J. Jason Lazarus Blog

I’ve been wanting to try some of the new breweries on the Kenai after finding out from a Draft magazine that there were a couple that I hadn’t been too yet. So, seeing that there’s no chance of me going to Seward and little chance of it being open in the winter, the choice is Solditna’s St. Elias Brewpub. This place looks outstanding - literally lools like a old french farmhouse inside with old Americana accents. Their Irish Style Stout is a bit too drinkable - very smooth but a bit uni-layered. Their Williwaw Ipa is.. An Ipa. Yick. Even Keel Kolch is one of my favorite with it’s lite overtones of flavors - that’s a shocker for a kolsch and a light beer. The Half-moon Witte oddly has an orange peel or muscat aftertaste - very flowery fragrance but overall very subtile. Gosh - and even the Belgian Blonde has that unique flowery orange blossom taste and is, oddly for me, very drinkable! Between all the tasters floating around the tables, I managed to get a sizable taste of quite a few of their beers - which is an outstanding complement to their stone oven pizzas! Definitely worth the trip if you’re in the area.

So, because all of my drinking buddies are either a) incredibly lame, b) in other countries or states or c) “preoccupied” - I’m about the epitome of loserness - lol - sitting by myself, with a laptop, tasting and discussing beers - with myself. Nonetheless, I always talk about wanting to blog about the beers I taste and I rarely do anything more than a twit - so here it goes, blogging on my Mac and taking pics with my iPhone and uploading them to my gallery via Pixelpipe:

Glacier Brewhouse Oatmeal Stout: ok, not International at all - but what I’m currently drinking as I wait for the beer and wine tasting to actually begin. I’ve always appreciated Glacier’s ability to have high quality smooth brews in Alaska when so many of our brewers tend to keep their finalized brews a bit on the rough side. That being said, even though it goes down painfully smooth, their Stout does have sharp hints of dark chocolate and coffee that carries over into the smell of the beer - nice sipping beer and worth me investing one of my growlers to it as I drive down to Kenai next week. I know I’m probably asking for too much with this - but can I get a clean finish with a Oatmeal Stout? Seriously, I actually don’t know - but I do know that this stout lingers a bit too long and strong. 4.5/5.

Traquair House Ale (Scotland) - unlike the last one, this ale cleanses your mouth of any residue of the last beer - unfortunately it manages to mask it’s own flavor pretty fast as well. Seems a bit tangy - bit sour. Slightly roasted flavor with a peppery linger but, unfortunately, it seems painfully watered down and lacks a complete body. I fear that to enjoy this beer you’d have to go through quite a bit -it’s nice, I just want more body - maybe more layering of flavor. 2.5/5.

La Fin Du Monde (Canada) - I’ll admit, beer snob as I am, I don’t generally like Belgian Ales - the way in which they’re made just doesn’t appeal to me usually. In fact, aside from enjoying a few sips and tastes here and there, I’ve yet found a Belgian that I can actually legitimize purchasing. What can I say? I’m a Porter and Stout boy - and I’ll have to admit that Midnight Sun’s planet series that combines my interests with belgians (yes, Belgian Stouts and Porters) I reeled in terror. Hell, even the smell of Belgians throw me off - what is appealing about the smell of rotting fruit? La Fin Du Monde is no exception to my general expectations - it’s taste is completely single-layer - seemingly flat in flavor but slight effervescence to the overall drink. It seems overly yeasty and limits its flavor because of that - I think that’s one of the saving graces of other Belgians - they cover up the yeast flavor with fruit - which, in my opinion, barely makes them stomachble. Unless you like Belgians, it gets a 0/5.

Birra Moretti (Italy) - I’ll have to admit that I don’t have much experience with Italian beers as there’s traditionally only about two available anywhere in Alaska or at any of the Italian Restaurants I’ve been to since being turned onto beer. Perhaps while I’m in San Fran I’ll have to make an effort to go to The Stinking Rose and see if they’ve got better selections… that being said, tasting this beer reminds me of a conversation I had with a French Lady this summer when beer unexplicably came up in converstation. I swear - this does connect: I wanted to get her thoughts on a French beer that I had just picked up in Anchorage and HATED: Konigsberg 1665. She started laughing and quickly came back with “Konisberg is the Budweiser of French Beer” - and here I was thinking that, being that it got imported, that it must be popular GOOD beer. In my mind, only Americans would be stupid enough to popularize something that tastes like shit just because it’s cheap - I had no idea that Europeans would sink to this low. I had made some broad stereotypical assumptions about French beer after trying 1665 and decided, after my discussion with this woman, that I should give them another chance. After tasting Moretti - I’m under the same impression - they’ve managed to import shit and there’s got to be better stuff. Crap tastes like flat, unilayered Budweiser. It’s shit. You can’t even distinguish it from American crap beer - don’t drink it. Yick. Seriously, I considered dumping this one. 0/5.

Jenlain Noel - French Christmas Ale - speaking of trying different French Beers - I’m glad that I’ve tried this one. It is sad when a painfully bad beer does manage to be the flagship for an entire nation because I’m sure that it takes far too much effort and time to change the public’s mind - hell, even in our own country - how many years (hell, generations) did it take the public to start realizing that beer could be better than what the major domestics made? Nonetheless, Jenlain Noel changes my perception of French Beer dramatically - evenly bitter, smooth to the swallow, slightly sweet and a subtile scent - all equals up to a good beer. I’m usually not so big on seasonals as they usually taste overly bitter and piny - this one gets my vote. 3.5/5.

Ok - so the rest of the beers, including Norway’s <Norge> Porter, Germany’s Bitburger, England’s Wells Banana Bread Beer, etc - are all beers I’ve tried. Moving on to wines…

Joesph Drouhin’s LaForet (Pinot Noir) (France) - I’m fairly nit-picky when it comes to my wines and even though I’ve taken two Oenology courses, I’ve come out of both of them with only a limited understanding of my personal tastes in wine. Granted, that being said, the first class was useless because, taking it at 21, I came out of that class with a fine-tuned understanding that my limited taste for wine didn’t extend past Arbor Mist. The second time, I actually found real wines that I really liked. Aside from the obvious desserts that I enjoyed, Cab Sav’s and Pinot Noirs were the two that interested me the most. This one in particular has far too much of a musty smell to it to actually be appealing - while the taste seems well evened, multilayered, and slightly sweet with overtones of blackberries and olives. Very nice, slight tannins that do wash clean - 3.5/5

hmm… considering the World Famous UAF Pub Nachos…..

Root 1: Cab Sav (Chile) - Much more appealing fragrance on this one - as expected, it’s got a “fruity” smell to it. Funny story behind the quotes - my Oenology instructor would only allow each student to use the term once a semester - as “fruity” is an expected flavor for something that’s made primarily of fruit - unfortunately the generalistic term gets uttered a lot more often than you would have thought. On the other hand, this one has a distinct raspberry fragrance. The taste is a lot more sharp than I’m used to when dealing with Cab Sav’s - but a sharp taste isn’t any reason to discriminate. Peppers are overwhelming in the overall taste - hints of grapefruit - potentially apricot. Tannins are strong but appealing. Need food with this - and my solution of Nachos will NOT clear the pallete. Neither will the oddly-placed meatballs that the free snacks table is offering. Nonetheless - nice, overall. Needs more depth. 3/5.

Some reason I think there’s a law against combining Nachos and Wine. Hmm.

Polkadot Riesling (Germany) - partially because of my initial interest in sweeter wines and partially because of my parent’s own interest in Rieslings during my four years in southwestern Germany, I’ve always been partial to German Rieslings. Interestingly enough, without any practical experience desuading me away from other types of Rieslings, my father’s own prejudice towards Rieslings has, in part, become my own. He’s a very strict fan of Mosel River Valley wines - not a mixture of Mosel-Saar-Ruwer or Rhien wines which each tend to have a more chemically taste to the wines due to the overindustrialization of the area. On the other hand, the Mosel is traditionally only for wineries - thus, a purer taste. And, as I suspect, this one is pretty chemically in taste. Exceedingly sweet in smell it’s taste is only limitedly sweet - if I’ve got the terms correctly, a Halbtrocken (correct if wrong, please). A bit too bitter - although admittedly this tasting is done without a clear pallete with any number of things to override the taste. If you’re a fan of not-too-sweet but not-too-dry Rieslings, this is one for you - for me, it musters a 3/5.

Even though I’ve got more tickets, I think this is it for tonight. Calling the wife for a pickup. Even though I did it alone, I still had a bunch of fun - no matter how much of a dork I looked like alone in a booth

I’ve been a bad photographer for 2008.  Very, very bad.  This entire summer was a complete waste of time when it came to the usual slew of photo trips - only scoring two or three mediocre trips that ended up netting maybe four rolls of film total.  Although it does seem like your all too typical excuse, the weather did actually work against me for about 90% of the summer.  In fact, “worked against me” doesn’t embody the frustration I had towards mother nature - how about “conspired against me”?

I’ve also been slapping myself in the head over the fact that I’ve waited this long to get Aidan and us into the studio for pictures - but I did, finally, get some outstanding moments of our little one on film (still need to develop it!) and digital late last month.  Unfortunately, he wasn’t too interested in being a cooperative model and would only sit still for about 20 minutes before no amount of bemusing would sedate him.  Here I am, begging for him to stay still as I run through my usual stash of a Digital Rebel, Argus C4, Segull 6×6, and a Pentax Super-SE ( Actually, that’s a pretty light day for me! ).  That being said, success (albeit, minimal)!  Enjoy, there’s about 10 frames available up in the Gallery.

Unfortunately, the graph to the side doesn’t show the first slight increase of daily usage we’ve had since we moved in - although I am still hovering around 13 kwh/day.  I’m completely expecting that now that the temperature locally has fallen (October was the fourth coldest on record in Fairbanks) and I’ve had to start plugging in the car, the total daily usage is bound to go up a bit.  As it is, I’m still trying to find more ways to save electricity - of coarse, this includes using a timer that only heats the car for about four hours on the weekend and less than two per day during the week.  I’ve also got a water heater blanket that I need to actually get around to putting on the heater - even though the water is partially heated by both electric and oil, any little bit will count.  I’m also considering buying some LED lights for the outdoor porch lights (rather than incandescent because CFC’s won’t work well in the extreme cold) as well as lowering the wattage on what motion-sensitive lights we have around the outside of the house - those halogens go through quite a bit of power!  As it is right now, we’re down at 13.65 kwh/day - still less than half the national average consumption and low enough to draw the ire of my coworkers.

Water, on the other hand, manages to be harder to cut back.  We’re currently within the daily average of water consumption for a US single family house (100-170 gallons) and have fallen ever so slightly below that average a couple of times - but for the most part we’re hovering at 100 gpd.  We’re looking into water conservation tactics for next summer from rain collection devices for lawn and garden watering, but when it comes to inside the house there’s only so many ways to conserve.

What I would like to point out is that both these sets of numbers negate what ends up being one of the leading arguments against using cloth diapers for your children - the misconception being that they waste more electricity and water than they save you in disposable diaper costs monthly.  Here we are, running far below electricity averages and on the low end of average water consumption yet, although I have no doubt that we could save further if we didn’t have to wash diapers, I know that the savings would be anywhere near the estimated $80/month people spend on disposables per month.  In the past week I’ve had two people use this reasoning as ammo against our choice to clothe, joining several dozen who have since Aidan was born, and yet in practice their assumptions have fallen flat.  Bam!

These last few trips to Value Village have been pretty depressing - none of the “golden” finds that I usually associate with the store: in fact, I haven’t bought anything retro there in a long time. That being said, the store does always astound me with what crap it deems sellable.

Take this first example here - Beta Tapes - for those half dozen individuals in the world that were dumb enough to buy a particular tape-based format before the format war was over there’s three still-in-the-wrapper Beta Tapes in Fairbanks. Come and get em while they’re hot. Just know that in about 25 years, all of those that bought HD-DVD will be able to pick up an awesome selection of movies at your thrift store - lord knows there’s enough MGM videodiscs at our local store.

How about a now seriously outdated (yet highly limited edition) ps1? Never seen a black ps1 you say? I suppose to up the value on this kid’s ps1, in vain, he took a sharpie to it to give it not only that extra rarity but that awesome modded look. Epic fail, in my book at least. About as bad as a Nintendo with My Little Pony stickers all over it.

Now the last one still stumps me no matter how many times I see it: porn - seriously who brings porn to a thrift store? Which clerk thought it would be okay to put porn on the racks next to video games for children?  You’ve got to wonder if H&R Block’s Tax Cut Deduction Pro has “porn” as a legitimate charity donation value. Value Village has got to be one of the most interesting exceptions when it comes to the retail industry - no matter what you put on their shelves, some poor sap will buy it.