Half Pints CKUbreW

A beer where the purchase goes to a good cause!

Beer : CKUbreW

Brewery : Half Pints Brewing Company

Brewed In : Winnipeg, Canada

Style : American Blonde Ale

ABV : 5%

Price : $2.18 (at the brewery) or $3.50 (at Lo Pub )

Notes : A one time brew only.  The school I go to has a radio station on campus called CKUW .  For this year the Fundrive organizers got Half Pints to create a special beer to help raise funds.  Half Pints says that while the batch brewed a radio was placed underneath it playing CKUW non-stop.

Story : I was sitting at home before work when I saw a picture pop up in my Twitter feed from @HalfPintsBrewCo .  It was of some bottles of beer but the labels did not look like their regular labels.  A few minutes later I got some confirmation from their FaceBook profile that they had a special release beer available to buy as of now.  So after I went to work I made sure I stopped in to Half Pints on the way home and grabbed a 6 pack!

Appearance : The pour was a yellowish brown, or some may say gold, whichever you prefer.  It had a quick fading head that was pretty bubbly.

Smell : Not a strong nose but feint floral hops and bready notes came from the beer.

Taste : My first reaction was that it is their St. James Pale and Bulldog mixed together.  It has some of the hops from the nose and is a little sweet.  The after taste really lingers on this beer, almost like crackers do.  As it warms the bready flavour comes out more.

Mouthfeel : Medium carbonation with a really light body.

Drinkability : This is a very easy drinking beer.  Could drink them all night but think I would prefer a St. James or Bulldog to this beer.  Do make sure you try it if you can get your hands on a bottle!

Beady Eye (Not Oasis 2.0) Review

Different Gear, Still Speeding

First off yes I downloaded this album.  I know I shouldn’t have but I have been waiting for this album for a long time and will be buying it when it gets the official release next week.  Does that mean I should have downloaded it…no, but I did anyway.

Without getting into the entire back-story of Beady Eye let me just say that they are Oasis 2.0 without Noel Gallagher , the Oasis lead guitarist and songwriter, and arguably their best overall musician.  His brother Liam Gallagher , who sang lead on Oasis, takes the reigns of Beady Eye (and brings along Gem Archer , Andy Bel l, Chris Sharrock and Jay Darlington with him).  This is Liam’s chance to prove to the world that he isn’t just the voice behind Noel.  So does he prove it, or does he falter?

I did not know what to expect from Beady Eye's first album Different Gear, Still Speeding .  To start off I can say that honestly, this is the best Liam has sounded in years.  Not that I don’t appreciate his scratchy gruff voice from song to song but this is why he is one of the best rock front men ever.  The man can sing.

Of course, we all knew that was going to be a strong suit of the album.  Even after the first single “Bring the Light” was released we knew it would be the lyrics that make or break this album.  I’m not even going to mention how “Bring the Light” reminds me of John Lennon’s “Instant Karma” every time I hear it.  Oops, I guess I just did.  Sorry Liam I couldn’t resist.  But wait.  If that song reminded me of “Instant Karma” what does “The Roller” remind me of?  Yes, you probably guessed it.  “The Roller” is even more like “Instant Karma!"

The album is musically balanced with the guitars, drums, keyboards, harmonicas, and Liam’s singing all in perfect sync.  Not to say that they are superb by any means but they play off each other’s instruments so well nobody really takes a back seat on this album.

As for the lyrics that Liam’s put together for this album.  They are what we expected. Sure he has got some good tracks that will probably make it into my regular rotation but some of them are just god-awful.  He is still in the learning curve when it comes to writing music and you can tell.  When he is stuck writing his go to fix is singing with “woo’s”, “c’mon’s”, and “ah ah ah’s”, which fits in some songs but is just overkill in others.

Different Gear, Still Speeding won’t go down as the next big musical shift like Liam had planned and there is a reason for that.  The album is all over the place, borrowing from 50s rock, sounding like 60s rock, tossing in a little 70s rock just to be sure, just before skipping the 80s and bringing some 90s rock feel to a couple tracks.  It seems like Beady Eye doesn’t know whom they want to be with some grungier tracks and a few youthful anthems littered into their own version of time traveling rock n roll.

The album starts off with a very solid track two tracks, “Four Letter Word” and “Millionaire”, but it quickly fades from that level.  It also ends with two good tracks, “The Beat Goes On” and the “Champagne Supernova”-esque track “The Morning Son”, but in between is sporadic at best.  A couple really good tracks like “Kill A Dream” and “Standing On The Edge Of Noise” but a couple terrible tracks like “Wigwam” and “Three Ring Circus” are littered throughout the mediocrity of the rest of the album.

Maybe it is my Oasis love blinding me from this album being terrible but I do enjoy most of it.  Hopefully Beady Eye gets a more focused idea on where they want to go with their future albums.  Not sure if Liam has proved anything with this album other than he can sing damn well but to his credit I don’t think he proved that Noel was all the talent of Oasis.

Of course now that Noel knows what his brotherly competition is I expect a perfect album from him.  If that doesn’t happen the talent of Oasis may not have been just Noel like we all thought it was.

The Great Burger Hunt - Original Joe's

Cajun spice on a burger?

Meetings at Original Joe's is a common occurrence, I end up at Original Joe's for drinks, and possibly an appetizer.  Usually I am with Kevin or Stef but not always, a few times my buddy James comes out for a beverage.  Most of the time the place is fairly busy but the food always smells and looks good.  After finding the Chili Lime Chicken on the menu though I rarely get something other than that.

But today I decided to try a burger.  Why?  One, I was starving.  Two, every time Kevin, Stef, or even James order a burger I am kicking myself for not ordering one.  They always look so damn tasty.

So I tried the Cajun Chicken Cheddar Burger, on Kevin’s recommendation.

Original Joe's has a good selection of sides, and I got to choose two.  I went with fries, and the caesar salad on the waitress’s recommendation.  The other choices were mixed green salad, mango pasta salad, garlic-mashed potatoes, fresh veggies and dip, or honey slaw.  I can vouch that the mango pasta salad is not as good as it sounds but the honey slaw and the garlic-mashed potatoes are fantastic.

We just beat the dinner rush so I got my food relatively quickly.  The pan-seared blackened chicken breast came with mayonnaise, lettuce, tomato, red onion, and aged cheddar.  I think the chicken breast was seasoned extremely well, if you like Cajun spice you will really like this burger.  Red onions on a burger can usually make or break a burger, and in this case it did not mesh well with the Cajun and cheddar.  Also the tomato was not ripe yet as it was hard and crunchy.

The fries were also beautifully cooked with a nice balance of being crispy on the outside and with a soft inside.  Rivaling the fries at Lo Pub .  They came with a dill dip that is just as tasty, and probably one of the best dill dips I have ever had.  The cracked ground pepper they put on the fries only added to their deliciousness.

I imagine that if I took the red onions off and the tomato was fresh this burger would have been given a much higher rating.  That being said, I think this is the highest rating I’ve given overall and I didn’t give any bonus points for the great beer selection!

I think next month I need to hit up a an actual burger joint to get this back on track.  Need to stay away from the chain restaurants.

What I got - Cajun Chicken Cheddar Burger with fries and a caesar salad

$12.49 (before tax).

Burger Taste : 3/5

Fries Taste : 5/5

Price Value : 4/5

Menu Selection : 5/5

Overall : 4.25

Original Joe's

530 Kenaston Blvd

‪Winnipeg, MB R3N 1Z4‬

204-489-2272

Kilkenny Irish Cream Ale

The beer that turned me into a "beer snob"!

Beer : Kilkenny Irish Cream Ale

Brewery : Guinness Ltd.

Brewed In : Ireland

Style : Irish Red Ale

ABV : 4.3%

Price : Just under $3

Notes : Available year round, commonly found on tap.

Story : This is the beer that started it all for me.  Before this I rarely drank beer.  Then one day, I felt like something different.  So I walked into a liquor store and browsed for a while.  I ended up grabbing a six-pack of this beer, because, well, I like Irish Cream and thought it could be interesting.  Then of course I was hooked.  Now my friends call me “beer snob” (even though I prefer “beer connoisseur”), I wait in line at 9AM in the freezing cold for special release beers from Half Pints (more about my love for them on a later date), and I am using my spring break to take a beer tasting course.  Problem?  Maybe?  Delicious problem?  Definitely!

Appearance : The pour is superb, like it’s brother in cans Guinness, and ends up being reddish amber with a nice three finger head!!

Smell : I smell a little of the spicy hops and malts but honestly it does not have much of a smell to it.

Taste : Kilkenny is very smooth and creamy.  You can taste the roasted malt, it is well balanced with a little bit of the hops and I think brown sugar.  The finish is a little dry.

Mouthfeel : The beer is light and is a little watery.

Drinkability : I do not enjoy this beer as much as I used to but this is still a solid beer that I would never turn down.  This one of the go to beers for me when you run into a shitty beer store; even then I am shocked to find Kilkenny available.  This is also a good beer on tap.  Not really common on tap but a few places around Winnipeg do have it available on tap if you are lucky.

Bi-Weekly Beer Tasting

A manifesto of sorts!

So I figured, to keep me writing, and drinking I guess, I would write a Bi-Weekly Beer Review.  This kind of goes against the new years resolution of drink less beer but….

Every two weeks I will post a review of a beer I drank during that two-week span.  Simply I will state the beer, brewery, country the beer is from, ABV%, price, and tell a little story about how I found the beer or something that relates to the beer.  Then I will review the beers appearance, smell, taste, mouthfeel, and drinkability.  Not sure how long this will go on for, as the Manitoba Liquor laws prevent much beer from getting to the MLCC.  Once I do a good portion of the beers I think I may switch it to monthly, or possibly just stop, as I don’t need to subject myself to tasting Bud Light, Budweiser, and the rest of the mass manufactured brews that litter the market.

Why beer you ask?  Well as much as I love scotch, and would love to be able to taste a different bottle of the Scottish goodness every two weeks I cannot afford it.  Hell I probably couldn’t afford a new bottle of scotch two months!!!  Also, beer goes good with burgers, and I kind of review burgers from time to time….

If there are specific beers you would like to see me review just send me an email , leave a comment on the blog, or contact me via Twitter or FaceBook .

So there you have it.  Stay tuned in March for the beginning of the Bi-Weekly Beer Tasting for beer, beer, and uh….more beer!

Sweet Nikki Brown Chili

Can it be just as delicious as the beer?

So I decided to make some chili for Friday night.  I figured I would try something a little different since Brett won’t eat mushrooms and probably a few other things I’d be willing to attempt to put in chili. The good thing is that Brett likes spicy food so that makes it from not being a bland chili even if I went with very static ingredients!

Normally I cook my chili for a good 7-8 hours on low in the slow cooker but instead of me getting up with my alarm at 7:30 to start it I slept until 10:00.  What can I say; I need my beauty sleep.  So this chili will be cooked for 3-4 hours on high.  Hopefully that does not affect the taste.

Aside for the 2 cans of kidney beans and canned tomatoes I could not actually tell you how much of everything I used.  I can cook because I do not need to follow measurements.  This is also the reason I cannot bake if my life depended on it!  So take what you want out of it and make it your own!

Ingredients used:

2lbs of beef (or about this much as I don’t recall how much beef was bought from the store)

½ of a red/yellow/orange pepper (that’s half of each)

2 cans of kidney beans

2 cans of Aylmer Accents Chili Seasoning (canned tomatoes essentially)

1 real tomato

a handful of jalapenos

hot sauce (chili sauce)

hot sauce (really spicy shit)

garlic cloves

ginger

chili powder

thyme

salt and pepper

peanut butter

chili pepper things (I have no idea what these are called, I normally call them chilies and everyone knows what I am talking about)

half a bottle of Half Pints Sweet Nikki Brown (beer)

Hot stuff coming through

While I cooked the beef on a frying pan I began chopping all the veggies and throwing them in the slow cooker.  I normally try and dice them as small as possible, a habit I picked up from working at Pizza Hut , as they will cook more evenly if they are all the same size and a smaller size makes them more likely to be consistent.

Ready to cook!

As the beef was finished cooking I placed it in the cooker with veggies and stirred in the canned goods of beans and tomatoes, which I drained most of the juice out of them (I explain why later).  Next I added the really spicy shit hot sauce.  I was really unsure about how much to use of this stuff since it is only the second time I’ve cooked with it and the last time I thought I put too much but it turned out it was the perfect amount.

Cooked!!

Time to put in the rest of the spices and garlic.  Stir in and add the chili hot sauce, which I used quite a bit of since I love spicy food.  I also put a good spoonful of ginger in around this time.

Next up was the peanut butter.  This gives the chili a creamy texture and combats the burning of the hot spices without taking them completely away.  Plus, who does not love peanut butter!!!

Canadian cooler...

Lastly I poured about half a bottle of Half Pints Sweet Nikki Brown to give the chili some juice to it.  The reason I drained the beans and tomatoes earlier was so I could use the beer and it would not make the chili too watery.  Make sure you stir the chili up really good, close the lid, and cook!

The Verdict:

Sweet Nikki Brown and chili!

My thoughts - Whoa!  Much spicier than I expected, this is not a chili for the feint of heart.  Well that is an exaggeration but you really would have to enjoy spicy foods to like this chili.  The ginger and the hot sauces have combined to give my tongue a nice tingle.  But the Sweet Nikki Brown is more of a background flavor, that slight hoppy flavor of the beer does add to the chili, making it slightly noticeable over the burning sensation.

Brett’s thoughs - It’s delicious.  But I can’t taste the peanut butter.

Improvements: Possibly less ginger and definitely less hot sauce as the spice takes too much away from the rest of the flavors.  Next time I will put mushrooms in it for sure.  Overall it was missing something but was still quite tasty.  With more refinement this could be a great chili recipe to make next year when Sweet Nikki Brown is released again!

Black Swan VFX

Check out how they did it!

So if you did not see Black Swan shame on you!  If you did, and want to know how the visual effects were done check out this video below.  Via Trailer Addict .