All Souls' Day, and the Rally to Restore Sanity

My own All Souls' Day reflection here.

Bruce Overby's misadventure near the Rally to Restore Sanity here.

Coffee and beer

I think both coffee and the darker beers -- browns, porters, stouts -- should be full-bodied and hearty while staying far away from bitterness.

This can be a little tough for American tastes (not to offer a comparison with any other cultural-national identity).

I remember talking to a woman, while I was standing behind the counter at the dearly departed Living Room Coffee Bar & Used Books in Myrtle Beach. She did not like Starbucks's coffee. We carried on a mutually affirming rant against Starbucks's bitterness.

I assured her that a coffee from Timor, which I had fresh in the big Fetco air pots, would avoid bitterness. It was darker, and full-bodied, but not bitter. The label of the coffee, roasted by Larry's Beans, noted smoothness and a walnut tone.

I thought I was about to make a convert.

But when she tried it, her response was, "No. No." She looked disappointed. My beautiful Timor coffee did not surpass Starbucks, not to her tastes anyway.

So she left, and while I might be confusing her with someone else, I think she wanted directions to Dunkin' Donuts.

So the difficulty in communicating -- darker beers as well as full-bodied coffees -- continues on.

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technorati tags: coffee beer commentary

New U2 echoes of two previous albums

Recipe for "No Line on the Horizon:"

One part "October" from 1981.

One part "Million Dollar Hotel Soundtrack" from 2000.

Dash of "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" from 2004.

Blend with genius.

The exception? "Stand Up Comedy" -- a classic-rock riff with a serious groove.

American Ale: That Bud's for me

As I write this, I'm sipping beer from a coffee mug. It's fitting. I arrived at beer snobbery through the unlikely path of coffee snobbery.

While in college, I tried the coffee at Cup a Joe on Hillsborough Street in Raleigh, N.C. All the beans and brews were roasted in-house, and with the first sip of that French Roast, I entered a religious experience that henceforth consigned all the Folgers and Maxwell Houses to the shadows of the unredeemed.

When I opened the late Living Room Coffee Bar and Used Books in Myrtle Beach back in 2001, I purchased beans for brewed java and espresso from Larry's Beans, another small, regional roaster, because I knew the quality was going to be better than anything I could get from the big distributors.

In other words, in that one sip at Cup a Joe years ago, I learned that every product had a big brand for mass consumption as well as little-know artisan brand hidden in an out-of-the-way shop. Today I prefer the local and regional microbrews, and scoff at the Budweisers of the world.

Budweiser's American Ale has shut me up.

Figuratively speaking. I'll keep writing for now.

Bud's American Ale seemed like a cynical ploy to appeal to the pickier beer drinker, except that the quality of the beer takes the cynical part out of the ploy.

I never liked the idea that Bud's lager - the brand's best known beer, the one everybody calls Bud - was made with rice as well as barley. The company must have decided that a good remedy would be to make an all-malt ale, an ale made with nothing but barley, and to enhance it with Cascade hops from the Pacific Northwest.

So as I drink Bud's American Ale from my prized CNN coffee mug (speaking of big brands for mass consumption), I'm tasting a solid amber brew and a finish that leans toward the dry side. I didn't quite get the advertised "noticeably citrus aroma," although I tasted a bit in the finish. If I hold the coffee mug under a light, I can see that the color scale runs to the deep and dark side of amber.

The most informative thing I can say, however, is this: My respect for Bud and its big parent company Anheuser-Busch is bubbling upward.

I've seen six-packs of American Ale bottles selling in the $6.14-$6.59 range. Go to www.budamericanale.com and click "Find It" for local bars and stores that carry this ale.

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Mellow Mushroom's brew list continues to grow

Last week, a friend told me that Mellow Mushroom here in Myrtle Beach has been slowly but surely adding more and more brews -- beers on tap, to be more precise.

Anyone out there tried some of the local Mellow Mushroom's recently added beer offerings? Care to comment?

By the way, the friend who told me was Michael Wood, who has done an outstanding cover story on the Myrtle Beach underground music scene for the Weekly Surge. Read the article here.