Fermentables During Exam Week

Okay, it's exam week. It's final paper week. It's portfolio week. It's a week of late nights, a lot of music, a lot of stiff necks, a lot of "Dear Lord, can we just hold the graduation ceremony right now and be done with it?"

But those midnight grading binges are also a great time to continue to sample both HonkyBrew and non-HonkyBrew.

So, here's what I got, with the Non-HonkyBrew up first:

Stone IPA: Good. Bitter. I probably would've liked it with more citrus-y goodness, but I have no complaints, really. I'd certainly take the 2-Hearted Ale over this, but, then, I'd take the 2-Hearted Ale over just about any other IPA.

Green Flash IPA: Except maybe this one. I like. It's full-bodied, bitter up front, and then piney in the middle, and all citrus at the end.

Bell's Oberon: The new crop showed up down here in Virginia a month a month ago. This is a better beer at 6:00 in the evening than it is at 11:30. But that probably should go without saying. One fun thing: thanks to that little yeasty condo development at the bottom of the bottle, I'm now growing my own Bell's yeast. We'll see what happens with that.

North Coast Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout: That's a long name. And a great beer. And it's a slow beer, too -- an excellent, excellent way to work through an hour of grading late at night.

And the HonkyBrew:

Belgian Funkness: Getting better. Still has sort of a harsh thing upfront, but it seems to be working it's way through that. When it's cold, it's mediocre. As it warms up, it gets tastier.

New Stout: Came out more like a porter, but that's okay. It's got like a chocolate, coffee, cola thing happening. And, hidden somewhere in there, way in the background, is something a lot like Bell's Double Cream Stout. And I think I can bring that way up to the front in a future batch.

Saison #1: Okay. Not quite dry enough. Too heavy.

Hot as Balls Saison (#2): Much better. Dry, a little fruity, and light.

HAB Saison (#3): Still fermenting, but it tasted good going in to the fermenter.

Amber Ale: It's an amber ale.

Grapefruit Pale Ale: This one continues to get better. Some of the overwhelming grapefruit has receeded, and that's good.

Gorthon's Barleywine: A couple of months old now and it's still too young. Sharp. This thing, to paraphrase one of Professor Nobis' students, is to a plaid suitcase what the racetrack was to Bukowski. Whatever that means.

Not Quite Two Hearted Ale: See, there's a reason why I buy Bell's stuff. They just do it better. Much better.

Back to School

Not that Rodney Dangerfield film (but maybe that, too), but me trying to catch up on all the stuff that I should have done when I was sitting in bed reading, listening to music, and waiting for my steri-strip things to fall off and ring the All Done Healing Bell.

Much grading.

Much trying to crank out this year's literary magazine.

Much trying to write a Baccalaureate speech by June 10.

Much trying to write two units for an online film study course.

But, then, the iPod just shuffled up Eric B. and Rakim's "I Ain't No Joke," so all is, ultimately, pretty damn good. "You like to exaggerate, dream and imaginate," Rakim says. Imaginate. Poetry is, obviously, everywhere.

Harrison Knows Teaching

Okay, so one more little thing from Harrison's Off to the Side, which is all too relevant at the moment. In a section describing a year spent teaching composition, Harrison writes off how he accumulated student paper after student paper, could hardly stand to look at them, had no idea how to deal with them, and finally piled them into his car and hauled them to the dump.