Madison

Beautiful New Business Cardholders

Entrepreneurship

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For all the mind-numbing busywork of starting a new business, certain tasks come with real  emotional rewards.  That’s certainly the case in choosing this new business card holder.  Like practically every other piece of start-up research, this one took time and shoe leather.  After visiting four physical shops and nearly two dozen Etsy stores, I finally settled on this handsome handcrafted wooden piece.

What clinched it for me was the manufacturer, Inelastic Goods, is a one-man operation based right here in Madison.  Steve, the creator of the line, delivered the item himself, eager to show me six or seven different models.  I jumped at the chance to buy two additional cardholders at a discount.

I’m keeping the white oak for myself and have bought two of the darker wenge wood models for gifts.  The wenge wood model is striking in the contrast of two dark planes sandwiching a lighter maple side piece.  The white oak does the opposite, playing up the continuous grain and color, as if the box were carved from a single block of wood.

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All models come with a magnetic closure that clicks shut oh so satisfyingly.  I catch myself playing with it constantly.  Plus, beyond the visual delight of the hand-finished hardwoods, Steve’s execution of the clean, minimalist design is unparalleled.  Each piece feels stunningly smooth in the hand, the joinery, edges, and curves so silky and organic.

By day, Steve works as an engineer for the state of Wisconsin.  On his own time he exercises his entrepreneurial spirit, refining his craft, streamlining his processes and tools, with the aim of not only perfecting the product, but boosting productivity.  His woodshop has become so efficient, he’s recently made good on a private order of sixty business cardholders to a private individual.

Head over to Steve’s Etsy shop for a look at the different models:

https://www.etsy.com/shop/InelasticGoods?ref=l2-shopheader-name

A Quality Color Laser Printer + Great Customer Service = Dell C1760nw

Entrepreneurship, Media

for blog - color printer review

Ah, researching office equipment–one of my favorite pastimes.  (Not!)  I took my time with this one, going back and forth with my decision tree (for instance, shifting my budget from $200 to $600, and back again).  I ultimately ordered from Staples.com, so I could return any lemon locally.  That’s a sign of me bracing against all the ways a purchase like this can go wrong.

I’m happy to report my good fortune:  not only do I have my new color printer up and running, but I found Dell customer support highly competent and remarkably responsive.

After setting up the printer, my initial test run appeared problematic:  underscore was showing more like strike-through.  Contacting Dell tech support through live-chat was instantaneous:  Niegel, the support analyst, came online the very moment I opened the chat dialogue.  Niegel was great.  His troubleshooting helped me isolate the problem to a specific application; the underscore issue only appeared when printing from Evernote.  Yay!  I wouldn’t have to return the printer, after all.

After closing the live chat module, I received an email from Niegel offering his direct contact info in case I had further questions.  He even included the contact info of his supervisor.  Now that’s transparency!  To top it off, the following day, Niegel followed up with another email, offering further assistance if I had come up with other questions.

The photo above shows the excellent quality of the printer’s text output.  Oddly, two separate PC Magazine reviews of this printer clashed in their assessments of the printer’s text quality.  Review A praised the “unusually good graphics quality” and called its text output “outstandingly sharp.”  But Review B was lukewarm, calling it “a touch below par,” further specifying the text output to be fine for “general business use, though not for uses requiring very small fonts.”  As you can see in my photo, text looks great in even 7-pt. font size.

Good show, Dell!

Beer Roundup #7: Three Midwest English Barleywines

Food and Drink, Health

Whole Hog BW

To Buy or Not to Buy?
1 = horrible
2 = bad
3 = average
3.5 = good (many better beers out there; won’t buy this again)
4 = very good
4.5 = great
5 = rare best 

A Note on the Style:  English Barleywine

I prefer the malty “English” style barleywine over the hoppy “American” style.  All barleywines have a stiff malt backbone and generous sweetness, but the hop-forward American-style is often so bitter as to be indistinguishable from a high-alcohol double IPA.  Don’t get me wrong, some of my best friends are double IPA’s; I love me a double IPA when it’s got intense sweetness to offset the high IBU, like Bell’s Hopslam, Dogfish Head 120 Minute, or Founders Devil Dancer.

Despite my preference for the maltier English barleywine, it’s curious that I’ve found way more good American barley wines than English ones.  

How to explain this?  Is the English style BW less common in the US?  Not really.  Nearly every brewery that produces American barleywines also produces English ones.  The more likely explanation:  brewing a good English barleywine is more of a challenge because it doesn’t have the pronounced hops to balance the jacked-up sweetness.  Hence, many are sickeningly sweet, like Anchor Old Foghorn or Weyerbacher Blithering Idiot.

But all three specimens below are really good.

Stevens Point Barley Wine Style Ale (Whole Hog Series), Stevens Point Brewery

Rating:  4.44 / 5

12 oz. bottle (4-pk)  10.2% abv, 73 IBU.

From a very reasonably priced 4-pack ($7), the first sip has me totally psyched.

It’s not a great looking pour into a tulip glass, with barely a half-finger of white head atop the opaque, red-tinged, brown murk. Sticky lacing, with legs.

Very little in the aroma, probably just too cold. But bready, mildly floral, and of course malty in the nose, plus a grape-like, mildly acid wine character. Even after it warms, the nose remains reserved.

But in the mouth, now this is a provocative surprise. Stevens Point Brewery, for those of you not from Wisconsin, is an old-time adjunct-lager outfit, one of the oldest breweries in the US. My Midwest beer friends rarely say anything nice about SPB, so I wasn’t expecting a lot from this brew. But this is right up my alley. It’s a complex sweetness, like that of my two favorite English BW’s,  JW Lees Harvest Ale and Midnight Sun Arctic Devil. The grainy biscuit flavor is what backstops the sugar-sweetness, not any bitterness. Some will call this cloying. I love it. The sweetness rounds out with an estery, mossy oak. The butter/caramel is of the burnt variety. There’s milk and coconut, too.

The mild to moderate carbonation is a welcome cleanser and leavener of the oily-sticky feel.

I’ve gone back to Riley’s Wines and snatched up the last two 4-packs. One goes in the cellar, the other down my gullet!

Schell’s Barley Wine (Stag Series), August Schell Brewing

Rating:  4.46/5

On tap,  9.5% abv, 80 IBU.

I wasn’t expecting a whole lot, thinking of Schell as merely an adjunct-lager outfit. What an awesome surprise.

On tap at Mason Lounge (Madison).  In a snifter, a handsome pour, a clear coppery amber with a finger of white head and good retention and lacing.

The aroma is a bit reserved.  There’s a diacytel caramel, dried fruit, piney hops, and a bit of sharp ethanol.

Flavor in the mouth offers sweet caramel, stone fruit, a bit of citrus, and a floral hop bitterness on the back end.  Finishes sweet, with a hint of grassy hops.  Alcohol is hardly there.

Upland Winter Warmer, Upland Brewing

Rating:  4.05 / 5

On tap,  8.5% abv, 47 IBU.

Pours a hazy, ruddy copper, topped by a fluffy, two-finger head.

A seriously complex aroma, the sweet swirls with the hops.  The hops come as white grapefruit and a bit of must.  The lovely roasted caramel struggles to dominate and ultimately does.

In the mouth the malt/hop tension from the aroma comes down solidly on the side of the malt.  Simple syrup on the front end, sweet butter and bread in the middle, plus fig and cinnamon-raisin ice cream on the back of the tongue. Goes down with just a rumor of bitter hops.  

Feels like a much bigger beer than it is, chewy, even.

Not nearly as good as the other two in this review, but it gets points for availability, as it’s pretty common to find on tap in Midwest bars in the colder months.

How to Create Pre-Press PDF Files on a Budget

Entrepreneurship, Media
bus-card Adler GRACoL 2006

Need to order a commercial print job from an online printer, but don’t have Adobe Illustrator ($560)?  That’s my situation.  I’ve laid out a nice business card in PowerPoint (above), including the logo I also designed in PowerPoint.  But Powerpoint does not produce vector graphics.   Printers need vector graphics.  They also recommend submitting PDFs that have been “pre-flighted” using certain Adobe Acrobat presets, such as PDF/X-1a.

Huh?

That’s what I said.  What a bear it was to research this.  And for an additional challenge, I wanted to see if I could accomplish all this on a budget.  I assumed I could find some vector-graphics freeware with which to reproduce my designs.  But the question remained:  how to  save the graphics file in the “pre-flighted” PDF  format that online printers specify?

(In case you’re considering skipping the preflighting step, know that preflighting helps avoid printing glitches such as font substitutions and color alterations.)

Turns out, the key to all this is Adobe Acrobat.

Some of this terminology rang a bell, as I used to  own the Adobe Creative Suite (ACS; back then, $1500) when I ran my photo equipment rentals business.  ACS includes all the programs that produce file formats press printers require, such as .ID (InDesign), .EPS (Photoshop), .AI (Illustrator), and of course .PDF (Acrobat).  I needed all four of them to design marketing materials for that business.  But that was four years ago.  For the past four years I’ve been running my healthcare business, with no need for ACS, at all.  Now that I’m starting up my freelance commercial writing business, I’ve been crossing my fingers that I won’t need to spend $1000+ on design software.

The bottom line is, yes, one can create vector graphics using freeware/shareware (I used Inkscape to recreate my PowerPoint designs).  But for press printing, you need to create properly preflighted PDF’s.  For that, you must have Adobe Acrobat (price varies depending on version and how purchased, $100 – $429).

I verified this by downloading the free trial of Acrobat 11.  With Acrobat installed, the Acrobat Virtual Printer will appear in your list of devices and printers.  (This is in Windows, obviously.)  You simply design your graphics in your vector software, then follow these steps to preflight your PDF:

1) “Print” your file (That’s right, “print” not “save”!)
2) In the print dialog, select Adobe PDF as the “printer.”
3) Click preferences (or printer properties).
4) In Preferences, the “Default Settings” area offers a drop-down menu of PDF format presets.  For business card printing, Moo.com specifies the preset PDF/X-1a:2001.  For printing a brochure, Vistaprint.com requires PDF/a-1b:2005 (CMYK).
5) Click okay to get out of preferences.
6) Click print.  You’re done.

Now you have your vector-based,  properly pre-flighted  PDF to upload to your online printer.

Layering For Cold Weather: Technical Clothing Systems

Health

layers vert

Body moisture:  it’s your worst enemy when dressing for winter cold. You can be wind-proofed and layered to excess. But if your layers aren’t venting that moisture, the minute your body stops radiating heat, the moisture trapped in your clothing will chill you like a Perdue chicken.

My first winter riding around Madison, I used to either underdress and regret having ever left the house, or I’d over dress, get damp with perspiration, and experience bone-chilling, near-hypothermic misery. Now, after three winters in Madison, I’ve got my layering systems down to a science. I’ve kept notes in increments of 1° or 2°F, from 40°  down to -1° F, both for cycling and walking.  (See below.)

I’ve also filled out my wardrobe of base layers, mid-layers, and technical garments. I prefer Patagonia’s synthetic products. They insulate and vent moisture as well as anything out there.  As a bonus, many of their products are made from recycled plastic bottles.

Just a few things to emphasize before presenting my layering systems.

I pay little attention to my legs. While I do wear a wool insulating layer under my jeans or cords, I leave my legs exposed enough to prevent them from perspiring.  Why?  Because I don’t own any high quality pants that are BOTH windproof AND breathable. Wearing lesser quality windproof pants, my legs get sweaty and damp–the last thing I want when it’s cold. Pants made from Gore-Tex Pro are very expensive. I do own a Gore-Tex Pro jacket ($600), as venting the body core and arms is much more important than the legs. Plus, I bike 95% of my trips around town (no car!), and on my bike my legs pretty much take care of themselves in the warmth department.

However, crotch warmth needs to be accounted for. (Duh!) In conditions of bitter cold (5° F, or lower), I’ll stuff a pair of glove liners down my crotch, and we’re good!

The head is easy. Above 20° F, I wear my aero-helmet with a headband and cycling glasses. Below 20° F, I stay warm in a snowboard helmet. I switch to ski goggles below 12° F  or when it’s windy. The key to snow-helmet comfort is a venting system, one which can be opened or closed on-the-fly. The head generates serious BTUs of heat, so when the air is in the upper-teens, or when pedaling hard, opening the vents keeps one from overheating.

One last thing to note. I avoid windproof insulation under my hardshell. Windproof fleece, such as Patagonia R4 or soft shells with a Gore-Tex layer, work really well as outerwear; they’re my go-to outer layers in milder weather (>30° F). But when worn as an insulating layer, they don’t breathe well.  The consequence:  trapped moisture close to the body.

Below, I’ve condensed my notes (layers for cycling), in increments of approximately 5°. The notes specify weather conditions, time of day, and the success/failure of the layers listed. What’s not specified is the type of cycling: running errands around town, i.e., bicycle trips of 15 to 25 minutes.

Message me or leave a comment if you want the full version (or if you’d like my notes for walking/hiking, instead).

Abbreviations

“Cap” = Capilene (Patagonia)
“Cap 3 crew” = long sleeve crew-neck
“Alpine Jacket” = Patagonia Super Alpine Jacket
“Gore Softshell” = Gore Bike Windproof Softshell
“Hi-loft” = either Patagonia R3 jacket or North Face Radium jacket

35-deg, 11pm, 8mph wind
— perfectly layered, home from High Noon Saloon
Cap1 stretch SS
Cap1 stretch LS
wool LS crew
Cap4 Full Zip
Gore Bike softshell
Capilene scarf, took this off 1/2-way home
wool leggings + jeans
glacier gloves w/ med. liners
Keen hiking boots, Smartwool socks

29 – 30 deg, 12 pm, 9 mph wind
— a bit over-dressed to Co-op; the backpack added warmth
Note: started out the ride with good warmth built up
lighter wool leggings + cords
Capilene 2 LS (this should’ve been a Cap 1, and the Cap 4 could’ve
Cap 4 1/4-zip been Cap 3)
Alpine jacket (possibly could’ve been softshell)
med-weight balaclava (allowed you to leave jacket 1/2-zipped)
lobster gloves + best liners
Keen hiking boots, wool socks
aero helmet + headband, glasses
backpack

30 – 26 deg, 7 – 8 pm, 13 mph wind
— ears/jaws got cold on way home, to Co-op
Note: started out the ride with good warmth built up
lighter wool leggings + cords
Two-layer insulation
Capilene 1 SS (torso was perfect)
Cap 4 1/4-zip
Gore softshell
(would’ve been nice to have mid-weight balaclava for ride home at 26 deg)
lobster gloves + best liners
Keen hiking boots, wool socks
aero helmet + light-weight headband, glasses
backpack

25 deg, 5pm, 5 mph wind, 96% hum.
— just right to State Street, then to Co-op
— was a bit chilly when you had your Cap 4 part-way unzipped
lighter wool leggings + cords
cotton TCap 4 full-zip
Alpine Jacket
lobster gloves + best liners
Keen hiking boots, wool socks
aero helmet, headband
glasses
backpack

22 – 19 deg @ 3 – 5 pm, 13 mph wind
— to State St. (overheated on the way out!! Just right on way home.)
wool leggings + jeans
cotton SS
Smartwool top
North Face Hi-loft fleece
Alpine jacket
lobster gloves, windproof cyc. gloves
wool socks
Keen hiking boots
aero helmet w/ headband
Campy balaclava

17 – 20 deg, 7 – 8 pm, 14 mph wind
— to Co-op (maybe also to Trader Joe’s)
wool leggings + cords
Silk weight Cap SS
Cap2 crew [should’ve deleted this]
Cap4 Full Zip
Alpine hardshell
lobster gloves w/ liners (hands totally fine!)
snowboard helmet (Note: no headband — just tightened chin strap)
Keen hiking boots, Smartwool socks [toes a bit cold when riding hard]
(carried in bag: Capilene scarf, 2nd pr. glove liners, balaclava)

30 – 16 deg, 5 – 8 pm, 9 mph wind
— to Mason Lounge
Note:
lighter wool leggings + cords
Cap 1 SS
Cap 2 1/4-zip[carried Cap 4 full-zip for ride home]
Alpine jacket
med-weight balaclava
lobster gloves + best liners
Keen hiking boots, wool socks, light wool socks
snowboard helmet + glasses

14 deg, 6 pm, 9 mph wind
— to State St. then to Absolutely Art
— torso was too warm; removing the Cap 2 crew was good;
wool leggings + cords
Cap 1 stretch SS (this should’ve been LS, and no Cap 2 layer)
Cap 2 crew [took this off!!]
Cap 4 Full Zip
Alpine hardshell
ski gloves w/ windproof cyc. gloves + liners (hands good until very end)
snowboard helmet
Campy balaclava
Keen hiking boots, Smartwool socks + wool footies
— (feet good until way home from Jenifer St. Mkt.)
(carried in bag: Capilene scarf, 2nd pr. glove liners)

14 – 11 deg, 2 – 4 pm, 4 mph wind
— to Manona Terrace then to Jennifer St. Mkt.
— torso a bit too warm to Manona Terrace; legs/feet/hands perfect
— hands & feet freezing on way home from Jenifer St. Mkt.(probably b/c boots & gloves were a bit damp inside
— should’ve taken gloves off when browsing in stores)
wool leggings + cords
Cap 1 stretch SS
Cap 3 crew
Cap 4 Full Zip
Alpine hardshell
lobster gloves w/ windproof cyc. gloves (should’ve added liners later) snowboard helmet
Keen hiking boots, wool-blend socks (that’s all you had clean)
(carried in bag: Capilene scarf, 2nd pr. glove liners)

10 – 9 deg., 12-1p, 9 mph wind
— too warm!
lighter wool leggings + jeans
Cap 1 stretch SS
Cap 3 crew [had to remove this; should’ve been Cap 1 LS, could’ve rolled sleeves]
Cap 4 Full Zip
Alpine Jacket
heavier balaclava (Gore)
lobster gloves w/ best liners & light liners
Keen insulated boots, wool socks
snowboard helmet
Anon goggles
backpack

6 deg., 3p, 7 mph wind
— just right!
— to Co-op
Cap 1 stretch SS
Cap 2 quarter-zip
Hi-loft Full Zip (North Face)
Alpine Jacket
heavier balaclava (Gore)
lobster gloves w/ best liners and windproof cyc. gloves
Keen insulated boots, wool socks
snowboard helmet
Anon goggles
backpack

5 deg., 7p, 5 mph wind
— over-warm (had excess body-warmth built up + backpack, espec. on way home when backpack was heavy)
— to Co-op
>>>Next time, whenever you’ve got excess body-warmth built up, downgrade the Hi-loft layer to Cap 4
wool leggings + cords
silkweight Cap SS [could’ve deleted this b/c of the backpack]
Cap 3 quarter-zip
Hi-loft Full Zip (North Face) [Or, this could’ve been Cap 4
Alpine Jacket
— unzipped 1/4
— body a little too warm b/c of the backpack
heavier balaclava (Gore)
ski gloves w/ best liners and light liners
— hands were fine
Keen hiking boots, wool socks, lightweight wool socks
— feet perfectly fine
snowboard helmet (no headband)
Anon goggles
backpack

15 – 4 deg., 5p – 11p, 5 mph wind
— just right
— to Square to get bus to Greg’s; ride home from Greg’s
two silkweight Cap SS
Cap 4 full-zip
Hi-loft Full Zip (North Face)
Alpine Jacket
[most everything was comfortable, except my crotch!! Nearly frost bit. Should’ve stuffed lightweight glove liners down there.]
heavier balaclava (Gore)
lobster gloves w/ best liners and windproof cyc. gloves
— hands were fine (surprisingly! You were riding pretty hard the whole way home)
Keen insulated boots, heaviest wool socks
— feet perfectly fine
snowboard helmet (no headband)
Anon goggles
backpack

1 – 4 deg., 1 – 2p, 13 mph wind
— just right to doctors appt.
Cap 1 SSCap 1 LS (a bit too warm; rolled up sleeves on way home and was perfect)
Cap 4 full-zip
Hi-loft Full Zip (North Face)
Alpine Jacketcrotch: glove liners!!
heavier balaclava (Gore)
lobster gloves w/ best liners and windproof cyc. gloves
— hands were fine!
Keen insulated boots, wool socks
— feet perfectly fine
snowboard helmet
Anon goggles
backpack

-1 deg., 7p, 12 mph wind
— to Old Fashioned
lighter wool leggings + cords
Cap 1 stretch SS
Cap 3 1/4 zip
Hi-loft Full Zip (North Face)
Alpine Jacket
heavier balaclava (Gore)
lobster gloves w/ two pr. liners
Keen insulated boots, heavy duty wool socks
snowboard helmet (no headband)
Anon goggles

Cheesecloth? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Cheesecloth (To Drain Yogurt)

Food and Drink, Health
Coffee Maker yogurt

Coffee maker: the better yogurt strainer

The Better Way to Drain Yogurt

In the past when a recipe has called for strained yogurt, my wife and I have always gone with the conventional method, rigging up some version of the mouse-trap variety involving cheesecloth and gravity.  Hanging the yogurt-filled cheesecloth from a banana hook and draining the liquid into a bowl seems to perform well.  But it sure is a pain to set up.  The most commonly recommended method, fitting the cheesecloth inside a colander, simply doesn’t drain well; the larger surface area disperses the force of gravity, and the yogurt drains at a snail’s pace.

It finally occurred to us to try a Melitta coffee maker.  It sets up in a New York minute.  It drains the yogurt faster.  And it streamlines the task on the back end, as well:  after the yogurt fully drains, just tip the strained yogurt out of the filter, and finally squeeze what yogurt has stuck to the paper — like squeezing cake frosting from a pastry bag.  With cheesecloth, you’re left with a gooey mess that requires a spatula to salvage what you can, leaving wasted yogurt smeared in the woven fabric.

The finished product (drained yogurt)

The finished product (drained yogurt)

Beer Roundup #6: Three from My Cellar

Food and Drink

bourbon County brand Stout

THREE FROM MY CELLAR

To Buy or Not to Buy?

1 = horrible
2 = bad
3 = average
3.5 = good (many better beers out there; won’t buy this again)
4 = very good
4.5 = great
5 = rare best

A Note on My Cellaring Experience:

Two things had me feeling anxious about all the beer in my cellar.  First, my wife and I moved apartments last summer, and all the beer suffered a potentially bruising trip, jostled in the back of a moving van in hot weather.  Second, the storage unit in the basement of our new apartment building didn’t stay cool summer long.  In fact, for a period of at least a week or two, temps down there rose into the upper 70s if not lower 80s.  Thankfully, I didn’t detect any ill effects in my test samples at the end of the summer, nor in any of these three beers, here.

Brewer’s Reserve Bourbon Barrel Stout, Central Waters Brewing Co.

Rating:  4.88/5

12 oz. bottle (4-pk)  9.5% abv, 70 IBU.

This is the “2012” from my cellar, 13 months of aging.

Pours nearly perfectly black, with a rim of tanned leather at the 2mm of fast-dissipating khaki foam, plus bits of lacing and legs of running alcohol on the glass.

In the nose it’s an umami cocoa, first and foremost.  How choco-wonderous.  Then aromas of toast, burnt sugar, and bourbon, with hints of coffee and vanilla.  But one really has to work to get this complexity, as the aromas are whisper quiet.  (In fact, I’ve demoted the aroma score.)  The oak barrel is nice.  People talk about toasted coconut in the aroma, but that’s one note I’ve been unable to fathom.

In the mouth it’s a spumoni ice-cream cross of vanilla and chocolate.  It’s so good, one tends toward big mouthfuls to swish from side to side, front to back.  It’s nearly the vanilla heights of Southern Tier Creme Brulee Stout.  Perhaps it’s the aging, but the bourbon comes muted. (But my wife feels the bourbon is highly present.)  Roasty malt and charred oak walk with maple syrup, burnt caramel, and chewy biscuit.  Then the dried fruits come, some raisin or prune, and a candied cherry.  The merest suggestions of pine-hops and anise twist the thumbscrews of complexity.  It all washes down with coffee and cream on the backend.

Medium- to full-bodied, fabulously smooth, with a modest carbonation and a mild boozy heat.

Decadent, delicious.  It goes down fast.  Something this rich, you would expect it to be a one-and-done type of deal.  But I feel I could have several. Perhaps that’s the beauty of a sub-10% abv.

I’m just as impressed with this as I am BCBS or Mikkeler Black Hole or Midnight Sun Berserker.  It puts into perspective Tier 1 vs. Tier 2 imperial stouts.  Now relegated to Tier 2 are:  Stone Imperial Russian Stout, Founders Breakfast Stout, Southern Tier Mokah/Jahva, Weyerbacher Tiny, and Goose Island Big John.

Brewers Reserve Bourbon Barrel Barleywine Ale, Central Waters Brewing Co.

Rating:  5/5

12 oz. bottle (4-pk)  11.2% abv, — IBU.

This is a “2013”, so eleven months of aging.

A clear reddish-caramel in a tulip glass, with almost no head, even after an moderately aggressive pour (hence the 11.5% alcohol).  Lacing is sparse, but with serious stick-to-it-iveness and dripping legs down the glass.

How I miss this aroma.  Brings me right back to snowy April of last year.  Bourbon in the nose seems nicely muted compared to my memory of it.  I remember the bourbon being more pronounced in the aroma.  The vanilla, too.  Oak and char and melted butter bring further bouts of nostalgia.  Brown sugar and raisin, too.  Yeah, baby.

In the mouth the aging is instantly evident, with the hop bitterness knocked way back (though there’s still a ghostly, earthy pine bitterness on the back-end, for sure).  Pushing against the simple-syrup sweetness, the quiet hops present about an 80 or so IBU.  The flavor is wonderfully round:  soft sugar cookie, ice-cream-caramel swirl, fig and prune, then the bourbon.  I put more in the glass, and pie crust fills my nostrils.  Plus Juicy Fruit Gum and marshmallow.  It’s massively toffee sweet, and yet the mild hops and tannins from the oak–not to mention the brightness of the still-respectable boozey ABV–bring balance.  It drinks like Dogfish Head 120 Minute.

Despite a fairly significant carbonation, the smoothness makes me want to cry.  It gives the feel of a super-syrupy moscato di asti.  Definitely more an English Barleywine profile, at least after the aging.  How astonishing to experience true beer nirvana.  I feel like I did two years ago sipping a JW Lees Harvest Ale for the first time.

CW’s detractors denounce them as a one-trick (bourbon barrel) pony.  Not only is this wrong (duh, Illumination?  Exodus?  La Petite Mort?).  But even if true, this is bourbon-barrel aging at its very best.

Bourbon County Brand Stout, Goose Island Beer Co.

Rating:  5/5

12 oz. bottle (4-pk)  15% abv, — IBU.

This is a 2012 BCBS, so 18 months-old.  It’s much smoother, sweeter, with less astringency than it had last year.  There’s still almost no head to speak of, poured into a snifter.  It looks like soy sauce with some floating bubbles.  I might have said it also smelled of soy sauce, or at least chilled soy sauce.  Then I realized the aroma was tart plum, fruitcake, and moist spice cake.  Wow.  What eye-popping clarity in this complexity.  I’m beside myself (even if my less craft-beer-minded guests are non-plussed) with how amazing an aged BCBS is.  The most astonishing surprise here is a distinct peppermint stick aroma.

Can you say “Port Wine”?  My wife just asked me what I would think if tasting this without knowing anything of its provenance or vintage.  I tried to imagine it, and I think, yep, port wine.  Charred nuts, dried fig, and burnt raisins make for a thematic, seasonal flavor–it’s that fruitcake flavor from the aroma.  The bitterness resembles molasses more than it does hops.  Balance comes from the spicy alcohol.

Creamy and thick on the palate.

I can only say thank God I’ve got four more 4-packs in the cellar.  This is the shiznet, by all standards.

Beer Roundup #5: Three Midwest Strong Scotch Ales

Food and Drink

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To Buy or Not to Buy?

1 = horrible
2 = bad
3 = average
3.5 = good (many better beers out there; won’t buy this again)
4 = very good
4.5 = great
5 = rare best

A Note on the Style:

Regular Scotch Ales (5% – 7% abv) generally leave me unmoved.  Their watery, ambiguous malt profiles come off as enfeebled APA’s, without even the hops to save them from abject anonymity.  But boost the alcohol to 8% or more, and the complexity emerges as lucid, jumping layers of sweets and fruits and grains.

Louie’s Reserve, Lake Louie Brewing

Rating:  4.36/5

10% abv, 40 IBU, 12 oz. bottle (4-pk)

The bottle version of this brew isn’t quite as stellar as the draft version (which I gave a 4.6).  It’s a beautiful pour into a snifter.  Golden clean viscous motor oil.  The finger of off-white head dissipates quickly, and the tiny-bubble lacing slides down the glass from the slippery alcohol.

The aroma is really nice, moist zucchini bread, cookie dough, and a workaday flour malt.  It presents itself as a polite breakfast syrup sweetness, reserved in its hints of other character traits:  a faint grassy/grainy earthy aura that surrounds the grainy sweetness.

In the mouth the high alcohol gives a fruity zip to the sweet malt.  And the hop bitterness pulls it further ceiling-ward.  A diacetyl toffee smoke puts one in mind of breakfast and pancakes and burnt, buttered toast.

There’s a metallic tartness that I wish were less bright (something I don’t remember from the draft version).  Middle to high carbonation is somewhat of a drawback, for what otherwise would have been simple cream.

Still one of my favorite Strong Scotch Ales of all time.  Definitely rivals Founders Backwoods Bastard, which makes its own weather because of the barrel aging.  Beats my other two commonly found go-to’s, Oskar Blues Old Chub and Dark Horse Scotty Karate.  Much, much better than Skull Splitter or Sticky McDoogle.

Backwoods Bastard, Founders Brewing Co.

Rating:  4.54/5

10.2% abv, 50 IBU, 12 oz. bottle (4-pk)

Bourbon barrel aging gives this beer a leg up on the other beers in this roundup.

On tap at Dexter’s, Madison.  A Founders tap takeover is a beautiful thing!  Dexter’s serves its 5 oz. pours in these handsome little snifters.  I’m drinking this alongside a half-snifter of Devil Dancer.  What an awesome combo.

This pour is a beauty:  dark-coppery brown with high clarity and a fluffy off-white head.

In the nose you get ripe cherry–a big old waft of cherry that’s just really remarkable.  Then bourbon and buttery caramel and a bit of umami and vanilla that’s somewhat sickeningly sweet.

Surprisingly roasty-sweet malt first on the front of the tongue.  Then that stone fruit from the aroma coats the mouth, with booze and hop bitterness in the finish

Near-syrup viscosity, and a bit of alcohol warmth in the throat, with mild-to-moderate carbonation.

Scotty Karate, Dark Horse Brewing Co.

Rating:  4.26/5

9.75% abv, 30 IBU, 12 oz. bottle

A finger of khaki head fluffs up and dies readily, with almost no lacing on my tulip glass.  The fluid itself is a reddish-brown murk.  Caramel greets the nose assertively, along with topsoil and animal feed grain.  Wood and grass dry out the sweetness in the aroma, with a stone fruit twang.  The palate gets washed with buttery toffee sugar, pie crust, and wood barrel.  A surprising coffee and cocoa in the dry, acidic finish.
The medium body is a bit of a letdown.  It fills the mouth well enough, but could be longer in the finish.

ice storm

Food and Drink, Health

ice storm

We came out of Karaoke Kid and I had to ride home on my frozen bike.  For the two hours we were karaokiing, my bike was outside on a pole, getting sleeted to death.  On my way home, nothing worked.  Not my brakes, not my shifters.  Couldn’t hear the usual zippy-hum of my studded tires — they were encased in ice.

Favorite Clients from My First Small Business

Entrepreneurship, Media

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While running my rental studio, Silver Street Studio in Houston, it was exciting to work with photographers and agencies of international renown, like Mary Ellen Mark and Mark Seliger, Art Department and Greenhouse Reps.  But it was a special pleasure to work with those photographers and crews that were at bottom simply great human beings.

TONY D’ORIO PHOTOGRAPHY

I think immediately of Tony D’Orio, of Altoids fame.  (Note:  Tony’s photo used in the ad above was not shot in my studio).  How refreshing that, in a profession so rife with jealously guarded tricks of the trade, Tony instead offered a broad openness and generousness of spirit.  Over the course of a two-day shoot for McDonald’s, he showed me a couple of studio equipment hacks that made my job easier and that would be enjoyed by other photographers in my studio for years to come.  For instance, he showed me how to switch out the hand-crank machine clamp of an Elinchrom Octabank–which have infamously weak grip—with the more robust clamp from a Matthews C-stand.

http://www.tonydorio.com/

FULTON DAVENPORT, PWL STUDIO

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Lucky for me I like photographer Fulton Davenport as much as I do since he was perhaps our biggest repeat client over the years.  With his busy creative firm, PWL Studio, Fulton was shooting in our space practically every other week for years.  One of his specialties is product photography, which was also a specialty of ours.  Take a look at the photo above, of Fulton at work for a high-end antique shop client.  The tabletop set is comprised of expendables and hardware we kept in stock and offered at no extra charge.  Even more to the point of product photography was our studio’s unsurpassed natural light.  Here’s Fulton on shooting day light in our space:

“I love the highly technical work, like photographing objects with intense detail, a la Irving Penn shooting for Saks Fifth Avenue.  You’d normally need (or have to build) a light tent.   But here, you’ve got such huge windows on north and south, the light is perfect.  Tents are used just to simulate this.”

http://www.pwlstudio.com/

JUSTIN CALHOUN PHOTOGRAPHY

Imageastronaut mailer sofa guy

One of my favorite people, photographers or not, is Justin Calhoun.  Justin brought us a big job one summer, and one could tell how much the crew liked working for him.  The makeup department, the photo assistants, even the kraft service people were obviously inspired to work hard for Justin, with smiles all around.  What you see here in the two photos above is a Polaroid test shot (the client wanted Justin to shoot film, not digital) and one of the direct mail pieces ultimately produced from the images.

http://www.justincalhoun.com/

FELIX SANCHEZ PHOTOGRAPHY

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Another of our busy-busy clients was Felix Sanchez.  Felix was one of the first to shoot in our studio in the early days, and he continued to bring interesting jobs into our space over the next seven years.  (He has his own beautiful new studio now.)  Before becoming a photographer Felix played in a touring Tejano band, so naturally he’s photographed many musicians throughout his career.  Early on with us, Felix was kind enough to help me assimilate the vast expanse that is studio equipment.  He’d report on all of his new experiences experimenting with lighting equipment.  I based many of my equipment acquisitions on Felix’s information.  The job in the photo above was for Walmart, for which Felix transformed our cold, empty space into a warm and cozy living room.  Go check out his handsome new website.

http://www.felixsanchez.com/