Imperial Tanilla
Keep your eyes open for Imperial Tanilla, the Big Kahuna of smoky vanilla porters. Full review to come. Continue reading
Le Petit Prince Farmhouse Table Beer
I’ve been traveling lately, so it’s good to get back home. But it’s hot at home. Summer is in full swing, the solstice is here, and so the last few days have been spent hiding from the sun with the fans on and the lights off, in a semi-successful attempt to keep cool. Continue reading
Copper Moon Summer Pale Ale
I’m on the road this week, driving to Seattle for the 2012 Locus Awards. I’m also taking my niece and nephew to a Giants/Mariners game while I’m in town. Should be a whole lot of fun. Night Shade have a couple of horses in the Locus Awards race, notably first novels God’s War from Kameron Hurley and Soft Apocalypse from Will McIntosh, and the outstanding (if I do say so myself) anthology, Eclipse Four, edited by Jonathan Strahan. Continue reading
Back in Black
Black. The most achromatic of colors. Black is the color of objects that refuse to reflect light in the visual spectrum (or, if you’re a Nina Simone fan, “the color of my true Love’s hair”). The word black comes from the Old English “blæc” (meaning “black, dark”, or “ink”). Continue reading
Hazelnut Brown Nectar
The one thing I love more than a good beer recommendation? A good beer recommendation I can actually find. So when Constance Ann Fitzgerald, author of Trashland A Go-Go and fellow Petaluma resident, told me that I not only needed to try Rogue Hazelnut Brown Nectar, but that they had it at Wilibees, I headed right over to pick up a bomber. Continue reading
Bigfoot Barleywine Style Ale
Feet. Amazing things, aren’t they? They’re a ticklish subject, and it’s true we walk all over them, but without our feet, without those seven tarsal bones, five metatarsals, and fourteen phalanges (not to mention the tiny sesamoid bone in the big toe), we wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. Continue reading
Hop Wallop
Once home from my adventures at the San Francisco Writers Conference, I cracked open a Hop Wallop from Victory Brewing, purchased as much for the cartoonish prospector on its label as for the promise of a DIPA. Continue reading
Racer X Double IPA
“Got a big white X / On the top of his car / Rex keeps his speed / In a little glass jar…” –Big Black, “Racer X”
I am unabashedly a fan of Speed Racer (Mach GoGoGo), the late 1960s anime series focusing on the adventures of race-car driver Gō Mifune (AKA Speed Racer, voiced in English by Peter Fernandez) and his hard-driving family, including his incognito older brother Rex, better known as the masked Racer X. And while drinking and driving definitely don’t mix, there is a certain appeal to knocking back a cold one while enjoying the vicarious thrills of fast cars, intrigue, sabotage, and a pretty girl with her own helicopter. Continue reading
XXXX IPA
Another crazy week. Not only did my anthology, The Book of Cthulhu, make it onto the Locus Magazine 2011 Recommended Reading List (Anthologies, Reprint), but it also got onto the 42nd Annual Locus Awards Ballot (Best Anthology).
So tonight I’m pouring a celebratory Shipyard Brewing Company Pugsley’s Signature Series XXXX IPA. Continue reading
11.11.11 Vertical Epic Ale
It’s been a wonderful Saturday, starting with a drive (down to The Country Vet, but you take what you get) with Jennifer and Maddie, moving from there to a bit of shopping (although the lamp I bought didn’t work), then to a little bit of work (more corrections), followed by a Maddie-led walk downtown (Straight to Petaluma Pie and Copperfield’s Books… what a dog!), and ending up in my chair reading a few stories, including the impressively chilling tales by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. and Genevieve Valentine from the inaugural issue of Phantasmagorium. Continue reading
