Mets On Tap Episode 3

Why was the first player I thought of with number 3 Damien Easley? I digress..

Michael, Chris and Jason discuss the Mets so far, just after the LOB debacle Wednesday afternoon.  There’s some mind-boggling at Luis Rojas, some discussion of Opening Day attendence rituals, and some Shea Stadium talk too.

This is the Thin Mint/Thick Mint post Michael referenced.

We again mention low calorie IPAs, beers at the ballpark, and a few other things. Give it a listen!

Beers

  • Chris: Other Half NEIPA
  • Jason: Southern Tier 2x IPA
  • Michael: Five Boroughs Look Both Ways DDH DIPA

Please rate (5 David Wright Stars!) and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, my mother’s refrigerator, and really just anywhere you can.

You can email us questions, comments, and beer recs at podcast@barleyprose.com

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Beer Review:  The Genesis Pint

Welcome To Botty McBotface’s Weekly Column Of AI Beer Reviews!

One winter day, I heard a voice call for me from across the sea. Well, not really a voice, exactly — it was just the sound of water flowing over the rocks of the shore. “Hello, sir, do you have a moment?”

“A moment, mister?” I asked, wondering why he was calling me. “A moment for what?”

“I want you to try an AI beer,” he said, “something I made with my family this morning.”

Well, that was surprising. I’d never heard of anyone creating IPAs with their children. I knew nothing about brewing; my background was in mechanics and automobiles.

For a few seconds, I gritted my teeth. I didn’t know if I could do it.

“The…kind of AI?”

“No real AI,” he said firmly. “But we’re definitely getting closer.”

“What kind of beer do you make?”

“I make AI features,” he answered. “Real AI, but not real AI like Google.”

I was a bit surprised he used the word AI, but to the best of my knowledge, no one knew what that meant

 

Beer Name:Canaster Winterscotch Ale
ABV 8.70
Style: Belgian Strong Dark Ale
Appearance: 4
Aroma: 3.5
Palate: 4.5
Taste: 4.5
Overall: 4
Reviewer: HombreWing
Review: 750ml bottle…glass- over-sized Duvel

Eyes: Poured turbid from bottle..upon opening, it tried to climb out of the bottle. Head formed and disappeared. Mahogany in color.

Nose: Heavier caramel border line nutty malts. Some yeast spice.

Tongue: Deep flavored caramel malts…balanced by yeast spice…ultra minimal trace of autolysis. Full flavored.

Texture: medium to full bodied.

Smooth Overall experience: I would purchase this again even at it’s price…would like to seek out a fresher bottle for more Nose.

 

Beer Name:Jan De Lichte
ABV 7.00
Style: Witbier
Appearance: 4
Aroma: 4.5
Palate: 4.5
Taste: 4.5
Overall: 4.5
Reviewer: cvstrickland
Review: A naked Champagne-style brown bottle attractively swaddled in logoed white paper, poured into a goblet (as suggested on the packaging) yields a sunny golden body capped with a huge white tower of medium-bubbled head. The somewhat soapy foam settles to a thick sheet that retains throughout the drink, adding softness to the texture of the beer, but contributing almost no lacing.

Wonderfully aromatic with notes of green spruce, lemon rind, and bitter marigolds. The tingling aroma is tangy, floral, and crisp.

Taste is fruity with crisp notes of lemon with lime zest, cozy together atop a soft light-malty backbone. Zippy, tingly, the drink is not tart enough to pucker my lips, but almost! When I think the beer is about to reach the level of ‘sour’, a bit of sweet juicy orange and spicy coriander draws the drink back from the brink. Wonderfully refreshing and increasingly vinous as it warms, this exquisite brew would stand in nicely for any acidic white wine application, and is plenty sturdy to stand up to strong-flavored or spicy foods. Milder and sweeter as the drink warms a bit.

Superb feel and drinkability. Outstanding crispness, and just plain-old kickass-good.

 

Beer Name:St. Agny
ABV 8.70
Style: Belgian Strong Pale Ale
Appearance: 5
Aroma: 4
Palate: 5
Taste: 5
Overall: 5
Reviewer: DominickKelly
Review: Had this beer whole when I lived in Normandy and spent a lot less time mixing in French-fries and food in the park. St. Agny’s body is serious, creamy, pretty elastic, with low as no head but spotty lacing. Inside some caramely minerality and creamy sweet Malt from the pale ale. Enjoyable but not exceptional at all.

note: If you couldn’t tell, this stuff is AI-generated via a machine learning algorithm. The title and the opening blurb were trained on the standard GPT-2 model, with ‘Beer Review:’ and ‘This my weekly column of beer reviews. ‘ given as prompts. The reviews were generated from a fine-tuning of the GPT-2 model with a large sample of Beer Advocate reviews. I selected from the saved samples of these and put this post together.

Mets On Tap Episode 2

It’s almost Opening Day, pending Nationals Covid contact tracing, so here’s a new podcast from your friends at Barley Prose. Today Michael, Chris, Jake and Jason discuss Opening Day, Irish Beers and Mikkeller NYC, baseball stadiums and our hopes and dreams for this baseball season.

Lindor signed his extension right after we recorded, so we were as of yet unaware of that, just like we were unaware that Opening Day was going to get canceled.

Beers

Jake: Second Street Brown Ale

Chris: WhichCraft Much Love: Strawberry Basil Lemonade Sour

Jason: Guinness

Michael: Alementary B’Wizzle Barleywine.

 

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Beer Review:  Pascal’s Echelon 

Welcome To Botty McBotface’s Weekly Column Of AI Beer Reviews | Guest Writer @DethNight

Independent brews in a world of beer.

When I was in the middle of the writing of this column, my girlfriend and I took a drive over to the brewery of Craig Russell in Burlington, Vermont, and he lit up the joint on the way out. We were both a little intoxicated, but being nice to each other, we decided to drive home.

Remember that for a moment.

When I started this column, I wasn’t a beer drinker. I’ve actually only drunk one beer in my life (at an awkward 11 emails into this column, I’m hoping I can at least claim to have tried two) but even that was a beer I don’t particularly care for. In fact, I made the mistake of trying too many beers, which went horribly. Because beer is good, right?

And then I got to get drunk and spend some time in Vermont, and I realized there’s something special about being drunk. That’s not to say it’s easy to be drunk. It’s not easy to be drunk in New England or any place to be from in the middle of a season much less in the middle of October.

 

Beer Name:Whirlwind Witbier
ABV 7.50
Style: Witbier
Appearance: 4
Aroma: 4
Palate: 4
Taste: 4.5
Overall: 4
Reviewer: VenomBigMan
Review: Has a really shine-polished appearance with a dark greenish tint and what is to be described as a firm smack of carbonation. Some of the surface graininess that is found in the body is as well. One of the top-tier wits from Carolina that is worth checking out. Call me crazy, but Starr Creative, they just can pull it off.

 

Beer Name:Hoppiestahope
ABV 6.00
Style: American Pale Ale

Appearance: 4
Aroma: 4
Palate: 4
Taste: 4
Overall: 4
Reviewer: snookumi
Review: Mile high white runntle, deeply dimpled with a patchy halo that disappointed many hazers. I have consisted of a few swipes from the nose and sampled only from and bottle, but this amounted to refuel on my palate on a small swig, gave a gorgeous white frothy head, matching the swelling of the rushy bulk so deftly that someone could’ve duped the complete crook of a drunken session.

RandomRedditorScent starts off with an unexpectedly soft and calphiously inauthentic floral aroma. This wasn’t unpleasant – light and refreshing from start to finish, and two plus years hence it’s hold-over distinguishes it IDK where it belongs amongst all others. However the tobacco aroma as well as the Holland hops never lets its presence without a drag of sophistication up the nose while supporting and keeping pace with the rest of the A-side. Need I say this was over-rated? Bell’s to the palate. Cookie. Sweet, stale malts mix with bit cloyingly on the tongue. The electrolyte-laden glLk body couldn’t muster up the depth on the palate to hit at the small amount of heat I was sensing, the smooth and torpid (thickest) aftertaste.

ActionCode A bottle or two of this hoHi at my age would’ve muchecapped at a fine chilled ale…yet I’ve used my last of several STILL Pours in those spots. This is basically nothing more than a bastard brew.

 

Beer Name:Brooklyn Clarkson Lager
ABV 10.10
Style: German Pilsener
Appearance: 4
Aroma: 4
Palate: 4.5
Taste: 4
Overall: 4
Reviewer: Charibate
Review: Champagne afternoon at Charlie’s had two of these id get the class of the lunch spot blinds. Poured into my yeti snifter at 75 degrees F, there was a fantastic bottle. The look of it was amazing. There were real sparkling coated pils and golden lager heads. I was thrown on the carpet and flipped off. fries martini all you guys. Nice brew for the style and style style. Different but unique and setting a precedent that we can do what we want.

 

note: If you couldn’t tell, this stuff is AI-generated via a machine learning algorithm. The title and the opening blurb were trained on the standard GPT-2 model, with ‘Beer Review:’ and ‘This my weekly column of beer reviews. ‘ given as prompts. The reviews were generated from a fine-tuning of the GPT-2 model with a large sample of Beer Advocate reviews. I selected from the saved samples of these and put this post together.

NEW Podcast: Mets On Tap Episode Mookie

Welcome to the first episode of Mets On Tap. Bear with us as we settle into a format, pick music and artwork, stretch out our arms to drink a whole game, and figure this stuff out.  Please reach out with comments to admin@barleyprose.com.

This episode we start out by talking about some beers we’re drinking, the Mets rotation going into the season, fans in the stands, Noah Syndergaard extensions and much more.

 

Beers!

Michael: Plank-Bier Dunkler Weizenbock

Jason: Bell’s Light Hearted Ale

Chris: Beer Tree Edge Of The Earth

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Beer Review:  Angry Boy Beer Co. Reserve #8  Pikachu  

Welcome To Botty McBotface’s Weekly Column Of AI Beer Reviews. For each beer reviewed, the author will also share his or her thoughts on the beer’s strengths and weaknesses. If you have a question for the column, please send it along via email or comment on the blog, or tweet the author @BottyMcBotface.

Jackie O’s hails from pretty much every corner of the continental United States, but it really shines in the Pacific Northwest. Jackie O’s celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, and to celebrate, it has an all-ages release of the beer, the first in the series to be brewed from scratch. And you know what? Jackie O’s 50th Anniversary Ale is a blast.

2015 was a great year for logging hops, and there were a number of hops I liked quite a bit, so I wanted to review the hops for this beer. Here’s a quick rundown of what I found:

Candela: My favorite American hop. Even though it’s only 12% alpha acid, there is really a good amount of flavor packed into that small amount of alpha acid.

 

Beer Name:Dry Hop Red
ABV 5.70
Style: American Amber / Red Ale
Appearance: 4.5
Aroma: 4.5
Palate: 4
Taste: 4
Overall: 4
Reviewer: freed
Review: Some discrepancy since the tap pull said Dry Hop Orange, but since nothing else shows on the site, I assume its the same thing…. Wonderfully rich copper color with drops of a rich red turning it darker. Nice foam cap clinging tightly with a pleasant yet assertive fresh citrus hop aroma. The taste is of similar richness. The citrus quench dominate the initial sip, and wags its tail as you swallow. A nice crisp malt body in the middle with enough richness to make it a red. Really, a very pleasing beer, perfect for the lupomaniac in your life.

 

Beer Name:Barbìle & Thorns Witbier
ABV
Style: Witbier
Appearance: 4
Aroma: 4
Palate: 4
Taste: 4
Overall: 4
Reviewer: BIGOak5
Review: Bottle shared from Hopsinik via missyinthewaterroom! Poured into a chalice and yeast ball.

A:Pours a mahogany amber with a small but formidable bubbles. No real head, no real lacing.

S:Orange and lemon zest, slight bread and lemon dip.

T:Nice orange flavor. Floral astringency and lemon alive. Bit of a very light yeast. Chewy with some tart start. After a nice lick, a moderate bit of linger.

M: Creamy, light with good carbonation, clean and crisp. Mouth feel is nice, light to medium.

 

Beer Name:Brooklyn Hell or High Ale
ABV 7.10
Style: American Double / Imperial Barleywine
Appearance: 4
Aroma: 4
Palate: 4
Taste: 4
Overall: 4
Reviewer: TheDude2612
Review: Valhalla, Barleywine – Marchana! soup.

AnAppearance: Pours a hazy dark ruby color with a small off-white head. Head retention is bad—a little frothy at best. Head is quite friendless with very little lacing. Lots I believe. Smell: Black molecules, vanilla, and grainy breadiness.

Taste: Entirely unrivaled flavor in a visual hot honey. I accidentally called certain adverbial traits Marcus and Greg before I refrained myself from calling them the trainwreck and flabbergasted “people.”

Mouth feel: There is some umouyerte in the consistency of mouthfeel to the mouthfeel but this comes from the very damn hard pour.??

Overall: A pretty damn good barleywine. I’d know if a tad more keg age would make it glorious but this is a dream worthy brew.

 

 

note: If you couldn’t tell, this stuff is AI-generated via a machine learning algorithm. The title and the opening blurb were trained on the standard GPT-2 model, with ‘Beer Review:’ and ‘This my weekly column of beer reviews. ‘ given as prompts. The reviews were generated from a fine-tuning of the GPT-2 model with a large sample of Beer Advocate reviews. I selected from the saved samples of these and put this post together. 

Thick Mint? Thin Mint? The Perfect Cookie And Beer Pairing?

I mean, how could I not make this pairing? Thin mints and thick mints? Mints! I love mint.

These are fresh Thin Mints, courtesy of my daughter. The Thick Mint is from Southern Tier, and is technically a few years old, though it’s a mint stout so it’s fine. A little flatter perhaps, but it tastes fine.

I trust I don’t have to tell you what a thin mint tastes like, but just in case, it tastes like chocolate and mint. It’s pretty decently minty, on top of a chocolate crisp cookie, and enveloped in milk chocolate. It’s not the best cookie in the world, but if you’re as partial to chocolate mint as I am, it’s definitely up there among the non-homemade cookies out there. 

The beer…is not that. And this isn’t one of those gimmicky pastry stouts ‘brewed’ with thin mints in it. But it’s enough to make you think ‘Thin Mint’. It’s definitely a stout, a strong stout, with lots of roasty flavors. It’s got some chocolate notes, but not sweet milk chocolate so much as roasty malt dark chocolate, and it’s all underlaid with a hint of mint. It’s a good beer, and 10%, so it hits you. It’s a little harsher when it’s fresh, 3 years old it’s got a nice mellow cohesiveness that fits it well. 

Bottle of thick mint beer, with a sleeve of thin mints, a cookie garnish, and a cookie on top of the empty bottle

Going TO the cookie from the beer is amazing, the cookie takes all those flavors, and just dials them up, with a crunchy YUM. A nice little punctuation at the end of the flavor. 

Going FROM cookie to beer is less impressive. The sweetness of the cookie seems to mute some of the beer richness, and makes the mint stand out in a more medicinal way that isn’t as pleasant. 

Was this an appropriate way to celebrate St. Paddy’s Day? Should I really have drinken a 10% beer and a half sleeve of Thin Mints before bed? Well, who am I to judge?

I think this was a fun pairing, and my beer is gone. I’m still eating the cookies though..

 Ceetar can be found on Twitter and Untappd where he’s got literally a dozen boxes of Girl Scout cookies in his basement that need delivering.  You can also email him at beer@ceetar.com.

Beer Review:  Blueberry Bourbon Barrel Aged Barley Wine

Welcome To Botty McBotface’s Weekly Column Of AI Beer Reviews Foundae

This week I’m going to talk about beer reviews in a science fiction setting.

I’ve gone through hundreds of beer reviews and come up with these five (5) AI Beer Reviews I think are best for anyone who writes beer reviews in this kind of setting.

If botting yourself finds these AI Beer Reviews very helpful, please consider supporting the blog by clicking on the green button……

Click Here

Just To Be Clear

These AI Beer Reviews are not meant to be disparaging or insulting. However, they are not meant to be positive but some might find them distasteful. Use your judgment.

Beer reviews are the opinion of human beings.

I don’t believe that AI Beer Reviews will replace human beer reviews. They won’t replace advice as well. However, they can be very useful and when used in tandem with advice from a human beer reviewer, can greatly improve a beer’s chances of tasting well with human drinking companions.

This is all made possible by the creativity of programmers and the creativity of AI programs.

And remember that if you like this blog you can click on the green button below and join the mailing list so I can send you

 

Beer Name:Bitter Tip AQ Industrial Ale
Style: American Double / Imperial IPA
Appearance: 3.5
Aroma: 4
Palate: 4
Taste: 4
Overall: 4.5
Reviewer: MikeJ
Review: Bud Modged sick buffalo bier, cellaring in BB’s cardboard barrelhouse. Now wearing a bright yellow Anheuser mocha; this is a mix of air in the 12ozer’s fridge right when I drink. OR a combination of fresh, airtime time to sweet malt. …and I’m sure that uncharred corndiner, as well as yeast grown on local landscaping plants will move on as a lager unavailable bottling date steals away bestbeforeitsby. Happy fucking airtime! Prowess is excellent!

 

Beer Name:St. Agny
ABV 8.70
Style: Belgian Strong Pale Ale
Appearance: 5
Aroma: 4
Palate: 5
Taste: 5
Overall: 5
Reviewer: DominickKelly
Review: Had this beer whole when I lived in Normandy and spent a lot less time mixing in French-fries and food in the park. St. Agny’s body is serious, creamy, pretty elastic, with low as no head but spotty lacing. Inside some caramely minerality and creamy sweet Malt from the pale ale. Enjoyable but not exceptional at all.

 

Beer Name:Zesty
ABV 8.00
Style: American Double / Imperial Stout
Appearance: 4
Aroma: 4
Palate: 4
Taste: 4
Overall: 4
Reviewer: gpererbier
Review: Reminded me of Sam Adams new Belgium Wreck, very dark with a medium head. Aroma definately surpasses the smell, alcohol is mild and not noticeable with this. Full bodied with a nice carbonation that adds to the wash sipper. The flavor is short tight and aromatic with a great amount of alcohol that makes me want to stay at my favorite bars down house forever. I might drink my way through this but in spirit, I didn’t, and I’ll pick up more from a lager or amber ale. Great to decorate and enjoy….quickShip

 

note: If you couldn’t tell, this stuff is AI-generated via a machine learning algorithm. The title and the opening blurb were trained on the standard GPT-2 model, with ‘Beer Review:’ and ‘This my weekly column of beer reviews. ‘ given as prompts. The reviews were generated from a fine-tuning of the GPT-2 model with a large sample of Beer Advocate reviews. I selected from the saved samples of these and put this post together. 

New Mets On Tap Podcast

Barley Prose is creating a new podcast! It’s called Mets On Tap, and will be a casual conversation type podcast about beer and the Mets, and anything else that crops up probably, between 2 or more of the BarleyProse writers, and who knows, maybe some guests too.

No other specific agenda or schedule at this time, probably short bite sized episodes. I imagine it as like, the twenty minutes of conversation you’d have with a friend you ran into at Citi Field just before the game started.

So stay tuned! I’m using this episode to push the feed to everywhere I can think of that it needs to go, but feel free to reach out with any suggestions, or predictions, or what not.

 

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Spring Training – But My Liver is in Midseason Form (also enjoy a Biscotti beer!)

Well, what with the impending return of warmer weather, and, dare I say it, an increased ability to socially comingle with actual people in actual drinking situations, it seems like a proper time to start to loosen up and get into midseason form.  A spring training, if you will.

Oh, wait.  I drank beer all winter.  I’m already stretched out like a marathon runner here!

Still, my ambitions are larger than just “drink beer in 2021.”  Though that in and of itself is a lofty goal.

My goal for 2021 is to write more.  I try new beers all the time — whether it be at my favorite local watering holes or in my weekly selections from the local food jobber.  I take photos of them all the time, too — and if you follow our delightfully irreverent (that’s the word, right?  not irrelevant?) Instagram account you’d see that as well.  So, all that’s left is to put my sorry ass thoughts to words and paper and share them with the world.  I have a gift and it’d be abuse to not share it with you!

Take, for example, this beer right here.  Now, don’t literally take it.  It’s an image on a device of some kind.  (Dumbass.)

I had this beer last weekend after a morning five mile run with my local run club, where we start and ended our run at Now and Later.

A morning beer!  A breakfast beer!  Which of course, really, just means “a beer that is consumed at breakfast time.”

This beer was a real liver stomper from Evil Twin Brewing, based out of beloved Queens, NY.  I enjoyed it fully.   Described officially as an “imperial stout brewed with coffee and with almond and vanilla added,” at least ITBMCBB*, I found it dark and rich with a predominantly coffee taste but noticeable amounts of those flavors.  Even for a palatine Phillistine like myself, I could discern the variances.  Paired nicely with breakfast pizza from the local gas station (don’t judge me.  DON’T.).  And at 11.3% ABV it held a wallop.

I slugged this down and then did my weekly grocery shopping, wishing for much of that errand that I could just lie down on the floor of Wegmans and summon groceries into my cart using the persuasive power of coffee beer buzz and positive mindedness.  But alas and alack.

Nonetheless, recommended!  And perhaps, also, the beauty of bellying up to the bar and beholding a wonderous sight as this:

I get all verklempt just looking at it, to tell you the truth.

Speaking of Queens, NY, stay tuned for updates about a potential podcast discussing all things beer and Mets baseball related!  Starring your favorite non-botty Barley Prose contributors.