oPPOSITE dAY

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gze-PSvE8hw

Well a busy day here at the alfalfa processing plant.
Samuel Adams stopped by and left a four pack of Double Bock. Little did he know this is
one of my favorite store bought beers. This beer, with robust pour, offers a beautiful auburn body and a wonderful head of tanned almond hair. Head slowly surrenders it's bubbles and nestles down
(down feathery birds chickens alfalfa grains free range grange homesteaders germans doppelbock)
to a pleasant sipping beer.
 This beer particular has been castled away in a cooler at a local store and was shivering cold upon arrival at Main St. One bottle, opened, allowed to warm to a temperature that was comfortable and...... taste. Swell of malts and nut (from trees) dry moss, evenly in all corners and domes of mouth. Wonderful, just what I enjoy. A beer with malt and hop evenly balanced to create a meal.
Meanwhile, the alfalfa processing plant ......dead fish were found on door step. (see photo above) what kind of creature this is I do not know. Headless fish strew about the walkway......what kind of omen is this....and on a day when a Wormwood (see second photo above) centered beer was to be brewed......

100 black cats crossing my path after rising on the wrong side of the bed and seeing a red sunrise could not be more foreboding.

Anxiety and trepidation wrapped  me as I moved. Measure dried wormwood and toss into the cauldron upon one gallon of boiling water. ( Macbeth and Alice in Wonderland, are you there? can you hear me?) With  an ounce of misgiving I continue on the brew scheme. Carefully, uneasily, worrying, I pour the 170 degree F Wormwood Tea onto the warm barley grains. Hoping my premonition ( a beer ruined) was false, I mash the Wormwood Tea with couple more gallons of 167 degree F water.
Strike! Strike!
 Mash ye unto into a wort worthy of 75 minute boil. Be graced with an ounce of dried yarrow from last season. Wort, taken form the mash tun, brought to boil and break, a pound and a quarter of honey add to boil, pleasant dried yarrow toss in....ah....a great misty fog rises, eyeglass covered, sight hindered obscured...... an augur, a portend... suspicions awaken.....
Could this be a drink from above? Crafted just days after the oPPOSITE sIdE of the country was being wreft in two?
Egad dread alarm who goes there?  Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing........and the voice and worry and fear subsided.....for what could be wort or worst.......
What comest bad from such Sunday? Brew schemes? For if Sunday be God's day.
 And I be one of God's creations?
What I brew..... be of God.....God brews?
Heavens, where have we wondered......quick, quick, Alice find us a rabbit hole.....help us from here.........


posted by joe for T. Merity

Rogue Yellow Snow IPA

Bear Republic Big Bear Black Stout

Oh Jungian bear of the California Republic!

as only a dream could contend with a 8.10% stout
labeled incorrectly at 5.99
marked down to 3.50
American credit chip slips
no bag needed sir, no bag at all

it is as if the moon has been swallowed
great bear into which no light pierces
gale winds circumvent as brew laces leaves to glass

there are scents in your bungalow grizzly beard
of cracked red peppercorns under Medusa's
deepest sleep, all tall tales, all true

crooked perfume of surf &
chocolate melt SMEARED across
a turn knob television screen

{sip human. sip and be.}

up the leg of this beast I traverse
whole colonies of Burroughites
curl hair around stars for lightposts
sipping on darkness

when i reach the hammock of this manifestations beard there is one pair of cocoa leaves, two polar bear socks, a 'beater, and three bombers of Bear Republic's Big Bear Black Stout, & a pint glass

sip     &      sip        &        sip

           

                        the taste is fur and full all (only you can prevent forest fires that wasn't prevented)malts
                        redwood honey cooked long in midst of song

{O great Jungian beer, from what yeast do you cull this sweet liqueur}

     Burroughites below raspy laugh
    great beer, in all its goodness telepathically roots an image of a large horseshoe

        an arrow flying upwards into what was once the moon

I laugh            as have all who have consumed this liquid obsidian
   & curl into the gray strands content for constellation conversations

A Maharaja lives for another pour

My gosh! One can hardly belive such a thing happened, and on such a night.
All my notes and comments on the tasting are lost in the hubdub and shuffle that followed the attack. Who in their right mind could believe this????Or even dreamscape something like this up????
While standing and chatting, glass in hand, sampling the Maharaja's offering, a friggin' dart goes whizzing by the Maharaja's head.
It just missed hitting him!!
 Imagine a dart striking at the Maharaja, and hitting him in the bindi! Good God!!! All his wisdom spills out. All his life experiences empty out onto the floor of my laundry room. Total Desecration of Sanctified Memories. (whether noble or sin).
 Am I Channeling Rod Stewart and the Twilight Zone!!!
A right handed blue glove grabs the Maharaja by the neck and wrestles him towards a sink 1/2 filled with dirty water.  Once the glove has him in the waters he tries to drown him.
Surely, Providence was in the room. I was able to grab the Maharaja's shoulder, shake him free of the blue glove and hoist him to fresh air and a dry spot.
The glove we impaled with the wayward dart. Stricken it collapsed like a pin pricked balloon.
My guest, the Maharaja, regained his composure and shared what was left of his gift: Imperial India Pale Ale.
Exactly what Avery boy and girl would like to try.

Oh, yeah, I forgot, it tasted wicked good.


posted by Joe for Brenda Hilda of the North Sea

Main Street Brewery on the Taunton TASTER Barleywine

scents of stolen underwear, lips on lips, nightshade fruits left for pescetarian foxes

       barley wine style barely aged two weeks

       opens immaturely as is the coup of Main Street Brewery

head is infantry

thin demarcation of winter to spring

   off white to black chalice sea black hole supernova 

a bald man cornered head only

 speaks in oxygen tones 

I tell him to give me the secret of water 

to which his mouth retreats 

      deeps of swamp moss beside bubbling brook

cut fieldstone's on 

         {report just in}

this beer has been swallowed for further review

Red Hook Long Hammer IPA

Lucifer put on your magic glasses
                                sit back & put up your sweaty penny loafer feet

A favorite of Father John
this sweet start IPA lingers or
          rather resonates as two cheeks tend to
Vicki Tasso as western skies
          lends hands for hammers

the bottle's been fashioned for suckling
which complements Judas
in an upturned throne

hops thoroughfare sun fasted & rust never digging
left uncut in dry %'s

    stone tooth do well to brush lips
let the hammer do the work
     bottle inverted of fashioned stick length (as for brevity

orgone resonations of senorita's, high peaks, lower valleys
wet lips, jilted wheels within wheels

    a steady brew content with mellow taste & misconceptions for mountain shattering
a good brew for human days in creature nights

Grampus.......Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project

If,

 I was to be kidnapped, hijacked, shanghaied, alien abducted, spirited away, seized, captured, run off with, taken in the black of night, bagged, captured, appropriated, misplaced, taken aside, shown the way, misguided, blindfolded,.....I hope it is by the brewers at Pretty Things.

Grampus.....
funtastic illustration of a Pilgrim cheerfully soul casting about in (Massachusetts Bay) on a wooden seat while toasting the breaching humpback whale who lives and breathes in the clean waters.

A great beer this one is. Great in subtlety.  Great in mouth feel. Great in lacey glass imagery. Great in finish. Wonderful front feel, thick body. Quickly introduced to herbal hop sense on cheeks. Plant feel and taste, garden wonders in the mid mouth. Just short of a chewable meal.

When I am at Valhalla this will be the side drink to Odin's mead.This will be the drink  Einherjar
will sip at arrival.

FLight of the Osprey yeast

Fermentation of my clone of Timothy Taylor's Landlord.
I have never had the pleasure of sampling this beer, yet I have heard it was/is one of the best.
I found a clone recipe on line and am trying it.
The finished product will be called "Return of the Osprey".
I got the name during a walk the other day.  I was walking on a ridge overlooking a small pond,  looking west at the sunset. When I turned, there to my right , was an Osprey on a phone pole (almost eye to eye) clutching and beaking a small fish.
The bird looked me in the eye and with an English accent said "Hallo".

1955 Double Brown Ale Pretty Things Beer and Ale Project

what hill are you talk of
when we starve ourselvs
dinner is done
we come too     late

Sam 


1955  London double brown ale brewed
2014  Westport  Massachusetts ale doubly brown
brewed in/among Westport River

robust pour large foamy head
(the soaps of cleansing)
first sip malts a smooth weight
clean finish
crisp quick hop sting taste
settles on tongue

ahhh roma of malt
excellente secondo taste
malts fill cheecks and hops
hoop flavors all around
and again a great subtle end



the dried oak leaves collected
around the old blue bycycle
face sin leaves
(laughing character
bulbous nose Durante)
summers and winters 18
has time stalled  stood still
while leaves and wind
age and whiskers come and go

blarney........speak.....
listen..... long gone........

 I tried to post a picture
but the glass bottle cracked
and broke in my clenched fist
when  i turned around and saw the blood
i knew this wasn't gonna be no good

so I set out in the eve to catcha ride
some where south of here
didn't matter where
just outta here

bandaged and wrapped
my thumb stood out
on the highway of doubt
believing I would get a ride

an i did getta ride
to dreamlandwhere
in quiet peace sleep
I slept......

Rye 95

boot heels and leather secondary fermented in rye - tires fashioned from typewriter ink which subsequently relinquish to sugar candie yeasties.
forward malts of  Gold as the poet Ginsberg is to Cassady in many a hotel flats,  inebriated monks posterior  bone & flesh polished faux leather which doesn't pretense itself leather but as uncles say
         .
              I resemble that remark

    .

Rye from OE ryge ; Old Norse rugr ; from the grass Secale cereale    

seco "I cut"

as animal fodder blessed for god & goddess cut in fumbled wires of candied hallucinogens

my first impression is of the flame moth wasping circle 8's infinite towards some 120 watt porch light late July near Moonstone Beach sans 3am post therapeutic restraint 

&

this leads into flat sugar inflammations of both side sections of taste receptors

dulls into which 3 pints of this secretes from beverage to clamor to calmness quickly

something of monkey mind with Garuda eye

my mother used to slice pears and lay the bodies luminescent as abby ink in vodka

this sugar settles in each hour & waits with me 

still young with this memory I will relinquish another sip

each one deeper manic . calls of Jung (no Freudian slips here)

this beer is animus/anima clear color

roggen - moonface - yellow barbarian

then two hands

or how Dave knows 

but still writes ICE and dates encompassing po-po jurisdiction

asks of how many pints last night 

through Santa's younger German 2nd cousin removed silver streaked white beard

show don't tell

{this brew whispers

          tripel the echo with slips of choir in upraised vocal tones - slow down

      if the brew were to become a crux it would sound like Elvis before percocets

                        

Harpoon's Black Forest

In the locker room he sat down on the wooden bench, lifted his left leg onto his right knee and exhaled. He pulled upon the dusty brown laces of his work boot. Untying and loosening the laces,  removing the boot from his foot. The damp sweaty sock had small holes burned in it from the sparks and slag of welding. Today, he was lucky, none of the slag burned long and hot enough to burn his skin. After removing the sock, he placed his hot tired foot onto the black and white floor tiles. The tiles, hidden from the daylight sun were a cool relief for his foot.  He stared down at his foot, wiggled the crumpled misshapen toes, the gift of shoes too small, worn during an economic depression that lasted too long, and reminded him of elephant feet. His feet, size 8-1/2 triple E, stout round sturdy stumps, able to carry any weight across any landscape. 

musty aroma and malts
thick body
 foot like strong yet yielding to the shapes of the landscape or glass
low mouth fizziness smoothly the carbonation awakens cheeks
finish the swallow with cherry flavour
not cheery cough drops or cheery medicine
cherry taste hint co-mingled with malt 
sweet malt low hop
excellent top off at 60 degrees Fahrenheit

gallons of white wine 
sit on the shelf beckoning purchasers


He again lifts his left foot to his right knee.  Right hand slowly reaches his left foot. Softly, his hand rubs his left foot. He begins to ponder whether he should go straight home or stop off at The Night Shift Lounge and play a set, or two,  with the house band. It is for days such as this that he keeps his trombone in his work locker.

Yarrow Brew (Main St. on the Taunton)

sip*
 yarrow called to pray in scales
  staunch finger picking, slow rapture
   threshes % of 9 after 7 was done
       (a comma)

palette*
          oil, gasoline, asparagus under George's
            rabbit blade     tobacco in edges  not for eden

horizon*
       halo of peroxide guilds the chalice from C
    there skips hopscotch, paved
       flowers guild tongue

mental*
          I know summer when it speaks my name
             falling & can there be a question between us

         roads overtaken with trees
      bills unpaid selfish tongue
asks or ask to feed impatient
with cataract

tug of eyelids    root indentured
three floors compose for moon hollow wet tongue reaper
     gallows itself before & there is no after bite without brother nose to shoulder

the beer is sour & a friend & a father & a son
wind & wiffle ball indent

Piltdown Man Beer meets the Breast of Darts

                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

 one of those nights where the knights smack down the opponents
ella  oh so enchanted slayed her father in the aftermath of a bloody song
so dont go breakin my heart and run a light saber thru my armpit
a piltdown man poured from a bottled was timely'
heroic hops riding on malt sweets caressed my bleeding soul
tangy bitters reminded me that even the sweet life has lime
on codfish and served with thinly salted french fries
ahh thousand isle dip.....thousand eyes watching
ella sways and swims into scat while
(Portuguese influences encourage) 
chick died early and ella sang on
piltdown  man foamed large and prematurely
he settled into a decent beer
light in weight but not calories,
sorri bud lite likers,
your girth will get wider drinking there
in the archeological shakeup
but hey..... it aint fun if it ain t
fun
if you cant sing it youll have to swing it
the dart board hangin' ova' da  glass, bloody thing was growing
each throw each dart each puncture made the dart breast
climb out of it's mold
darts fell on each toss
terrified by the possibility of puncturing the mother love of dart and beer
safety of the pub atmospherics suspended
 pub master ended all games saying
"you canna drink da piltdown man beer an' expect a normal night"
"you be taxin' me extra heavy doin' t'ings like dis"
we all headed for shelter
found our coats and hats and gloves
you could'na mind what events might come from a night like this
nice lacing on glass pretty legged foam cloying to glass
just above the body of the beer
and again the beer wasn't nay joke.

 

narragansett imperial russian stout

hmmmm

Smalls Piltdown Man's not-so-distant cousin

Smalls
an accidental ale
brewed with cousin love


mild vinuous and smooth
low
carbonation
bitterness yet likeable

oil painting colours flavours layered
one upon another

purple towel wraps shower wetted hair
not line dried

 I'm

front malted sloooowly
have you ever been herbalized in electric ladyland


paint dries
                            all things dry
        in time
in ladyland


towle droops
and finally drops the towel,
to the floor

nature's balance
water barley herbs



Ales well on Main St tonight

Dance of the Yarrow Yeast

Stochasticity Project Grapefruit Slam Ipa

Stochasticity Project Grapefruit Slam Ipa
Grapefruits
Grapefruit flesh
Grapefruit rind
(wondering where the :grape: comes from)

See song above for rest of profile-