as the DDH IPA set.  There's a depth that keeps it from being a simple warm-weather drink, something about the hint of abrasiveness I think.  It is light in the mouth, but you can comfortably drink it surrounded by wintery figures and gray streets and not feel like it's leaving you unprotected from your current weatherscape.  After a little while I start to get some woody notes, sort of pencil shaving-like, so a reference to a possible winter fireplace?  You put wood shavings in fireplaces, right?  Probably better that than moths.

old fashioned diet watcher

It's still regular summer temperatures, but somehow it's worse than what it was before.  Maybe because we can't marvel at the numbers, so we just sit and suffer as usual.  As much as I like my stouts (and there will be some more) it is a good set of conditions for lighter beers, especially ales, and pale ales at that.  Just before Cervecissimus closed up shop for their summer vacation I picked up a new one for me, (full flavored) Pale Ale from 28 Brewery.  Their little blurb on the back gives some history to the brand, saying it was already in existence in 1842, and their website says they were established "100 years ago".  Later they say 1912 is the year they expanded from the basis of their most successful (I guess) beer, Perle 28.  Interestingly, it's touted as a low-carb beer, which is not something craft beers have paid much attention to.  There must be a time for everything.

For such a light colored beer it has a powerful aroma.  It's plenty ale-y too, with good notes of citrus and fruit, not a lot of more traditional elements.  The head doesn't disappear completely, but it does die back pretty quick.  The flavor is on the oddly sour side, with just a bit of bitter chasing it down.  It's generally clean, but there's a touch of astringency too, trying to clean up after.  There isn't much grain or bread, and the bitterness has more of a healthy fruit sensation to it than regular old beer bitter.  I'm not sure if I notice any particular lightness to it, but maybe if I focused on this line of beers I would find myself with less of a beer belly, you know, magically.

Supplier: Cervecissimus

Price: €3

no fields to wander in

I thought all the pack was IPAs, but there is a regular pale ale stuck in there.  It's Oso brewing again, so hopes are high, with Nature.  At first I took the yellow parts of the design on the can for orange slices, but they're all hops, so I kind of expect something more on the cold and bitter side than citrusy.  While fruity beers are nice and appetizing, a hot day that crushes your energy down might be better met by a sharp taste that really kicks you in the pants. 

It's another cloudy one, a little surprising to me for a pale ale, but it does seem to be the fashion of the times.  There's a little more sweetness and citrus in the aroma but nothing else very obviously identifiable.  The flavor is a little disappointing actually.  There's a very mild bitter, then a twist of orange, but it's otherwise kind of watery.  Of course, I am used to much stronger flavors these days, so a less jaded palate might find the beer pleasantly bright and refreshing.  It is clean feeling and light, so certainly good for oppressively warm evenings.

Supplier: Birra Y Paz

Price: €5.65

no argument here

It's a little bit of a trip down memory lane to pick up a Sierra Nevada, a true craft success story.  Their brewery in North Carolina is a sight to behold.  And damn if they don't make fantastic beers there!  Like a lot of craft breweries big and small, though, you just can't get all the menu anyplace you want.  Pale Ale is pretty much always a good choice, a long standing standard. 

The just-opened bottle gives off a fresh, piney scent, and the beer is clear, although fairly dark for a pale ale.  Not too much head, but frothy and resistant.  The flavor is bitter, but with a thick, bready feeling, a slightly sweet aftertaste.  It feels a little heavy for a pale ale, impossible to ignore, but smooth.  After a few sips it takes on a peppery quality, getting a little less smooth and more spikey.  There's no build-up of heaviness with time and warming, it's a very balanced and regular drink.

Sounds like a family company, all right

Supplier: Labirratorium

Price: €2.95

twelve troopers trooping

On the twelfth day of Beermas I went and bought for me

Twelve war-drummers blundering

Eleven alarms peeping 

Ten lords a-leering 

Nine sinfully good black beers 

Eight lizards leaking

Seven feathered friends a-fluttering

Six phoenixes rising

Five photographic plates

Four flying saucers

Three sunny toucans

Two dogs in costume

And a lone eagle flying free

 

It would have been nice to end with my beloved black beers, but I guess the solstice was a couple of weeks ago.  Days should be getting noticeably lighter soon.

Pale gold, very fluffy head, it's a good looking beer, you have to give it that.  There's just a whisper of modern ale hops, but not a nose-grabbing amount.  It's fairly strong flavored, though, with a solid kick of bitter.  There's something else in there too, something toasty and more lagery than I was expecting.  There's also just the mildest fruitiness floating on top when you take a drink, not even solidly citrus or tropical.  I can't quite identify it, but it's something you might have after a long day of shooting unsuccessfully at fleeing rebels.  You know, because it's healthy and good for your eyes.  And you don't feel like you can reward yourself with, say, chocolate cake. 

two cuddly doggies

On the second day of Beermas I went and bought for me

Two dogs in costume

And a lone eagle flying free 

And right away I have to make some twists to labels and lyrics: turtle doves are supposed to be snuggly love-birds, dogs like to snuggle with you, it's a flying dog on the bottle, there!  OK, so it's just one dog, but you can't have everything.  Flying Dog is good bet for a good beer at least.  I'll get something out of Doggy Style for sure.

For a pale ale it's awfully colorful.  Deep gold, off-white head, light and mandarinish aroma, it's a damn appetizing beer.  The flavor isn't as tropical as a lot of craft ales, although there is a little orange to it.  It's more like more traditional IPAs with just a touch of new hops.  There's also a dusty quality to the texture, which is a little strange.  It's pretty clear, not an unfiltered beer that I'm aware of.  It grows in sweetness although maintains a clean feeling, so I would call it a good all-rounder.  Not lacking in flavor on its own, and not so wild that food would ruin it, that's good for the beginning of a long line of beer.

Door #24

So, the last day of the calendar, the last beer I don't have to make up a connection for.  Beermas is going to have some interesting twists this year.  I guess Norn could have told me it would happen, if it had been earlier in the list.  This is a Swedish pale ale, perhaps made attractive by its name.  Everybody wants to know something about the future, after all.  Will we be allowed to wander freely, will we have to keep our distance from strangers (no complaints about that here), will we ever be able to fill a room again without worrying about every cough and sniffle that could kill us the next week?  The Norns aren't as forthcoming as they could be.  Haven't made the proper sacrifices, I guess.

Wow, it's an explosion of hoppy goodness opening up that can!  Otherwise, it's the very picture of a pale ale, light straw color, fluffy white head.  The aroma is a little heavy for the appearance I'd say.  The taste is oddly unbitter, with a touch of sweetness in fact, but mostly a melon-like flavor that I did not expect at all.  It's actually quite nice, although perhaps a little summery for the season.  It's a very smooth-drinking beer, in spite of the weighty hops perfume, very much a pale ale without the extras of IPAs.  Although there's a little bitter at the end of the swallow, it's rather subtle, and the overall feeling is one of a filling but refreshing summertime beer.  It's just flavorful enough to be perfectly fine on its own, although it wouldn't be bad to have some nice pretzels or salty, fatty snacks along with it.

Door #5

At least it's getting crisp outside, seems more like December.  Of course there's no snow in the forecast, as usual around these parts.  Probably won't be until February at least, and even then it'll be shitty slushy snow, or it will melt before it even hits the ground.  I've seen snowflakes disappear about a foot off the sidewalk before.  At least there will be plenty of snow-capped beers to keep us cool-headed.  The bird on Caleya's Asturies Pale Ale almost made me save it for Beermas, but I have to keep Calenbeer moving too, so I'll figure something else out.  I think I used another beer of theirs anyway last year.

It gives off the slightly orangey ale smell right away, maybe not as tropical as an IPA often is.  It's still quite sweet and fruity in aroma.  The head is a little over-exuberant, very thick and white, and not prone to fizzing away very quickly.  It's a clear sun-yellow, what one might hope to see in a pale ale.  It's not as sweet to the taste as to the nose, but still has a touch of orange to it.  More the pith part than the fruit, though.  Eventually an odd kind of grassy aftertaste starts to build up, but this pale ale is mostly a clean and refreshing sort.  Probably better suited to a summer evening after working out in the fields all day than a quiet December long weekend, it must be said.

I love how the label is all in Asturian.  There isn't even English in case of export, as sometimes you can find.  These kinds of flourishes are things to bring up when discussing culture and beer making/development, wouldn't you say?

cheating and consequences

It's the end of August and now we're just in lazy, lazy days.  It's not too hot, which is definitely a good thing, but there's not a lot of call to go out and about.  Even to go browse some beer shelves.  Lucky for me, there's some beer hanging around my house that fits the bill, something a little different and representative of what good beer should be.  I have in my fridge now Adnams Ghost Ship, a citrus pale ale.  Not a shandy, mind you, just a beer with bright and shiny hops.  Like a good many modern ales.

It has a striking citrusy smell for a simple pale ale, but there is that touch of citrus that's supposed to be in there.  There's also a layer of pepper or other exotic spices underneath, giving the aroma a nice depth.  It doesn't look very fizzy, so a nice smooth drink will probably be forthcoming.  The head isn't very bubbly, but it does hang around for a while.  But that first sip - wow, I'm disappointed.  I was expecting a snap of flavor, a bitter kick or even sour rasp of lemon on the palate, but there really isn't anything.  It's smoothly bitter, with only a hint of citrus flavor.  It's fairly clean and goes down without any weird aftertaste hanging around, but there just isn't much else there.  It's not a bad beer, it would be a very good drink with snacks and conversation, not drawing any attention to itself, but alone it's just not very interesting.  Shoulda taken a trip after all.

another down under

It's always nice to find something new at the beer store, a new style or a new place represented.  Of course, when we're talking craft beer a lot of breweries aren't in the position to send their beer very far from home.  Imagine my surprise to see a Chilean beer up there on the shelf!  It's Kunstmann Torobayo pale ale (das gute Bier! says the cap).  In spite of the name it promotes itself as a British style, "popular in the times of Queen Victoria", and both things make perfect sense for a Chilean beer quite honestly.  Hopefully this will take the edge off the rising temperatures at evening lately.

For a pale ale, the color seems awfully dark to me.  Still, very typical beer, slightly bubbly and good white head.  It has that German style aroma, a blend of bitter and sweet grassiness.  The flavor is sweeter than I expected, even a little malty, but again it has a very standard feel to it, a beer that you'd have in the cooler on a summer outing.  It's rather thicker than I expected for a pale ale, sort of oozes down in an ambling way, not the zippiness of an IPA or even a sour.  Although the sweetness is pleasant, it's on the heavy side, not as refreshing as I'd hoped on a warm summer night.  On a cooler evening it would be fine, or in a strongly air conditioned bar.  It's also a beer that begs a snack to compliment it, something salty would be great right about now.  My kingdom for a bag of pretzels!

Supplier: Espuma
Price: €3.50

right side of the tracks

There is nothing like outdoor beerfests.  Last time people had to pay to get in, and it was covered, but the most recent Beermad was free to enter and open to all elements.  Fortunately, the elements were favorable.

It's a little difficult to decide sometimes, with so many beers from so many places, so I thought I'd rely a little on fate.  The first beer I came across was Vulturis, and there was a Saison con Lavandra, which is something different.  First time I've seen that, it's a good start for me!  At 6% it's heavy for a saison.  Cloudy orange, fizzy head, not very perfumey, which I would have expected from a lavender beer.  There is a touch of perfume in the flavor, a sort of clover honey, but it's really more bitter than anything.  Kind of tough on the throat after a while, but I guess the roughness could be pointed out as "natural" or "herbal".

Doing a little beer roulette, my glass was empty near Peninsula.  It's a good brewery, so no regrets there.  I ended up with Hop On Pale Ale, a little darker orange and with more citrus aroma than the last beer.  Not so much citrus in the flavor, though.  It's a definite ale but with a deeper bitter, and cardamon or something.  A little sticky, but summery and refreshing flavor without being too light for a rainy day.

There's a definite lack of dark beers, although that's not a new thing.  There are a few though, like La Morena Stout.  It's a little light in color, more of a dark brown, slightly sour smell, bitter-sour taste.  It's earthy without any chocolate or heavy malt, a tickly and summery sort of stout.  It's like some German darks in feel, but with the bitter flavor of a good black beer.

Walking roulette left me in front of Ebora, where they had Suomi Baltic Porter.  I hesitated at first, since it is barrel aged, but it is really quite a subtle sort.  Light in color again, weirdly toasty for a bourbon beer in aroma, and just a touch of bourbon in background flavor.  If you didn't know it was there you might never guess.  This beer does have some whispers of chocolate or vanilla, and is less bitter by far than the last one.

Ziva 5.0# is in the same line as a barrel aged stout from the last edition, but this is a "normal" beer.  It's Russian Imperial Stout, again not quite black, but with a beigier head than the others.  There's a more typical stout aroma, dark, a little smokey and a little sour, the taste is definitely sweet though.  I would guess this is a bourbon porter before Suomi, but there's a weird grassy grainy aftertaste that i could actually do without.

I was thinking of heading out, so I though a lighter beer might be good to end on.  I found Oso Brewing Cerveza de Mesa and hoped that it would fit the bill.  It's very light, like a kölsch or radler, with kind of a weird sweety citrus smell.  It's vaguely bitter and vaguely citrus, a real palate cleanser, but not a real mark of ending.  So...

The real last drink was La Verbena 2nd Hand Ale, an amber.  The appearance is typical of amber and red ales, but this is one of the more balanced ones.  It's a little touch of light, but with a fairly substantial body, slightly citrus but more ale.  It's a smooth drink, easy down the throat, with a good level of bitter.  Not a sweet beer in fact, a strong ale sort, just enough sour to give it something interesting.  Now this is a good one to end on.

hobby drinker in hamburg

Say what you will about rainy cities, they're great places to go drinking.  Gotta keep people interested, after all.  With only a weekend to get a taste, I had to do my best to maximize, so the very first beers were a flight of Ratsherrn brews.  They were arranged in flavor from lightest to strongest, which does make some sense. 

We started with Matrosenschleck Oat White IPA, with a sharp citrusy aroma but only slightly citrus taste.  A very light color and mild flavor, not what I expect from my IPAs, but maybe the oats smooth out the taste.

Next up was the Seasonal, reddish color, kind of tangy smell.  Rather sweet, seems to feature a touch of honey, but not very strong.  Later on it would clash with the goulash, so not a beer to go with strong foods.

The Pale Ale didn't have a lot of scent to it either, but the color was stronger and the taste was definitely beerier.  It starts off with a good stiff bitter and leaves a little graininess behind.  This one was great with the goulash!

Of a similar appearance to the Seasonal, the Rotbier had more complexity about it.  The color was slightly ruddier, and the aroma more oaty than the Seasonal.  The flavor was mostly sweet again, but with a helping of sour, and a bigger feel than the other beers.  The texture had a certain amount of robustness that goes well with a blustery evening, but the sweetness lends itself more to conversation beer than to mealtime beer.

At the end of the flight was Zwickel, with a similar scent to the Rotbier, but lighter.  A dark gold brew, it also tends to the sweet and eschews the bitter.  Less work to decipher than the Rotbier, but also good for a sit with a good book, perhaps.

There's something fitting about a beer called Amerikanischer Traum at a museum of emigration.  In some ways it's quite a standard IPA, golden, heady, strong citrus perfume but not spicy or tangy.  Much like American IPAs, it's heavy on the fruitiness, which starts pretty softly but soon explodes into a tropical citrus fest.  I can't put my finger on the exact fruit, but maybe grapefruit?  There is a bitterness lurking in the background, like a kind of grounding for the high flying fruit basket.

Blockbräu

In a convenient brew house near the U-Bahn we had some more seasonal beer.  This one was a pale ale, but cloudy and dark gold.  Unfiltered, I would imagine.  The head bubbles off pretty quickly.  It's sweeter than expected, with sort of a dusty feeling to it, but with a smooth and even-tempered flavor.  Not a lot of bitter to be found, it leans to the sweet as well, more honey than hops.  But, from start to finish it maintains the same easy drinking feel.

Those beer stores are everywhere!  No complaints from me on that account.  This one had taps too, four of them, and the most promising was the dry stout.  It was an Irish beer, but to fill my need for black beers I will make a sacrifice or two.  The Black Pig came out almost entirely foam, but like magic, a beer appeared in the glass within moments.  The aroma is a little sour.  The beer is extremely smooth, what you would expect from a nitro.  The taste is only slightly bitter with a hint of gassiness that reminds me of balloons.

Finally, my bought bottle, Simean Hanseatic Porter.  Had to drink it before coming back, since I only had a carry-on.  No good beers at the duty-free store that I could see in Hamburg airport!  Anyway, the porter is a good rich dark brown, rather light head, and a noticeably hard-hitting alcohol smell.  It's like cherry liquor chocolates.  The first impression is quite bitter, but it lightens right up.  I feared a turn for the sour but instead the flavor went firmly into chocolate.  For me, it's just sweet enough to recall a nice dark chocolate, with some grit to make it feel like you've got a drink to tame on your hands.  Ausgezeichnet!

Maybe this should be my personal item

They'll let this go in a personal item, right?

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.

more taste testing

More and more places are deciding a nice, quiet beer tasting with a variety of well-made craft beers is a clever way to attract customers.  Of course, some places don't worry too much about it being quiet.  This is Spain, after all.  I had never been to, or even heard of, Macanudo Bar Espacio Arte, but if they have good beer I'm game.  The tasting was presented by a representative of Freaks Brewing, which I am familiar with.  One of the beers was even one I had tried recently.  But, we were also getting special tapas, so the experience will be different.

Uh oh, nice beer?

We all crowded around the bar and prepared for the first taste.  It was Flying Rebel pale lager.  It has a wheaty kind of scent, a little bit sweet and with a hint of grass.  The taste is surprising, though, being rather sour.  It's very light and despite the suggestion in the aroma of wheat, there's no sweetness in the beer, nor is there that grassy aftertaste.  There are only Saaz hops used in it, although it's not as bitter as you might expect.  Oddly, I got a little floral aroma as the glass came to its end.  Our first tapa was a mushroom spread.  It was a heavy tasting and spicy snack, peppery really, and a good choice to tame the sourness of the ale.

Tropical Explorer APA came out next.  I was wondering if it would be much different in the bottle as on tap.  We had a spicy pork tapa (actually the spiciness was from the extra sauce, not the pork itself) and the beer really neutralized that heat.  It was otherwise as I remembered from Craft Against The Machine; fruity smelling, but much more bitter and beery than you expect from a sniff.  Good combo.

Third was Lord Cobra IPA, which I had also sampled previously, albeit some time ago.  In spite of being an IPA it's supposed to be a versatile beverage, going with most food.  Especially strong flavors, they said.  Well, our tapa was a hot dog with pickle mayonnaise and beets, not what one would consider delicate in taste.  Lord Cobra did not pack a punch in its own flavor, just a little bitter and light flavored on its own, but was a welcome palate cleanser after the sticky and pickly snack.  A good mealtime beer indeed.  Now on the dessert!

We finished up with a stout (hooray!), Roast King Imperial Stout.  There isn't a very strong smell to it, just a little bit of coffee.  Even the taste is mostly coffee, but the Starbucks kind with a couple of shots of syrup.  There's even a hint of fruit in the background, but it's very subtle.  Our dessert tapa was a chocolate mousse with nuts, maybe pistachio?  After scarfing that up, the stout washes it right down, gaining a richer chocolate flavor itself, and a smoother finish.  Those touches of sour fruit get wiped right out. 

I found the noise of the room distracting, but being gathered closely around we could hear the rep pretty much the whole time.  I was also amused at the number of questions that came from the group.  In part, it would be that most were not beer snobs and just trying something new for the evening, but I also think it might be that people feel more comfortable in a louder environment, where anything silly can be brushed aside as a misunderstanding because of the noise.  Maybe I should put a white noise machine in class when the students don't seem to want to ask questions that they obviously need the answers to.

IPA and APA

Mouth watering stouts