Hot food, cold beer and blistering metal
Imperial Milk Stout, 4.9% ABV appearance: 4.5 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.5 | mouthfeel: 4.5 | overall: 4.5 A slightly viscous pour of this seasonal spiced Milk Stout yields a medium, slightly rocky brown head on an enthusiastically effervescent black body with sullen orange highlights; head retention is brief but lacing is excellent, consisting... Continue Reading →
Top Ten Metal CDs of 2018 2018 was another great year for metal. While a lot of my favorite bands did not release LPs this year— notably missing are Desaster, Overkill, Toxic Holocaust, Midnight, Vader, Nile, Ares Kingdom, Deströyer 666 and Cannibal Corpse— a lot of death metal and black/hybrid bands filled in the gaps... Continue Reading →
Released on the 16th of November, Mentor's second album Cults, Crypts and Corpses is a late entry in the race for Album of the Year 2018, but it has quickly made up for lost time, sprinting past Wrathrone's Reflections of Torment to take the lead. Mentor are a Polish band whose 2016 debut Guts, Graves... Continue Reading →
The Witches - Stacy Schiff Back Bay Books/Little, Brown and Company 496 pp. Stacy Schiff's 2015 release The Witches is a thoroughly-researched, thoroughly end-noted (57 pages of them) non-ficton study of the New England witch panic of the early 1690s and the witchcraft trials that followed, with the main focus being on the town of... Continue Reading →
American IPA, 4.9% ABV appearance: 3.5 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4 | mouthfeel: 3.75 | overall: 4 This session IPA pours to a medium pebbly white head that quickly degrades to a ring atop a clear, slightly sparkling golden beer. On the nose, it is all hops: a nice strong blend of citrus, pine... Continue Reading →
Märzen, 5.8% ABV appearance: 3.75 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 4 | mouthfeel: 4 | overall: 3.75 This Märzen pours to a briefly-lived, slightly pebbly medium off-white head on a singularly dusky medium-amber body, which is clear and slightly sparkling. The nose is expectedly moderate in intensity: bready malt and apples with a slight noble... Continue Reading →
American IPA, 4.7% ABV appearance: 3.75 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 3.75 | mouthfeel: 4 | overall: 3.75 This low-ABV IPA is a very slightly hazy, slightly sparkling deep gold beer; its brief-lived, giant pebbly ivory-colored head leaves very sparse streaks of lacing. The nose is big: a nice, balanced blend of citrus, pine and... Continue Reading →
American Imperial IPA, 8.4%ABV Malt bill: pale, wheat, flaked oats Hops bill: Citra This is a straightforward, single-hopped New England-style Imperial IPA from Wilmington Brewing Company that proves that they can play the New England-style game just as well as they can West Coast-style. Turbid as juice and pale gold in color, it wears a... Continue Reading →
American IPA, 6.6%ABV Malt bill: pale, oats, wheat, C20 Hops bill: Citra, Simcoe, Mosaic; double-dry-hopped with Citra and Mosaic. Brewed with Lactose. Neon God is one of New Anthem's popular "milkshake IPAs": a hazy New England-style IPA brewed with lactose. It pours to a medium pebbly off-white head on a turbid, golden body; lacing consists... Continue Reading →
