Saturday Evening Post About Beer: Golden Road's "Get up offa that brown"

Golden Road's "get up offa that brown" was an interesting Brown Ale, but I can't say as I liked it. For a Brown it was quite sharp, holding a long hop note at the end that I didn't particularly enjoy.

While I assume a desire for "nut brown" in this ale, I was disappointed by the nut flavor, which seemed to carry with it a connotation of burning. It was like when you're eating roasted sunflower seeds and get one that was too close to the roaster that completely destroys the sweet build up of flavor in your mouth. that was how the nuts came across in this Brown Ale.

Over all, not worth a second go. But feel free to disagree with me :)

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Who is God?

I get the feeling that people consider their thoughts to be God. I get this feeling about myself as well. This seems to happen in many ways: philosophically, spiritually/religiously, emotionally, etc.

I'd like to explore these a little further, and I'll start with the spiritual/religious aspect. We as evangelicals seem to place a high emphasis on "hearing" God's voice, and I think this is likely a correct emphasis, but we don't often enter fully into the conversation of how God speaks to us. Does He influence our thoughts? I think He does, but at what point do we distinguish between what we think and what God is saying? Furthermore, how can we trust what God says to someone else, especially if we think He's said something different to us?

So then, are our thoughts anything more than just thoughts? I don't deny that sometimes our thoughts can come from God, but often even those thoughts that do indeed come from God come via some other means, i.e. a person, a book, a conversation. I think there is a fundamental honesty lacking when we assume that an out of place thought is a thought from God.

What seems to take the cake though, is the way we make our thoughts into our God. I'm guilty of it myself, but that doesn't mean I can't call it for what it is: self reliance and arrogance. Perhaps then, we would do well to allow that our thoughts are our thoughts, and take responsibility for our own actions, instead of trying to justify them by blaming God.

The Saturday Evening Post About Beer: New Belgium's Blue Paddle

I confess, I'm not a Lager/Pilsner guy. "Why do you keep trying them then?" you may be asking, and the answer is that I want to like them! I want to find one that tickles some nerve in my pallet or affords some pleasure here-to-fore undiscovered on a hot summer afternoon. But alas, they continue to only meet my expectations of mediocrity.

The same holds true for New Belgium's entry into the fray. I had high hopes for this one, too! With their penchant for complex and hoppy brews I thought that this would be the Lager I would like (I confess, I didn't actually buy it for it's own sake, it was a part of a sampler pack). But alas, it fell victim to the same fate which befell Sierra Nevada's Summerfest: it just tasted like beer. which is not a bad thing. But I wanted more. I wanted brilliance. I wanted a beer that tasted great before it warmed up enough to lose some enjoyability in the hot Pasadena sun. But alas, it was not to be

The trouble with this one is that it has no aroma hops, only bittering hops. And even those fashion themselves into a delicate aftertaste: subtle, soft, and annoying. The kind of annoying that can't quite articulate itself into anything more meaningful than a tickle in the back of ones throat. This again is much the same as any number of Lager type beers on the market today, and to be honest, you might as well go and pay a buck for a PBR as spend more money for something that tastes about the same.

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2 Stars