Tastings & Food Pairings

The B'Oracle   |   Wednesday, May 16 2012
Boulevard Brewing Company's Double-Wide IPA :  Just as tornadoes create the illusion of randomness, Double-Wide creates the perception of stability in the stormy, fast rising beer world.

Before humanity started blanketing the planet with his viral influence, tornadoes would troll through the countryside, bumping into a few trees along the way. These incredible forces of nature would uproot trees and fling them across the land like like an angry Charlie Sheen in a Penthouse. With no people to chase, these storms would rip across the countryside and rearrange the landscape. They were uneventful catastrophes to say the least. But as man became wussified and started building shelters to shield he and his babe from the elements, stuff started to get in the way. With roofs flying across the land like a brightly lit Gary Busey and with two by fours cutting into telephone poles, news was invented and gnashing of teeth became a pastime. But standing in the cool mountain air, looking down on the mess, one oddity became very clear.

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Tastings & Food Pairings

The B'Oracle   |   Wednesday, May 09 2012
Shiner Ruby Redbird :  Spoetzl Brewery's perfect summer beer, it's great for celebrating life and the seasons.

I've spent the better part of my thousands of years here pondering the essence of Nature. It's complicated at best, with the weather systems constantly battering the land, the massive continental plates shifting and exposing their patrons to dramatic changes and the simple but uncompromising method of evolution (survival of the fittest) all pitching in to make rendering a judgment all but impossible. But I am the all-knowing B'Oracle so you know a judgment is near. Are you ready? Yea? Here goes.

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Tastings & Food Pairings

The B'Oracle   |   Wednesday, May 02 2012
Independence Brewing Co.'s Austin Amber :  This beer lures you in with its beautiful red gold color and leaves you with good memories that last longer than a bad one night stand.

There is much concern in the scientific community, it seems that some half-baked scientists have started experiments with mosquitoes trapped in 65 million year old Amber. They say they want to extract potential dinosaur DNA from these mosquitoes, use amphibian DNA to fill the gaps and then start hatching all kinds of danger on the world. One gentleman seems to think that he can create some kind of tourist attraction, with the dinosaurs being an irresistible magnet for clients who like to impress their children with lots of expensive things. You know, this kind of talk makes me nervous, you see back in the days of T-Rex and his friends I had to be very careful when going out to forage, I often felt like a porterhouse steak out there.

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Tastings & Food Pairings

The B'Oracle   |   Wednesday, April 25 2012
Victory Brewing's Golden Monkey :  This beer hangs in the canopy waiting for the adventurer to capture and experience its glory.

Scientist estimate that there is enough gold in Earth’s core to cover the entire surface with a blanket that's 4 meters thick. Now that's almost enough gold to cover Mr. T, but I'm certain that he may require a bit more. The interesting thing about this is that gold isn't from mother Earth. It's actually the result of the super dense cores of Neutron Stars colliding and ejecting the stuff into outer space. The stuff then rains down on the planet like a pimp in a strip joint. Apparently, there was a great bombardment of gold and platinum about 200 million years after the planet first formed. Being dense, most of that material sank down to the core, but graciously, some has been left on top so that man may run around buying the stuff on Valentine’s Day. It kind of looks like the Wildebeest migration across the Serengeti except for the sounds of the cash register bells, cashiers informing people that their card is declined, sobbing in the parking lot and snickering sales people. One has to wonder what it'd be if it wasn't gold. Having watched this spectacle through the millennia, I'm grateful that the only thing us Boars have had to do is wallow in the mud, grunt and keep Mrs. Boracle happy (if you know what I mean). Gold is incredibly flexible, making it easy to work with and easy to fix when bad things happen. In the brewing process, there is no such luxury. You have to be very good at what you do, hoping for success but willing to learn from failure.

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Tastings & Food Pairings

The B'Oracle   |   Wednesday, April 18 2012
Clown Shoes Russian Imperial Stout :  Properly paired, this beer will have you sleeping in your burrow with nothing but sweet dreams ahead.

It is said that Peter the Great had an insatiable curiosity. If he wanted to talk to a mathematician, he learned mathematics first. While visiting Europe, looking to gain allies in an attack against the Ottoman Empire, he took classes in ship building and became enamored by the European lifestyle. He would eventually make his countryman adapt this lifestyle by wearing European clothing and even shaving off their beards. If they refused, they had to pay a beard Tax. Thank goodness he didn't try to tax Tea huh? So as Peter makes his way through Europe, he makes a visit to England. During that visit he has a taste of Stout and is immediately impressed. He orders some to be delivered to the Russian Imperial Court so that he may impress them, but it spoils along the way. The English are embarrassed by this situation, so the Barclay Brewery comes to the Rescue and increases the Alcohol and hops to better preserve the beer and Russian Imperial Stout is born.

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Tastings & Food Pairings

The B'Oracle   |   Wednesday, April 11 2012
Pike Brewing's Naughty Nellie :  The beauty of the bottle and the quality of the contents threaten to entrap you in the world of fine Artisan brew.

Having traveled the globe, observing the slow evolution of that tadpole that would soon become man, has left me with a keen sense of the truth. What man claims as his today, was in reality, born of the hard work, curiosity and ingenuity of those that came before him. Take Charles Finkel for example; here we have an ex wine merchant who goes on to become one of the earliest advocates of the craft beer movement in America. When he first got interested in beer, there were 40 breweries in the states and only one of them was recognized by the Reinheitsgebot as an actual beer. Kind of sad isn’t it? It’s like being asked to stand in a line-up when the police are looking for the invisible man. You know they can see you; it’s those other invisible participants you’re worried about. After experiencing that awkward moment, Mr. Finkel got involved importing high quality brews from around the world, opening eyes and changing perceptions one person at a time.

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