One New York Life

Ale
Brewed By: Harpoon
Brewed In: Boston, MA
Type: American Pale Ale
ABV: 5.0%

What They Say: Harpoon Ale was the first in the family of Harpoon beers. It is important to know that when it was first brewed in 1987, there were virtually no other American Pale Ales or Amber Ales available in Boston, let alone an ale brewed within the city limits. Harpoon Ale was the product of extensive research and test brews by Harpoon’s founders to find the right beer to launch the Harpoon Brewery.
It has a loyal following to this day.

Website: I’m not a fan of websites where the header image takes up almost all the real estate above the fold. I’m also not a fan of “hey, this is a totally random and awesome candid shot we took because it’s SO COOL here” pictures. This site integrates both in to the same thing. Other than that, excellent organization and excellent info.

Why I Picked It: I had never heard of this beer before taking the Harpoon brewery tour in 2008. I thought Harpoon’s offerings were limited to their IPA (which we here at Beer Snob do our level best to avoid), UFO, and Raspberry UFO. Harpoon’s tour in Boston is less a “tour” and more a “come in to our sampling room and try everything we have on tap because that’s all you really want to do anyway”. It blows away the Sam Adams “we’re a publicly traded company so here is the carefully structured 3 samples ONE OF WHICH IS F*CKING HARD CIDER WHEN WE HAVE TEST BEERS IN OTHER TAPS THAT NO ONE’S EVER SEEN BECAUSE OUR STUPID TOUR GUIDE LIKED CIDER” brewery tour. It’s been two years and I’m still bitter over this. Regardless, one of the beers in the Harpoon tasting room was this delicious ale I’d never seen in New York. Most trips to Boston now require me to get a six pack of this for the weekend and, if I had a car, I’d have to bring a case home.

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Presentation (5): Very understated design. Their first beer. It has the harpoon guy at the top and the harpoon logo at the center. Harpoon gets points because their bottles are easily recognizable, but unless you know the color coding, you’d never recognize which Harpoon someone is drinking from a distance. 4

Originality (5): This beer was first brewed in Boston in 1987 so the originality has to be judged a little differently. It was being brewed at a time when no one had yet heard of Sam Adams and Budweiser was a step up from the normal swill. Harpoon’s brewery boasts Commonweath of Massachusetts Brewing License #1 which, one would note, comes before Sam’s. The originality score here is more for historic reference and for the lack of credit Harpoon gets in the microbrew revolution. 5

Taste (10): Harpoon mentions this beer’s mild fruity odor as a result of their propriety yeast strain. The smell pairs with a distinctly malty flavor and only a little bitterness at the finish. The yeast and malt take the forefront with bitterness so understated it’s barely worth mentioning. If you’ve ever thought “what would a Bud taste like if it was less carbonated and made with better ingredients?”, you could find out by drinking this beer. 8

Body (10): The beer is purposely under-carbonated so as to let the flavor be the superstar. If you’re used to (and like) the over-carbonation of American ales, this probably won’t be for you. If you think that Budweiser and Coors is a little TOO carbonated for what it is, like I do, then you’ve found a home. The lack of carbonation makes for a ridiculously smooth body that lets you drink forever. 10

Efficiency (10): In the vein of American Ales, it’s designed to be cost-effective and efficient for what you get. The ABV is low, which hurts the score, but the excellent flavor and low carbonation make for a beer you can keep drinking even when you’re already heading toward tomorrow’s hangover. 9

Versatility (10): I can’t imagine someone not liking this beer or a situation where it wouldn’t work. The only thing that would prevent you from using it in a rapid consumption game like beer pong is the fact you’d 1) feel a little silly using bottled beer for beer pong and 2) feel a little silly for using a microbrew for beer pong. The problem with the versatility score here is I’ve never seen the beer for sale outside the brewery and like two stores in Boston. 7

Final Grade: 43 (of 50) – Great beer.

Ugh.

We were able to capture Tim Curry’s reaction when informed of this development:

We agree, Tim. We agree.

Between season two and three of Battlestar Galactica, SciFi.com put out 10 two-minuteish webisodes to fill in some of the gaps between the end of season two and the beginning of season three.

When season three kicks off, we’re already about six months in to the Cylon occupation with a fully formed resistance, complete with suicide bombers and a masked police force. The webisodes take about 30 minutes to set it up. The only pre-existing characters who appear on the webisodes on Colonel Tigh (the fatally flawed XO), Chief Tyrol (the head mechanic), and his new wife Callie (the extremely unlucky mechanic). They also introduce two new characters who become major players in season three.

It’s an interesting little play that encapsulates many of the series’s messages into a quick little half-hour play. The humans don’t know what to make of the Cylons. The Cylons manipulate some of the weaker humans to get what they want. The people begin resisting. The Cylons start exterminating people who disagree with them. If you ever wondered if the series was worth the time investment — watch these ten webisodes. If you like them, you’d like the entire series.

As an aside — I’m a huge fan of the whole webisode thing. I liked it when Lost did it and I like it here. I like that it allows writers to skip huge gaps of time between seasons and still keep everyone up to date on what happened. It lets them cleanly wrap a season and completely set up a new one without wasting time in the season premiere. The season premiere can hit the ground running instead of spending a half-hour on flashbacks and awkward conversations between characters rehashing things that happened months ago.

Minor complaint on the Season 3 DVD. As one who watches TV series via Netflix, I was really annoyed that they decided to put the webisodes on disc six of the set. It really doesn’t help to get them at the end of the season. If they had taken them down on scifi.com, I would have had to send disc four back to get disc six first.

After the break from these characters given to us in Servant of the Shard, the Paths of Darkness arc concludes with Sea of Swords. We’ve jettisoned the bad guys of the previous books off in to their own series so now we need to bring the good guys back together, get Aegis-Fang back, and return to their lives.

And after two straight home-runs, Salvatore comes back down to Earth with this “get a book out there” offering.

The story in this book should have been “Wulfgar trying to track down the pirates that have his hammer while everyone else tries to track down Wulfgar.” That would have been fine, acceptable, and OK. Unfortunately, Salvatore throws in a pointless sub-plot involving a semi-new elf character named Le’Lorinal.

Le’Lorinel is a stupid character — both in motivation and in inclusion. There are two repeated themes in Le’Lorinel that Salvatore used in previous books. First, almost identically to Vierna in Starless Night, he takes a character from previous books that had reacted in certain ways and then totally throws that away to create a “bad guy” for purposes of giving Drizzt a useless fight and an even more useless murder. Second, much like in The Spine of the World, he creates a supremely useless B-storyline with, again, paper thin motivation for a really, really crappy payoff. Le’Lorinel’s identity is SO obvious that Salvatore has to dress her up as a male, and refer to her only as a male until the “surprising” reveal in the last chapter. The reveal is telegraphed early to readers who’ve been paying attention. There is only one surviving elf who 1) thinks they know Drizzt personally and 2) would have a reason to hate him this much — even though it makes the character amazingly ignorant.

The Le’Lorinal reveal is so disappointing that Salvatore would eventually go on to write a short story to ret-con the character’s motivation. At least, in this case, Drizzt seemed somewhat sorry for what he was doing, unlike his sister Vierna who used to like but murders and never thinks of again. The whole story falls apart, though, when you realize that the character’s timeline from the time she met Drizzt the last time — in the forest in Starless Night when he’s returning to the Underdark — she went from normal elf to completely insane vengeance machine. The reader is supposed to accept that an hour after this meeting, the elf almost immediately (since it’s said she trained for 6 years to kill Drizzt) went off, shaved her head, bought a mask, and created this identity and feud. This is not the pragmatic elves we’re conditioned to expect. It’s a worthless B-story that kills off a character who should have been a much, MUCH bigger part of Drizzt’s life. A character whose life he saved and whose done nothing to indicate to anyone that he’s anything other than a hero.

And that’s before you get in to the fact that the heroes are beginning to border on the ridiculous as they take down an entire encampment of pirates and ogres without suffering an injury and Drizzt was able to kill a hasted, stoneskinned, invisble, elf and was only brought down by a fire-shield enchantment (which duplicates all injuries sustained by the caster on to the attacker).

This book came across as thrown together in every sense of the word. It served the purpose of getting the characters back together but, when that wasn’t enough to fill 400 pages, he threw in another storyline and burned off a good character for a nothing reason and used Robillard (Drizzt’s wizard friend on The Sea Sprite) as the hand of god to move characters where he needed them. The whole thing really was worthless.

The book serves as a bridge between the Paths of Darkness and the next series. Nothing more.

It’s weird how second episodes are almost strictly better than pilots. The second Dollhouse episode had more of everything I wanted — more fighting, more character development, more establishment of the universe’s rules, and more Whedon dialog. Some examples:

“I’ve been [looking at brain waves] long enough to discern the diff between excitement and sweet mother I”m gonna die.”

“You’re in the middle of ‘why would anyone want to be there’ — what’d you expect, HBO.”

“We’re still working out some of the, you know, kinks.”
“Like the blood, screaming, and dying?”

There is one scene at the end of the episode, where Laurence Dominic (played by Reed Diamond, who seems to always be behind douchey characters) spends about 15-seconds speaking to Echo and it does more to establish who he is and what he’s like then some shows would give you in an entire feature episode. Harry Lennix gets the same treatment — except his 15-seconds features tying a guy up and calmly shooting him in the both thighs to get information. We still don’t have a ton of his background, but we have a pretty solid bead on his character.

I’d also say — it’s quite a refreshing change to get an answer to Amy Acker’s facial scars so quickly. After dealing with shows like Lost and BSG who enjoy doling out answers slowly, I was almost shocked when we got a flashback detailing both how Alpha escaped and how Acker’s face got cut. One episode answers? In my shows?

The only thing that kind of sucks is with the appearance of Tahmoh Penikett and now Mark Sheppard, people who are decidedly NOT on Battlestar Galactica at the moment, are spoiling it for me.

Great episode. I’m on board now.

Maple Nut Brown Ale
Brewed By: Tommyknocker Brewery
Brewed In: Idaho Springs, CO
Type: Brown Ale
ABV: 4.5%
Awards: 2000 World Beer Cup Gold Medal

What They Say: A delicate amount of Maple syrup is added to each barrel of our award winning Maple Nut Brown Ale to impart roasted sweetness. This addition balances the nut flavor produced by Munich caramel and chocolate malts used in the brewhouse, producing a drinkable dark amber ale with a relatively low alcohol content.

Website: It looks like something thrown together on a free Angelfire site in 1996 (complete with wood paneling and jagged lines) and kept it. The information is fine, but it looks very low rent. Perfectly acceptable, though.

Why I Picked It: It was on the draught list at the unbelievably awesome Sunset Grill & Tap in Boston. The maple caught my eye.

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Presentation (5): I love Tommyknocker’s labels. Each beer has its own different little picture. This particular one has a mischievous lil lawn gnome pouring a bucket of syrup in to a barrel of beer. The label on the neck also informs you of what, exactly, a Tommyknocker is: Tommyknockers were mischievous elves who slipped into mining camps with the Cornish miners in the 1800s. 5

Originality (5): I’m prepared to be proved wrong, but is there any other brewery that adds maple to their beers? Especially an ale? And, if not, how are Magic Hat, Long Trail, or Otter Creek (the Vermont breweries for you non-Northeasterners) not on this yet? Idaho of all places has to come up with your ideas? 5

Taste (10): The maple is glaringly obvious. Regardless of any other stuff they might mention on the label. It’s the first thing you taste when it gets in your mouth and the last thing you taste when it goes. I can’t blame them for the marketing as it’s called “maple ale” and they say that maple syrup is added to every barrel. Unfortunately, it’s a bit too sweet to work. 5

Body (10): The best of this beer is the body. It’s a thin and undercarbonated ale. It smells like maple syrup and holding it in your mouth, you get an entire head full of maple syrup. I really can’t fault them for much. They promised a beer that whole-heartedly would remind you of maple syrup they delivered. 8

Efficiency (10): A “relatively low” ABV coupled with a very sweet taste translates to low efficiency. 3

Versatility (10): Also unfortunately low. The beer is too sweet and not strong enough to be useful in most situations. You won’t be able to make a night out of it and you certainly will never have more than two or three of them at a sitting. The best way to enjoy this particular beer is to have one in their variety pack. Apart from that, it’s not something you’ll drink every day. 3

Final Grade: 29 (of 50) – OK beer.

* — I had this marked originally on my top ten list as “Tommyknocker Maple Porter.” That doesn’t exist. I was thinking of Tommyknocker Cocoa Porter. Unfortunately, that appears to be out of season. So, this was written as part of the Top Ten Series, but is actually just a normal review.

As was mentioned in the first half of season two, Sci-Fi Network split the season up in to two halves for airing and DVD purposes, hence the split reviews for this and Season 2.0. As was also mentioned, I liked season 2.0 way better than season 1. The second half of season two just got better. I’m not sure if the writers initially intended the season to be split because the “premiere” of season 2.5 starts in full swing.

At some point between the two Battlestars getting ready to fire on each other and the premiere of this season, someone apparently reminded the two leaders that there was an actual enemy out there to fight. The season starts with the excellent two-part Resurrection episode. It’s an incredibly constructed dichotomy as both Adama and Cain put plans in motion to assassinate the other. Probably the best episode to this point, it was riveting and didn’t tip its hand until the last possible second. Incredibly done and neatly tied up the military power struggle for a bit.

Something the show’s writers should get tremendous credit for is their ability to make engaging “down-time” episodes. Following the super-intense military stand off in the premiere, they’re able to step back and take a few episodes to address the political implications of running this society — such as staunchly pro-choice President Roslin criminalizing abortion for the good of the species, the press demanding access to Galactica, and annoying war protesters. I appreciate the effort here because it would be very easy to ignore these details in favor of BLOWING MORE STUFF UP. These down episodes are fantastic buffers between the exciting up-times. In this case, they bridge the gap between the absurdly awesome Pegasus and Resurrection block and the equally absurdly awesome Captain’s Hand and Downloaded block. When the LOST writers spin their wheels to extend plot, it feels forced. It doesn’t in Battlestar and that’s almost as important as the plot itself.

The end of this season also does a lot to finally flesh out some of the Cylons’ motivation. We get more insight in to what happens when Cylons who die are downloaded in to new bodies. Downloaded finally addresses the downloading of consciousness and combines it with the birth of Helo and Sharon’s baby and it turns in to the second of two excellent and fascinating episodes of the season. They give the viewers more revealing personality stuff in this one episode then they did in the previous season and a half. Not only do we get a ton of the Cylon motivation, but we find out President Roslin has the ability to make some seriously morally-questionable decisions to do what she thinks is best to protect the fleet. Decisions that will certainly come back to haunt them someday.

But, while I loved the first-half finale, the second-half finale felt rushed. In two hours you have the end of the campaign, discovery of a habitable planet, the planet turning the election, a fixed election, revelation of the fixed election, and settling on the planet. I also found myself somewhat put-off by the one-year jump. It seemed like the whole “camp” thing was weirdly tacked on. All 40,000 people decided to settle clustered together on this one chunk of land? None of them decided to move off and look for locations away from the group? And we’ve reached the point only a year later where the workers have unionized because they’ve been forced to work in terrible conditions? On top of all THAT, the people freeze and starve while the newly-elected president gets a warm spaceship surrounded with women and the best food? And none of the ex-military in the community have any problem with this? I feel like conditions could not be this bad after a year and, if they were, there would have already been serious consequences before the invasion.

As a whole, no complaints could counter-act the relative awesomeness of the season. Epic episodes with incredible characters and solid storylines across the board. A perfect balance between trying to explain Cylon motivation combined with a great look in to the politics of the last 50,000 people. I get now why Dapper D spent two years telling me I need to watch this show. Season two did it. The writers found what they wanted to do and went with it. Great stuff.

The plot is simply this: Company X (my name, not theirs — I don’t think we got a company name in the pilot) has a process which can download personalities, memories, and knowledge in to a person’s brain. The person’s original personality, memories, and knowledge is removed. Company X has clients which need stuff done. The proper personality is downloaded in to the most convenient or helpful body (in the pilot, the personality of a professional hostage negotiator is downloaded in to an unthreatening, female body). The “active” is given the “engagement” at which point they return to Company X and the personality is wiped. The “actives” don’t remember anything about the “engagement” or anything about their lives previous to becoming a Doll.

The Good

• I like the concept a lot. I mean, it’s a good question — what makes you YOU? When we finally figure out how the brain encodes information will we actually be able delete and create memories? It’s pretty crazy… and why not explore it in a sci-fi setting?
• They fortunately got the “how often are these people just used as hookers?” question addressed early. Just open with the question and get it out of the way. The first scene with Echo after she agrees to this process is her out with a guy for a “fantasy weekend” before she leaves to go back to Company X. Address it and kill the insipid jokes before they start.
• The only other Whedon Alum who appeared on the pilot was Amy Acker, sporting a full facial scar as Dr. Claire Saunders — some kind of staff doctor for the Dolls. With a nod to the fanboys, they showed “someone” examining Echo before doing the slow pan up to her face up to the big reveal of who she was. One of two fan-boy nods including a shout-out to Edward James Olmos.
• Whedon’s style is all over this. The cold-open with the mysterious thing going on. The dramatic cut to the opening theme. The quick shot before cutting to commercial. It will feel comfortable to Whedon fans and probably pretty comfortable to JJ Abrams fans, too. Including the last scene with someone looking at a picture of Echo while watching a DVD of her in a room with two people who have very obviously been murdered recently.
• I was satisfied with lead-scientist Topher Brink’s explanation of why they can’t create perfect personality. That every strength a person has must be balanced with a flaw. Otherwise, it would be far too easy create an army of Captain Americas. Because the Actives are based on amalgamations of real people, the flaws in their personality can’t be eliminated. It doesn’t feel like a forced explanation for why the Dollhouse can’t just create perfect people.
• Confirmed Doll names are Alpha, Echo, and Sierra. IMDB also lists a November and a Victor. Shall I assume that Echo is the fifth doll? From what we know from the first episode, Alpha has gone rogue and apparently has offed Echo’s parents and is feeding information to the FBI. So we have the FBI and a rogue Doll chasing after the Dollhouse. Good enough start.

The Bad

• The FBI storyline seems like a bad idea. Is Ballard going to be chasing down this company for the entire run of the series while not getting anywhere? If the series catches on, is he going to be following them around for the entire five years making no progress? I don’t get it.
• I don’t know how I feel about the Monster Of The Week format for this show. I get that it’s supposed to be a vehicle for Eliza Dushku to be different characters every week… but how long does that stay interesting? I feel like there has to be a heavy dose of FBI vs. Company X plot progression to keep the show interesting. I think I’d get bored with “this week she’s a hostage negotiator, next week she’s a helicopter pilot” episodes.
• The Actives (or Dolls, if you prefer) walking around Company X and talking like confused 3-year-olds all the time seems like a gratingly bad idea. It also didn’t feel quite right that blank-personality Echo had the ability to just wander in to a room where they were scanning Sierra for her — uh — Dollification. I’m pretty sure it would be in the semi-shady company’s best interest to keep the confused 3-year-olds away from the more complicated, probably really expensive, instruments.
• There’s nothing I actively disliked about this pilot, but at the end I wasn’t in love. I went in wanting to to be in love. As an aside, if the fanboys on Whedonesque aren’t fawning all over it, it’s probably not a good sign.

The Rest

Whether the homage to Wolfram & Hart is intentional or not, Company X is Wolfram & Hart. The set is nearly the same and the shady intentions are nearly the same. The only difference is that Company X seems to believe it’s helping people — with the “by any means necessary” caveat. The company with questionable ethics who help their clients at any cost sounds familiar… minus the demons. The use of the Wolfram & Hart set also leads me to believe there will fun moments when people get tossed over the balcony and through the randomly placed glass walls. Always a good time.

As for the time-slot — at first I read it as “holy crap, Fox is dumping on Friday night amongst death-row shows.” Its first season is going to be spent being led-in by shows circling the drain. Terminator is airing out probably its final episodes and will be replaced by Prison Break‘s final run. After watching the pilot, Friday might be the best spot for it. Whedon’s shows start notoriously slow and maybe the somewhat uncompetitive Friday-night slot might give it a chance to find its audience. If they threw it in to the fire on Wednesday or Thursday nights, a slow-start would have scheduled the show for an early execution. Friday might give it some breathing room. That said, Fox could do worse than marketing a “hey geeks, check out our hot-chick Friday Night Sci-Fi block”. They need to drop the 30-second spots of Eliza Dushku and Summer Glau saying “hey, come check out Friday Nights” right in the middle of American Idol… maybe, like, during songs.

It lacks the fun, quirky dialog of Buffy, going more with the dark theme of Angel — but half of the fun of Whedon’s shows are the interactions between the strong characters. I’m mildly worried that by having characters with literally no personality will make the show suffer, but I’m willing to see where he goes with it.

The Verdict

I like it, but to be fair it would have to be abysmally bad for me to dislike it. I’m probably the only person on Earth whose DVR is over-packed on Friday Night television. Between Ghost Whisperer, Dollhouse, Terminator, and Smackdown!, my Saturday morning is packed full.

With Battlestar Galactica entering it’s final season, I decided to make a final push to get through everything on DVD so I could DVR the final season and watch it with everyone else. And… it’s tax season. Tax season is prime series catch-up time. Netflix had season two broken up in to two-separate halves, so that’s how I’ll do it here.

When last we left the remains of the human race, they were running across space away from the Cylons. When we return, their situation hasn’t improved much. The fleet is in disarray and Commander Adama is out of commission, leaving a flawed Colonel Tigh in control of the fleet. Tigh’s command does a very good job at contrasting Adama’s. Adama is secure in his leadership. Tigh is insecure and weak. The series does an excellent job at showing how the course of history can change, and exactly how many people can die, based on who’s making the decisions. Adama’s careful, objective running of the military leaves the people cautiously optimistic. Tigh (motivated by his wife) becomes power hungry. When someone questions his commands he declares martial law. The politics of command are a solid chunk of season 2.0 and done very well. In a few episodes, we get a new commander of the military, a coup, a mutiny, and a revolution. It’s all an excellent display of the struggle for power. It’s one of two major plot points covered in the first half of season two.

The second addresses whether or not any other humans survived the Cylon genocide. It turns out that a few did. The second major story arc reveals there is another active Battlestar. It carries a third military leader archetype — Michelle Forbes’s Admiral Cain. Now the audience gets to compare balanced and wise Adama, flawed and power-hungry Tigh, and bat-shit crazy warlord Cain. The wrinkle: she’s actually Adama’s superior and has say to take over the fleet. For argument’s sake, I’ll presume there is some reason that Roslin can’t create a cabinet position for Adama that gives him command.

Overall, I enjoyed this season much more than the first season. The characters came a bit less from the Shonda Rhimes “all men are stupid pigs and need flawless women to lead them” school of writing (and, in fact, Michelle Forbes was probably the most evil human character introduced to this point). The introduction of Cain to throw a wrench in the carefully laid Adama/Roslin machine was beautiful. To confirm her crazy insanity, we’re promptly informed she stripped her civilian fleet for parts, impressed any able bodies in to military service, left the stripped vessels to drift in space with the useless people on them, and executed the families of any newly-impressed (or veteran) military people who questioned this all might be a little messed up. In case any viewers weren’t quite sure, she takes two members of Adama’s crew prisoner and sentences them to death. This does not go over well with Adama and the season ends with the two Battlestars preparing to attack each other.

I only really had two complaints about the entire season. First, The Roslin/Starbuck Gods-Given quest to retrieve the Arrow of Athena was silly. The whole storyline with the gods seems to come and go when the writers think they need it and is otherwise relegated to the back burner. There is plenty of story in this show without them and it seems like they’re building toward some sort of weird “humans worship a pantheon and the Cylons worship One God” thing that I don’t know if I’m on board with. Second, when the Pegasus appears with human-looking Cylon aboard, the writers get a bit heavy-handed with trying to make us feel sorry for her. I mean, the Cylons DID just wipe out the human race. Now the audience is supposed to feel bad for torturing one for information? It’s not like grabbing a civilian off the streets of a warring nation and torturing him for government plans… it’s like grabbing a Borg and torturing him for information from the collective. I guess the writers wanted to make a statement against torture and using Tricia Helfer’s hot Cylon-6 model was the most useful way to do it? Of course, the statement would have been better made had it not turned out they probably should have killed her.

Season 2.0 was masterfully done. One great episode and a collection of pretty good ones. The whole thing is tied together with a fantastic cliffhanger that leads in to probably the best episode of the series thus far. Any of the negatives are far outweighed by the perfect and completely believable way the show displayed how humans, even after nearly being exterminated, are their own worst enemy.

Toasted Lager
Brewed By: Blue Point Brewing
Brewed In: Patchogue, NY (Long Island)
ABV: 5.3%
Awards: 2006 World Beer Cup – American-Style Amber Lager

What They Say: Blue Point Brewing’s award-winning Toasted Lager is our flagship product. Copper in color this brew is made from six different malts including: English Pale, Crystal, Munich, Carapils, Wheat and Belgian Caravienna. Toasted Lager displays a balanced flavor of malt and hop which makes for easy drinking. Special lager yeast is used to produce that long lasting, smooth finish. The “toasted” part of the name refers to our direct-fire brew kettle’s hot flames that impart a toasted flavor to our most popular microbrew.

Website: As mentioned here, it’s pretty awful. With the added bonus now of having their entire index page being a huge billboard talking about a festival you can’t go to with a little tiny link going to their actual website.

Why I Picked It: I don’t remember, exactly. I believe a friend of mine recommended it at a happy hour and I tried it. It was quite some time ago now.

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Presentation (5): One good thing about the Blue Point website, I can just give you full-on picture of their presentation. I’ll admit to being a whore for the Blue Point “shield” logo with the lighthouse in the background. You can’t really see it in the picture, but the lighthouse is also on the cap. They lose a point for the very simple label design on the bottle because, well, I have to be fair. It’s not as cool or fun as the Oktoberfest logo.4

Originality (5): American ales are pretty simple. They generally get undeserved negativity because the current crop of beer snobs like complex things that taste like anything else other than beer. Blue Point gets around this by adding a bunch of extra malts and toasting them to make a beer that seems more complex than it is. Full points for that.5

Taste (10): The twist on this basic American amber is that the malts are kettle-toasted. The difference is noticeable. The toasting gives the basic American amber a richer, heartier flavor that’s balanced with whatever they use for sweetness. Just that touch of sweetness keeps this beer from being too bitter. It also throws a whole new twist on American ale and really makes Blue Point’s unique. 10

Body (10): It pours a dark amber with a small white head. The beer is tremendously smooth with a mild finish. The carbonation is perfect for the flavor — heavy enough to fit the American ale style but no so much that it blows away the complexity of the extra malts. It just has a healthy look and feel that I haven’t seen duplicated in any other American ale anywhere. It’s perfect for the style and the flavors. 10

Efficiency (10): I’m hamstrung by my own rules here. I’d like to give this beer full points for efficiency. Toasted Lager is Blue Point’s standard offering, so it’s priced on the entry level of microbrews. Combined with a 5.3 ABV, it’s a great balance of price and ABV. It’s also stronger than your standard American and has a great flavor that isn’t heavy enough to fill you up. To borrow a popular term, it just has a great drinkability with a relatively high ABV. But, since it’s not an Ice beer and 5.5 or better, I can’t do it. I can however, introduce fractions. 9.5

Versatility (10): It’s a good bar beer because three drafts would make you quite happy over a three hour period and a good home beer because six would be enough to enjoy. It’s good in almost any situation. However, the flavor and body are heavy enough that six would absolutely be enough in any situation, though, thus hurting its versatility. 8

Final Grade: 46.5 (of 50) – Awesome beer.