and things went downhill from there

When I posted this elsewhere, I had a family member weigh in to let me know that this product is an abomination, and that it made him question if humanity had any redeeming qualities.

Outwardly, I have to confess that it's a valid observation. But this beer was surprisingly good. The flavours worked together in ways that would not seem obvious if you considered them separately.

I bought it out of morbid curiosity, but it's good enough that I'll likely buy it again.

I keep meaning to update here, and life keeps distracting me.

We had a box of Internet beer show up at our door this evening. One of the local breweries is working with a bunch of other, smaller microbreweries in the area to act as a distributor for home delivery. I went on their web site yesterday and ordered an assortment of interesting-looking beers such as peanut butter porter, white stout and the like. It showed up at our door this evening. Modern technology has made this pandemic lock-down much more bearable.

We are all slowly moving on from the death of my brother, but at least in the short term it has spurred a flurry of communication in the family the likes of which I've never seen. I spent a couple of hours last week sifting through boxes of old prints, trying to find pictures of my brother. There are a couple that I had specifically in mind, but after hours of sifting through photos, I came up empty.

On the other hand, I scanned in a few dozen other old photos while I was going. Some of them were not special in any way, but in my humble opinion, photographs acquire a certain level of charm in by virtue of being prints. I took quite a liking to this one, for instance. I have no idea where or when it was shot (other than somewhere in The Rockies).



My picture a day project for 2020 is still going strong. I almost abandoned it when I forgot to post a picture on one day, but atara convinced me to keep at it, since I had actually taken the picture on the day in question, even if I had forgotten to post it that day. The pictures are far from being masterpieces, but they each capture some element of my days.

If you look closely, you can probably get a feel for when the lock-down started.

Also, I ♥ Shattered Glass Ravage.

We dragged ourselves out of bed sometime around 7 this morning so that we could get out early enough to hit up the Half Pints Brewery for their annual batch of Burly Wine. It's not that we couldn't pick up the brew at our local liquor store later in the week, but by buying it directly from the brewery we got the chance to pick up some of the batch left over from last year. Unlike most beers, this one improves with ageing. They had a tasting room upstairs from the brewery shop where they were offering samples of this year's batch, last year's batch, and their Pothole Stout (which, very sadly, is no longer in production). After tasting each of them, I have decided that I am going to put aside all but one bottle from this year's batch for next Christmas.

The bottles with the blue wax are from this year's batch. The green wax is from last year, and the one with the B on the cap is some of last year's batch that has been ageing over bourbon-soaked wood chips in an oak barrel for the past year.


After we made our purchases and had sampled a few of the beers upstairs, David (the owner and brew master) wandered in and invited everyone to a tour of the brewery. I am familiar with breweries, and the brewing process, so there were no real surprises for me on that front. I enjoyed the tour none the less though because it was presented in the enthusiastic manner of somebody who obviously love his craft, showing off his favourite toys. On our way out we picked up a case of their Sweek Nikki Brown - another of their seasonal beers that is in limited supply.