Fifth Annual October Brew Review

Better late than never?

Updated 200911202355Z

One would think that with this being a major milestone in the history of this blog—the fifth anniversary of the October Brew Review—The Grumpy Hacker would have taken more care to publish it on time, and perhaps make it extra-special.

One would think wrong.

The Grumpy Hacker duly apologises to his two loyal readers. The rest of you lot can suck it Trebek.

A funny thing happened on the way to the liquor store...the liquor store went out of business! I buy most of my beer at one particular store, Grapes & Grain in Mequon. They've always had a great selection of Belgians, and they sell loads of craft beers by the bottle. When I first started shopping there about 3-4 years ago there was a beer buyer there who was really nice and knowledgeable and actually followed up on my requests. In the last year or two he left suddenly and the people left to deal with since didn't really seem to know their beer too well, not to mention they really couldn't seem to care less about what I wanted. But they still had a great selection so I kept shopping there.

One day though, about two months ago now, I popped by on my way home from work to pick up some Oktoberfests for the Review, but when I pulled into the parking lot I noticed the inside was dark and there were no signs on the building anymore. That sucks. It sucks even more because another decent liquor store in my area—Martin's Wine & Spirits—had shut its doors for good a few months earlier. Same deal: no warning, no reason, just no more store one day.

So, I decided to try Sendik's. For a grocery store they put a lot of effort into their beer and wine. It just so happened they had a new display set up especially for Oktoberfest brews, including several varieties being sold in mix & match six-packs. I put together my own six-pack including:

• Beck's Oktoberfest, which I haven't seen in years


• A local I had never heard of (from a brewery I had never heard of), Buffalo Water Bison Blonde Autumn Recipe


• Another local Oktoberfest from Lakefront


• A Wisconsin Oktoberfest from Capital


• Another Wisconsin Oktoberfest from Point


• A Minnesotan Oktoberfest from Summit

And of course I had already stocked up on two 12-packs of Hacker-Pschorr Oktoberfest from Costco for $24. Followers of this blog will know of course that Hacker-Pschorr Oktoberfest is my "control" beer so to speak.

After a few Hackers the first new one for this year that I decided to try was the one I had never heard of before, the Buffalo Water Bison Blonde Autumn Recipe. Quite a mouthful—in more ways than one. At first I was pleasantly surprised, but the more I quaffed the more my liking declined. By the end of the glass it seemed like a very ordinary, bland pilsner. Refreshing and light to be sure, but wholly unremarkable and certainly not what I would expect from an "autumn recipe," much less a Maerzen. Checking out the brewery's website (which seems to bounce between a "legitimate" domain and Blogspot) it doesn't look like they even have any other varieties. I'll be keeping my eye out for them as I'd certainly want to try others before writing them off entirely. But the cheesy sticker slapped on the box that said "autumn recipe" makes me wonder if perhaps they just weren't able to produce a true Maerzen in time and figured their one and only beer was "all-around" enough to pass off as something subtly different by tricking drinkers with a cheap sticker.

The next on my list was the Beck's. I'd been looking forward to this because I had fond memories of Beck's Oktoberfest years ago when I had it in Maryland or Delaware or somewhere back east. Unfortunately my bubble was burst as soon as I popped the cap—this particular bottle smelled as if it might be skunky. I poured it into a glass anyway and took a sip. Yuck. Something must be wrong with this one because I remember Beck's tasting (not to mention smelling) really good the last time I had it. Who knows, beer is a living thing and never exactly the same batch to batch so maybe it was just a bit off this time around. Or maybe Sendik's got some skunky cases somehow. Or maybe it was just me.

Nah.

So next on my list was one I knew to be mediocre, at least in my opinion. I had tried Lakefront's Oktoberfest for my Second Annual and whilst I didn't think it was bad, I didn't really think it was good either. Same story this year I'm afraid. Maybe even a tad more on the bad side. Truth be told, in general I'm not too fond of any Lakefront varieties. Just kidding. But seriously, I'm not.

Next came Capital and Summit, which essentially tied for first place in my Second Annual Brew Review. Now I knew something had to be going on, because at best I thought these two were just okeigh, not nearly as pleasing as I remembered them being just a couple years ago. In that case I had to go straight on to the Point, which I highly recommended after my Third Annual. This time, however, it didn't really seem to wow me as much as when I first had it. Maybe a teensy-weensy bit better than the Capital or Summit, but that's all.

What was happening? Was I going mad? The only way to find out was to return to the "control" beer, Hacker-Pschorr. Sure enough, it was delicious. Almost better than I remembered it being last season.

So who knows what was going on with the beers I selected for this year's Review. Maybe, since they all came from Sendik's, something was in fact wrong with what they were given from their distributor? No idea. I just went back there the other day and almost all their Oktoberfests have been cleared out.

Not mine though...I still have a few Hackers left. In fact I think I'll pop one open right now.

Til next year, prost! gh

National Cask Ale Week

The Britons get National Cask Ale Week; we Americans get National Public Health Week. The Brits get all the best holidays. gh

Hockey and berries and Oprah, oh my!

Attack of the phoney diet blogs

Updated 200902161830Z

Recently I did an eBay search for hockey jerseys. There are loads and loads of them available on eBay, so I thought about a way to narrow it down. I went to university in Rolla, Missouri, about 90 miles west of St Louis, and I remember all my fraternity brothers supported the St Louis Blues. I recalled a couple of the key players' names like Brett Hull and Curtis Joseph but I wanted to look at team rosters from about 1991-1995 to see if any other names rang a bell, then I could look for those names on jerseys on eBay. If you've ever tried to google for hockey team rosters from the past, let me tell you: it's a time-consuming endeavour.

At one point in my searching I came across the website HockeyFights.com. Like many websites they have advertisements in the margin. One of them that caught my eye was for a cute woman named Jenny who had apparently lost 25 pounds in just a month. The ad made it look like she had been on Rachel Ray, CNN, and ABC—so it must be legit, right? So I clicked through thinking, "What the hell?" I was taken to what appeared to be this woman's blog, on which she helpfully had links to free trials of two products that helped her lose 25 pounds in a month. So again I clicked through thinking, "What the hell?"

Free my arse. You have to supply your credit card number to pay for shipping, which isn't such a big deal in and of itself, but you will also be billed, it says, for a new 30-day supply each month at an exhorbitant rate unless you call and cancel. Well sir, there's no way I'm getting myself into a hassle like that. Luckily I used a phoney name, address, etc. on the initial web form you must submit before you even find out these details.

So it was a slightly deceptive ad. No big deal. But just today I saw another virtually identicaly ad—and the small part that made it not-completely-identical was what grabbed my attention. I thought I remembered the cute woman's name to be Jenny, but this ad said "Amy." Curious, I clicked through and sure enough it is the exact same phoney blog just with a different name and URL! See for yourself:

This is the phoney blog for Jenny.

This is the phoney blog for Amy.

They didn't even change the woman's pictures!!! I mean, come on! But it doesn't stop there. Evidently there are other (different) phoney diet blogs too, like this one for "Maria." The things they do have in common are alleged endorsements by Dr Oz, Oprah, ABC/CBS/CNN and/or Rachel Ray. So I did a quick google for a couple keywords like "oz" and "acai" and I came across a (real) blog post about phoney diet blogs including—get this—a link to an ABC News article critical of the hype over acai berry and related diets! So the very broadcast network that these diets portray as endorsing them has published an article critical of them. Go figure.

Something like 90% of Americans resolve to lose weight or get fit every New Year's. If that's you—like it is me—great, I support you...but please, do not fall victim to any "get thin/fit quick" diet or exercise scam. No one can lose 25 pounds in a month without any ill/side effects; nor is any one supplement or "super food" the key to the kingdom. Everyone is different, so you must figure out what works for YOU, then muster the discipline to stick with it for the rest of your life, because diet and exercise are not stopgaps, they're long-term commitments.

Update: Here's Becky's fake diet blog. Does she remind you of anyone?

Update: Here's Melanie's fake diet blog. Golly, this time they changed the text slightly, dressed her in different clothes and photoshopped her pictures! Oh and evidently Maria (see above) has a doppelganger named Kelsey and another named Kim (they all even share the same clothes).

Update: Here's Nicholle's fake diet blog. She sure does look familiar...I hope I run in to this girl some day, I feel like I know her so well—except for her name, which is most likely not Nicholle, Melanie, Becky, Amy or Jenny. I mean, she is from Grafton, Wisconsin where I live. What's that? You think it's some clever server-side dynamic content generator to make it look like she's from near wherever the page visitor is? No way, I don't believe you. Jenny-Amy-Becky-Melanie-Nicholle would not lie to me.

Update: Here's Sara's fake diet blog. I think this is enough. You get the idea. They're fake. gh