Saturday, June 01, 2013

Beer review by a commoner

A couple of blog posts back, in the wildly successful Motörhead wine review I promised to review a case of lager. I'm a man who keeps his word, so here we go, although it will be lot of work. Yikes. A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. The same sentence in Swedish: Göran måste göra vad Göran måste göra. And it's been only... let's see... WHAT? 2011? I wrote that almost two years ago? And no blog posts whatsoever in 2012? What the hell did I do in 2012? Can't remember. Good thing I never promised to update regularly. And besides, it's the quality that matters. When every single thing that you publish is a genuine instant classic internet viral hit, it doesn't matter if you only publish every couple of years. Ask MC SpandX. Because I don't know.

On to the review. Here's the beer I intend to review:


Olvi Sandels from Iisalmi, Finland. 4,7%. 18 pcs of 0.33 l cans. Ingredients: water, barley malt, barley starch, hops.

When it comes to beer, I'm no coinnosseur. Some guys, and possibly, gals as well, like to review all kinds of fancy beers. Yes, I like to review all kinds of fancy beers as well, but I also like to get a case of common lager from the hypermarket and review that. I love the taste of beer. I know I love it partly because it contains alcohol, and alcohol is addictive, and I've kept on enjoying beer for some 20+ years now. So, if I'm not addicted to alcohol, I'm at least conditioned to it. But I maintain that I also love the taste. Yes, the taste of bulk lager of the hypermarket. I'm a commoner, I've a relatively bad sense of smell, I've ruined my taste buds with too much chili. I do love good food and different tasting sensations, but basically, I'm a simple guy. I like salty things, chili, and beer.

Oh, now, enough of the boring stuff. Notice I finally changed the title of this blog to The most exciting blog in the world. My wife thought it would be a good idea and improve the quality of this blog. Like she would know, because she hasn't read it so far. I hope she doesn't start now. Because it would just reinforce her view of my alcohol consumption as unhealthy. But anyway. To the review.

1st can of Sandels: 


Well, actually, it's the 3rd now. Did you think I would write this much without having any? Nonsense.

Bouquet: beery, I guess. My nose is kind of stuffed. And keeps running. I don't think that I've caught a cold, instead there's some kind of annoying thing that keeps on itching in my left nostril. Don't know what it is. I've tried to check if there's some kind of super-long, sharp-pointed nostril hair, and cut some suspicious candidates away with scissors, but still it just keeps on itching.

Taste: very good. You can really taste the, uh, the thing that makes beer taste like beer. Hops and barley, I guess. There's hop growing at my parents' place. I don't know if it's the same thing that they put in beer. Actually, it's a funny thing: hop is "humala" in Finnish. Intoxication is also "humala" in Finnish. There must be some kind of a historical relation here.

Soundtrack: 
MC SpandX: Performance
Beastie Boys: To The 5 Boroughs

BTW, in that picture, my hand looks very wrinkly. Like an old man's hand. It must be the lighting or something, because in reality, I'm still young. I am, I swear. There's some black, grimy stuff underneath my fingernails as well. Sorry for that. That's grease from bicycle maintenance. I've been maintaining bicycles a lot lately. The neighbours are getting to know me as the bicycle guy. I maintain my bicycles on the front yard (I own only three), they see it, and some of them ask me to maintain their bicycles as well. So I fix bicycles on the front yard nearly every evening. It's a kind of a landslide effect. I like fixing bicycles almost as much as I like riding them. Unfortunately, I can't fix everyone's bicycle. If I could I would. There's two things: I'm not good enough a bicycle technician and there's not enough time. You've got to prioritize.

Damn it, now I got a sneezing fit. I've got some kind of a physical defect. It's impossible for me to sneeze just once. If I sneeze once, then I sneeze at least 15 times. I can't understand people who sneeze once in a middle of a conversation, then just continue living. I can't do that. There's something wrong with my nose.

Oh no. Now this beer review has been more about my nose than about the beer.

Fjord can of Sandels:

Bouquet: excellent. It's good I can still smell even though my nose is blocked from all that sneezing. Why is it that beer smells good when it's fresh and you're the one drinking it? When you smell a can the next morning it smells bad. Or if you're not having any, the breath of a beer drinker smells bad. Is there some kind of a chemical reaction going on, or is it somehow subjective depending on the level of sobriety, hangover or... damn, I've got to piss. I've had some four beers and haven't pissed yet. Actually, this happens often... ooh, the pain... when I'm at work... my bladder... as I was saying, at work, when I'm programming & drinking (coffee), and having a "flow" moment, I often forget to go to the bathroom and just keep on coding even though my bladder is about to explode. As it is right now. But I... can't... go... just... yet! One... ouch... more... help, I can't hold it anymore!... word... and sip of beer... dammit, now I forgot what I was about to say... funny, why does tapping of one's foot make it easier to hold urine in? Oh yeah, when you're deep in your thoughts, and need to go to the bathroom real bad, you just sometimes kind of snap out of it in the bathroom and think "wow, I'm in the bathroom, and pissing, good thing I'm here because when I was that focused I might have just gone in some corner of the office and let go"... or...

Ahhh... the relief. I finally went. Where was I?

Taste: refreshing. Liquid. Timeless.

Soundtrack:
Cut City: Exit Decades (excellent album)

BURRRRP. I will not be able to review all of this case at once. Now it's 23:32, I'm having the 5th can, and there are 13 more to go. I guess I can stretch it to 0:00 at most, then I have to go to sleep. It might be possible to sleep to 8:00 next morning. I don't want to ruin tomorrow by having a hangover or too little sleep. I guess I'll have to continue this review later, until the case is finished.

Oh, now the album Exit Decades by Cut City finished. Now there's an excellent band that you didn't know about. I don't know anything about them, except that they're swedish, they've clearly drawn influences from Joy Division, The Cure, Interpol etc. and they make excellent music. Or made. I don't know if they still do. I don't have time to check all the things that I would like to know. Even though it's so easy these days. Just ask  Google, and mostly, the answer is there. I'm fortunate, in a way, because I mostly work on the computer. Whenever something pops into my mind, I can just check it out immediately from Google or Wikipedia or something. Unfortunately, all kinds of things keep popping into my mind all the time. For instance, some exemplary pops from today:

  • how do the lyrics to Hey F*ck You by Beastie Boys go exactly?
  • what would they write about Adam Yauch on Wikipedia?
  • how are the brake pads in Avid Juicy 3 brakes installed?
  • are there TV programs that I think should be recorded today (but will probably never be watched by me)?
  • what is the balance of my bank account and are there some bills to pay?
  • how do I weasel out of paying the bills once again because there's not enough money on my bank account?
  • is the funny fake interview with Roger Waters regarding his famous quote "I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that it is stupid" I remember reading several years ago still online? (unfortunately, it wasn't)
  • how is the PL/SQL procedure converttoblob used (oh wait, that's work, so that's one thing I should be thinking about). 

Soundtrack:
Cypress Hill - Insane In The Brain
Cypress Hill - A To The K
Cypress Hill - Break 'Em Off Some

Oh no. Now there's only one minute left of this review before I have to push the publish button, dictated by the rule I just dictated half an hour ag






2 comments:

Jimbo said...

I had never heard of Cut City, thanks for the tip man. And nice to see you back writing something after so long hiatus :)

Bugg said...

I was thinking about blogging and thought I would check your blog (every few months I do so) and, to my surprise, there were two(!) new posts. What a treat! It's a good thing I never gave up on you when you disappeared for 18 months. My devotion to this blog has been justly rewarded.

I completely get the level of hyperfocus that causes one to ignore one's bladder to the point of pain or humiliation. Just yesterday I was cleaning up a spreadsheet full of IF functions and came dangerously close to missing lunch, two meetings and that window during which it is still possible to walk to the bathroom. Ironically the spreadsheet was designed to calculate window periods.