One New York Life

Name: Extra Special Bitter
Brewed By: Matt Brewing Company
Brewed In: Utica, NY
Type: Bitter Ale
ABV: 5.3%

What They Say: Bitters are popular pub beers in England and are closely related to the more well know Pale Ales. Saranac Extra Special Bitter has a rich, malty taste balanced by the pleasant bitterness of Williamette hops. The finish is dry with a hint of the floral English Fuggle and spicy Saaz hop. Enjoy!

Website: Saranac passes my muster for a good website. Navigation on top, everything easily noticeable and findable without much work. Well done, guys.

Why I Picked It: Part 5 of The 12 Beers Of Winter. The ESB has been in the 12 Beers as long as I can remember. I can’t remember ever seeing it in something other than this 12 pack. It’s actually one of the first “English Style” ales I ever sampled. Remember, up until the 12 Beers, my definition of “getting something good” was Killian’s instead of Busch. I’m going to go ahead and assume I didn’t like this 2000.

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Presentation: They must switch up the label on this beer every few years. The Beerlabels.com version has a red label with a white logo. The presentation link above sports a pale green label with a red logo. Mine sports a more foresty green with a red logo. They all share the same watercolor — a river log cabin with an attached boat garage actually IN the water. This house exists in my life goals. Extra point. 4

Originality: While it’s a beefed up version of their Pale Ale, it comes across as a Fuller’s Lite. Oddly, it works. Where the Belgian that appears in this pack seems like a knock-off of better Belgians — this seems more like a distinct recipe styled after British pub beers made a little more gentle for the American palette. 4

Taste: I probably didn’t like this beer in 2000, but I love it now. It has a mild, fruity flavor that seamlessly blends in to a spicy hoppy aftertaste. I’m discovering that I find Saaz hops the least offensive in my beers. Some reviews I’ve looked at for this beer claim a chocolate or caramel flavor. I don’t get that at all. I get a light, tasty beer without the heartiness boasted by the bigger English beers. 8

Body: Deep orange pour with a thick, creamy head. The head persists in the glass for most of the beer’s life. I love the level of carbonation here — it plays right on the border of too much and not enough and manages to hit it perfectly. While the flavor is light and refreshing, the body is hearty but not too much to be cloying. It’s bold in the mouth and strong on the tongue but not so much that you can’t enjoy whatever you’re pairing it with. 10

Efficiency: This beer lends itself to quick drinking. I finished the entire bottle before I got to this paragraph. It goes down incredibly smooth. The 5.3% ABV keeps me from calling it “dangerously” smooth. Great beer with a safe alcohol content. You don’t get full points for “safe” but you can at least get an honorable mention. 9

Versatility: Huge hit here. As I mentioned, I don’t think I’ve ever seen this beer outside the 12 Beers. Up until 2006, that meant one per year. Now it means two per year. As delicious as it is, you can’t get it on draft, in six-pack, or by itself in anyway. That itself is crime enough.4

The Beer Snob Says: It’s disappointing this beer doesn’t have a wider availability. I never would have guessed this beer as my home run winner in the 12 Beers, but there you have it. Wider availability and this beer cracks my top ten.

Final Grade: 39 (of 50) – Really good beer.

Out of nowhere, April turned in to kind of a crazy premiere month for me as Harper’s Island, Unusuals, Parks and Recreation, and a bunch of other stuff the networks have lots of faith in are making their debuts. On top of that, it looks like we’ll be getting the burn off episodes of Prison Break and Pushing Daisies. Good times.

Honestly, the only thing that drew me to The Unusuals was the cast and that it’s based in New York. I’ll give almost anything based and filmed in NYC (as opposed to CSI: NY, which is filmed in Toronto and where “Yankee Stadium” has red and yellow seats and is configured for soccer or some such nonsense) a shot. A cast full of people I like put it over the top. I will attempt to not hold against it the fact it’s both a procedural crime drama and a dramedy — two things I do my best to avoid.

The Good

• Adam Goldberg’s wise-ass Jewish cop schtick is a nice replacement for Lenny Briscoe back before Law & Order started driving me in to ACLU-rage. It’s established in the first episode that he has a brain tumor that’s going to kill him in six months, he doesn’t want treatment, and he’s trying to kill himself but can’t. In this episode, an F-train stops two inches from his face and a point blank buckshot sprays around him instead of through him.
• As for his partner, played by Harrold Perrineau of Lost infamy, he’s a 42-year-old cop freaked out because all the men in his family die at 42. No matter what Michael does, he simply can’t escape The Numbers.
• I’m torn here. The privileged character who can’t stand the trappings of their family and tries to flee by taking a slummy job has been done to death. Most recently it’s been done on Bones. However, I like that in this case she’s at least still trying to have some sort of relationship with her family. This led to one of the few genuinely funny moments in the episode. Amber Tamblyn’s Detective Schraeger goes to her father’s birthday with the Manhattan, Park Avenue Elite dressed up in her cop clothes. Her mother is dressed in an evening gown with jewels and tells Schraeger she’s dressed like a lesbian. I like how they use her privileged status to frame her as an “uncorruptable” detective. Using the status as part of the character instead of something the character is trying to escape from is at least a new spin on it.
• In happy news, it appears that violations of civil liberties don’t bother me when accompanied by comedy and general absurdity. In this show, it’s supposed to be a joke — as opposed to SVU where Elliot Stabler’s penchant for beating up crazy people who like to masturbate to cat porn is supposed to make him a hero.

The Bad

• I had a moment where I couldn’t process Amber Tamblyn as anything more than than 12-year-old Emily Quartermaine. Happily, I didn’t have to since she’s essentially a Quartermaine on Park Avenue instead of in Port Charles and, really, Port Charles is still in New York. Same person, different apartment. Solid points to ABC for dropping in the Easter Egg of having General Hospital actually ON a TV on the show.
• I found the promised “comedy” on the show lacking. Most of the jokes were pretty low-hanging fruit (“We’d rather work on the Kowalski case.” “I’d rather my son not wear my wife’s underwear.”). There a few funny moments but I was expecting a little more comedy than heavy drama and mystery. Most comedy in every day life is kind of flippant stuff like that, but I’d presume a precinct house is a wellspring of ball-busting (something Life on Mars captured particularly well).
• The payoff for the “Yankees First Baseman becomes a detective” better be stellar. I don’t even know what they can possibly do to make that believable.

The Rest

It’s really a summer show. It’s not a powerhouse that would have any ability to stick around with a fall debut but a fun show to cover the lean summer months. Nothing on the pilot made me fall in love with it, but I’ll give it another couple of episodes to draw me in. At the very least, it’s summer show status makes me pretty sure I’ll at least get a full 13-episode run. At least it beat the Law & Order re-run it was up against.

Overthinking It still isn’t on my regular rotation of blogs to visit primarily because Company X has deemed it appropriate to block RSS Readers from functioning… because, I guess slacking off less efficiently is better for the bottom line or something. Regardless, I still try to get there a couple times a week around five and today’s gem was The Four Greatest Key Changes In Pop Music.

I don’t know a lot of music theory, but I do know Total Eclipse Of The Heart. I pressed play and it jumped to the key change in question — and I was treated to a chunk of the video. And ninjas danced across the screen. Ninjas. Dancing ballet.

And then it occurred to me — people complain a lot about MTV. Dude, remember when they used to play videos? I’ve had MTV Hits for a couple months now and I occasionally check out a video or two or watch 120 Minutes or Headbanger’s Ball. It occurred to me that videos are an endless wellspring of unintentional comedy. What follows here

0:08 – We’re inside what looks to be Bonnie Tyler’s apartment. It’s pretty 80s-fantastic as apartments go. It’s got nice bright walls and translucent white curtains dangling around the room. There are some semi-dangerous candles burning somewhat close to the napalm-curtains. This can’t be safe. On top of that, a stiff breeze is blowing through the room because, as us older people remember, homes in the 80s were notoriously drafty.

0:42 – A young man walks through the door to either Bonnie’s apartment or in the school. He’s glancing at the ground as he slowly walks through the door. He dramatically, yet slowly looks up.

0:44 – OH SWEET JESUS HIS EYES ARE GLOWING. IT’S THE INVASION. THE INVASION HAS COME TO A RANDOM PRIVATE SCHOOL SOMEWHERE…….. IN THE 80s. THEY TOTALLY ECLIPSE YOUR HEART AS THEY EAT YOUR SOUL. THE EYES ARE THE WINDOW TO THE SOUL BUT WHEN THERE’S NO SOUL TO LOOK AT IT’S REPLACED WITH SCARY ZOMBIE-LIGHT.

0:46 – Bonnie seems surprisingly calm about the glowing-eyed young man. She mentions a couple times that she wants the young man to turn around so she can see his bright eyes. Then threatens to fall apart (every now and then).

0:56 – As we graduate to verse two, Bonnie leaves her apartment and heads to the school. And now it starts getting real messed up in the creepy alien invasion school.

1:09 – As Bonnie walks down the hallway to the gym, as obviously that’s where you go in something like this, she glances in some of the classrooms. In the second one, she sees a young boy with wings growing out of his back sitting on a chair. He throws a dove at her that takes flight. She says she gets a little angry every now and then. This symbolizes, I think, insanity.

1:13 – In the next door, Bonnie sees the swim team. They’re just standing around with swim goggles on. You wouldn’t think swim goggles could be creepy, but this video pulls it off. Mainly because you know that glowing death eyes are behind the goggles. As they’re standing there with weird grins on their face, someone tosses water on them to try to melt them like the Signs aliens or the Wicked Witch Of The West.

1:19 – The reason I decided to do this. For an indeterminate reason (other than just being awesome) ninjas appear on the screen and dance around. Ninjas. Frolicking. Frolicking ninjas. I take two things from this. First, Bonnie Tyler is unafraid of the impending invasion of soulrending aliens because she has a private attack force of ninjas who are seen for three seconds and never seen again. And second, the ninjas don’t have to be explained because they’re ninjas and, by default, just awesome. If you’re keeping score at home — Bonnie Tyler, team of defense ninjas; rest of us, on our own.

1:25 – There is a team of guys sitting in the gym eating dinner. They may or may not be the ninjas. You’d never know.

1:30 – KEY CHANGE, BITCHES!

1:39 – The ninjas have vanished and have been replaced with frolicking ballet dancers in leotards. On the intimidation scale we just went from infinity to -115. You could make the argument that the ninjas are actually undercover as ballet dancers, but that’s stupid. Ninjas can go undercover as air.

2:15 – There are now football players. In full pads. They run up to the mirror, check its safety, and run off. Then Tyler rushes up to mirror to gaze longingly in to it. Her eyes still aren’t glowing so, near as we can tell, she still has a soul.

2:59 – The keyboard solo rides in and hell follows with it. The doors of her apartment fly open. The doors in the school fly open. Men flips and dance. She runs down a hallway with light behind her. Men are wet! The guys eating dinner toss the food! A man takes off his fencing mask! IT’S BREAKING LOOSE IN UNAFFILIATED SCHOOL SET.

3:29 – And now, the undisputed creepiest moment in music video history. Out of the 80s smoke machine rises a chorus of pod-people, all clad in robes, singing the chorus. In creepy purple light with their glowing eyes unblinkingly staring at the camera, they serenade us. They want us to turn around so we can be given bright eyes. I SAY THEE NAY, DEMONS! We cut back and they all raise their zombie arms and one FLIES TOWARD THE CAMERA at us. This could very easily be a scene from any horror movie. I might have nightmares.

3:35 – No, I will not entertain the notion that the scene is made less creepy by the fact we can see the cord connected to the scary flying alien boy.

3:43 – A creepy, 10-year-old vampire kid is sitting on a throne. He glares in to the camera with his lil vampire suit and tells us that he “needs you more than ever.” Who made this?

3:48 – A group of kids are getting the f*ck out of dodge.

3:54 – SWERVE! They were running toward Bonnie so they could dance around her.

4:08 – We’re flashing between Bonnie singing and dancing in the middle of frolicking half naked men and creepy, robed pod-people. One is scarier than the other, I’m just not sure which. In case you hadn’t heard — forever is going to start tonight. Whether you want it to or not.

4:33 – An angel wraps it’s wings around Bonnie — to protect her from the death and carnage that has come to this school, I presume.

4:41 – Now it’s daytime and we’re outside the school. Apparently the attack of the pod people of glowing-eyed doom was all a dream. Bonnie is walking down a line of suited up school boys to congratulate them for something? She’s in a suit? Maybe she’s the headmistress? Oh, it all makes sense. She was dreaming about a difficult day at work.

5:10 – BUT IT WASN’T A DREAM!!! She shakes hands with one of the boys who looks up at her with super glowing death eyes! She looks confused, yet not terrified. He then sings “turn around bright eyes” in a creepy falsetto obviously designed to shatter eardrums and hypnotize. IT’S NOT OVER!

5:24 – The boys shoulder past her in to the school where they will obviously proceed with their plans of world domination.

So, what I gathered from this is that Bonnie Tyler ushered in the era of teachers having hot fantasies about their students. I mean, she’s walking around a boarding school and being accosted by creepy zombified versions of high school students. This…. can’t be normal.

Please feel free to check it out if you don’t want to sleep tonight.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=840B27zYfOk[/youtube]

1) I do hope that Vince still listens to crowd reactions at huge events like Wrestlemania. It seems like Christian’s years in exile didn’t do anything to numb the WWE Universe’s love of him. The crowd not only popped absurdly huge for Christian’s awesome ladder spot, but booed CM Punk for stopping his win. I hope this gets Christian drafted to whatever show Triple H isn’t on after next week’s draft special.

2) Who decided that it was a good idea to shuffle out the tag title unification match and instead put a 20-minute Kid Rock concert on the main show? Whoever you are — you’re an idiot. As a wrestling fan, it was insulting and stupid. Kid Rock hasn’t been relevant in years and he opened the stupid mini-concert with a song that’s TEN YEARS OLD now. For God’s sake — did anyone prefer seeing that over the tag title match? What a waste of my time and their money.

3) And, as an addendum to the above. I realize that there was no way to let all 25 Divas enter individually, but we couldn’t give Sunny a 15-second entrance? I mean, she’s the original Diva and the masturbatory force for an entire generation of wrestling fans. She was also legitimately the only reason to watch Raw for more than a year. She helped invent the mainstream downloading of almost porn. We can’t hit her music? We spent 20 minutes supposedly respecting Roddy Piper and Jimmy Snuka — who can barely move — and a woman who had 100x more influence on turning the product in to what it is today isn’t even mentioned? Disappointing and crappy. Excellent job by all involved that we didn’t even know Torrie Wilson was in the event until after she was eliminated. Such crap. Like, even more crap than it should have been.

4) Jimmy Snuka and Roddy Piper both need to just stop. It’s not flattering, it’s not respectful, it’s embarassing. Snuka looks like he has barely any concept of where he is and his body has reached the melting phase. Piper’s almost reached Iron Sheik level of gut. If they insisted on doing Jericho vs. a legend, it should have just been Jericho/Steamboat. If anything, Steamboat proved that wrestlers don’t really have to turn in to broken men by 50 if they don’t spend their 40s continuing to kill their bodies. Great work by Ricky and a gigantic BOO to the usually spot-on WWE production crew for missing Steamboat skinning the cat. The crowd freaked out for it and JR was selling it as the greatest thing he’d ever seen until he got the update from the truck to shut up about it because they missed it. Steamboat was the only highlight of this segment as the two old guys were embarrassing and Rourke seemed like there were 100 places he’d rather be.

5) I will admit to being surprised about the squashy-ness of the JBL/Mysterio match. I’ll guess this wasn’t always the plan until Taz walked out of Smackdown last week. I guess JBL’s return to the Smackdown booth is imminent. I look forward to seeing how much better he is without the gaping wasteland of suck that’s Michael Cole. For the record, the discussion came up that Michael Cole might actually be the worst announcer in wrestling history — including Nitro-Schill-Mode Tony Schiavone.

6) There aren’t enough good things to say about Undertaker/Michaels. Everything was done amazingly well from the entrances right through to the finish. I’m going to go ahead and assume that this is the last Wrestlemania where we’ll see the Undertaker try and pull out the tope con hilo as he nearly died doing it last night. As I’m sure it was not intended for Undertaker to almost die and need time to recover — props to Shawn’s improvised heel-turn by dragging the referee in the ring and demanding he put the 10-count on the Undertaker’s corpse. This match was pretty much the only good thing on the card.

7) Speaking of gaping wastelands of suck — the World Title match should have been Cena/Edge. I don’t understand Vince’s dogged insistence that these Wrestlemania title matches be pointless three-ways with two guys who might win and a third wheel. I’m fine with Cena winning but I do blame the two dozen Cenas for me losing my over/under prop bet on the number of druids involved in the Undertaker’s entrance. We set it at 22.5 and I took the over. Stupid Cenas.

8) The Austin send-off was cool. The only depressing moment I had was the sad realization that wrestling is probably never going to be as good as it was in that five-year stretch between when the nWo started until Austin’s heel turn in 2001. That five-year stretch of Nitro’s prime and Austin’s Attitude Era was it. It was better than Hulkamania in the 80s and it was probably the best thing we’re ever going to see. We have at least a decade of WWHHHE to look forward to before something like that even has a chance of happening again.

9) And speaking of — the main event was a joke. When Triple H moved to Smackdown, I joked about how I looked forward to watching him crush the entire roster. Unfortunately, he’s actually doing it. The only valid thing to do with Triple H at this point is to turn himself in to the douchey, heel owner/wrestler who does everything he can to keep the title. Unfortunately, because he actually IS a douchey owner/wrestler who wants to keep the title and be loved, he won’t do this. He seems like the type of guy who will watch the dead crowd and the zero reaction to him winning and put the blame on Orton and not realize that no one cares about watching a guy who owns the book win. No one cared about Jarrett when he did it, no one cared about Nash when he was doing it, no one cared about the Gagnes when they were doing it, and no one cares now. On top of that, they spent a year building up Orton as a monster heel and crushed him dead in 15 minutes. Well played, guys. I don’t understand why they put him on Smackdown if he was just going to continue being on both shows. Just unify the titles on yourself and be on both shows for the next decade. That’s what you want. Just do it.

10) It’s in the Top Five Worst Wrestlemanias of all time. It’s on the short list with 7, 8, 9, 13, and WM2k. The Kid Rock Segment was an embarrassment. The triple threat match was terrible. The main event was a joke. The Diva Battle Royal was even worse than it should have been. The old guys were terrible. And the Hardys failed to deliver. The only things worth watching were a good Money In The Bank match and the excellent Undertaker/Michaels match. Hugely disappointing Wrestlemania.

That Bootleg Guy and I shot a few e-mails back and forth this week talking about the MLB Over/Unders this week and it turned itself in to a blog post. In the interest of full disclosure, I did not actually lay money on any of these as I’m still actively preventing myself from the can of vipers that would be opened if I created an online gambling account. Of the six guesses I made, I only dropped my “Giants Over” call when m’boy Hulse pointed me at Matt Cain’s 3.76 career ERA and accompanying 30-43 record. Touchee, sir.

Tom

Boston Red Sox – 94.5 wins: The division has the reigning American League Champions and a Yankee team that just spent a quarter billion dollars on new contracts. The Yankees may be paying CC and Texeira well in to their twilight years, but the front end should be worth it. At least one team in this division isn’t hitting 95 wins, and my money goes on the team who just replaced David Ortiz (Boston)/Manny with David Ortiz (Minnesota)/Kevin Youkilis. UNDER.

Kansas City Royals – 75.5 wins: The thing that keeps the Royals above .500 is Major League Baseball’s decision to schedule them against half the NL Central every year. Even with the free wins, they still only managed 75 wins last year. And I’m supposed to find a 76th? In the AL? Pass. UNDER. In other news, the New York Times disagrees.

Florida Marlins – 76.5 wins: They have mostly the same team they did last year and almost all of their nearly-free roster is on the right side of 30. The really scary part about this team (as it was a couple years ago) is that Loria could sign a few free agents and this team would be unstoppable-good. Fortunately, he’s still whining and stomping his feet and making the team almost a contender instead of a real one. Good for me. Not only do I love this bet, but I love the Marlins as a sleeper for the NL Wildcard. The other two divisions are still pretty bad, the Braves barely improved, and the Phillies are already battling injuries in April. Besides all that, they have probably the best overall player in the league, a solidly mediocre pitching staff, and a guy who might wind up being the league’s second best player in Cameron Maybin. This group has only been getting better. OVER.

New York Mets – 88.5 wins: The Mets are a 90-win team on paper. The problem is they were a 90-win team on paper for the last two seasons. I think they are probably going to come out the gate huge. My hesitation at booking them for a 90-win season is a really bad feeling their 2 and 3 starters are going to do a stint or two on the DL. Oliver Perez is out of shape because he spent most of Spring Training not pitching in the WBC and John Maine has been injury-plagued for two seasons. My gut feeling is over, so that’s the way we’ll go. OVER.

Cleveland Indians – 85.5 wins: While I’m not one of the fools expecting Cliff Lee to remain Pedro Martinez, I love the Tribe to bounce back this year and take the division from the White Sox. The Indians lost a significant weapon last year with Hafner’s injury and, if he’s even three-quarters of what he was, that makes them a lot better than they were last year. I love them for the Central and I love them here. OVER.

That Bootleg Guy

Los Angeles Angels – 88.5 wins: Make no mistake…the Angels, when healthy, are the cream of the American League West. But, (1) the AL West could be historically awful this year and (2) the Angels aren’t all that healthy. They’ll be without their three best starting pitchers until at least May and their defense will bleed extra runs all year. UNDER.

Texas Rangers – 74.5 wins: I think the Rangers are a very real dark-horse candidate to take the division. They’ve quietly put together a hell of an offense with guys you’ve heard of (Josh Hamilton) and guys you haven’t (1B Chris Davis, 2B Ian Kinsler). Yeah, they’ll go as far as their pitching, but Texas won 79 games with subpar staff last year. OVER.

New York Yankees – 95.5 wins: I had my doubts about the Yanks in ’09, anyway, but when they chose league-average OF Xavier Nady over the more productive Nick Swisher, that sealed the deal. So much of their offense depends on unlikely turnarounds and the miracle of sustained production and good health. The starting arms should be fine, but the bridge to Mo Rivera isn’t exactly dependable. UNDER.

Oakland A’s – 82.5 wins: Dallas Braden (career: 6-12, 5.44 ERA) is our Opening Night starter. The rotation includes two guys (Brett Anderson, Trevor Cahill) who’ve never pitched more than 124 innings in a professional season. The “much improved” offense is too reliant on old guys (Jason Giambi, Nomar Garciaparra), declining guys (Orlando Cabrera, Nomar) and injury-prone guys (Eric Chavez, Nomar). UNDER.

San Diego Padres – 70.5 wins: The Pads will be in contention for “worst team in baseball” all season long. They feature just two legitimate hitters (Adrian Gonzalez, Brian Giles) and two dependable starting pitchers (Jake Peavy, Chris Young). But, Giles and Peavy are all but guaranteed to be moved to contenders during the season, while the team’s 29th ranked farm system has nothing in the pipeline to replace them. UNDER.

Gary Sheffield: 2008 – Detroit Tigers. 2009 – $400k: Take it away Mr. Hulse.

So let me get this straight….

The fact that he’d be playing one year in the hopes of getting another contract, coupled with the fact that he’s a malcontent which means he’ll bust his ass just to prove Jim Leyland wrong because in his screwed up head that’s how you do business…I might have to say I’m on board with giving it a shot. Besides the fact that he’s a massive douchenozzle…. I’m failing to see the issue here.

To the locker room cancer argument — henceforth known as “The Marbury Effect” in New York.

I’d say the fact that Marbury played for 21 million more than free hurt more than his attitude. The lack of any discernible leadership to control him on the Knicks let his attitude destroy the team. Plus they were on the hook for the kind of money that makes cutting that player impossible. Bottom line, I’m not saying he’s gonna light it up, and if his glove is that bad he may pinch hit. If he becomes an issue, he’s cut and they move on at a bargain rate. Ultimately this is as low risk as it gets with a really high reward ceiling. Like I said, what if he comes along, hits .295, 35 bombs, 100 RBI, and his glove work isn’t so horrific it makes him useless?

Also it’s ultimately a contract year which is always a good thing to get on the cheap, a la Pudge in 2003 (when everyone said he was done and he rejuvenated his career to the tune of 40 mil from Detroit).

PECOTA’s got him at .247/.344/.420 for 2009. For $400k and a serviceable glove in right field? Sure, why not?

Prediction: 90 starts. .276/.340/.490 — 20 HR, 85 RBI.

Name: Saranac Belgian (style) Ale
Brewed By: Matt Brewing Company
Brewed In: Utica, NY
Type: Belgian (style) Ale
ABV: 5.9%

What They Say: Saranac Belgian Style Ale is deliciously fruity. It is brewed with a generous amount of Belgian aromatic malt, hand selected hops, and a traditional Belgian Ale yeast. Brewed in the “trappist” style.

Website: Saranac passes my muster for a good website. Navigation on top, everything easily noticeable and findable without much work. Well done, guys.

Why I Picked It: Part 4 of The 12 Beers Of Winter. This was definitely in last year’s incarnation of the 12 Beers and, according the website, this is it’s only availability. Another odd choice for me in a winter pack because I’ve always filed Belgians in the warm weather folder.

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Presentation: A light red bordering on dark pink label. The watercolor of choice for the Belgian is a small bit of whitewater with a rowboat off to the side — obviously to remind the drinker of Belgium. 3

Originality: It seems like every brewery is in a rush to get out a Belgian (don’t you DARE say Trappist) Ale of some sort. Very few of them (read, only breweries located near the Baseball Hall Of Fame) do them particularly well. With the relative robust availability of Chimay, Leffe, and Corsendonk — I really don’t know why American Breweries waste their time. 1

Taste: The primary reason I never really go out of my way to find great Belgian beer is because I find most of them taste the same. I like the flavor, but they all follow the same early citrus, late clove, bitter drymouth at the end formula. I like the beer, I like the experience, but most of them end up being OK interpretations of 1000-year-old recipes. They do a fine job duplicating the flavor here, but it’s not an addition to the 12-pack I’d miss. 7

Body: If you’ve had one of these, you’ve had most of them. The relative weight of a Belgian’s body remains hard for me to nail down. It feels lager-thin when you pour it and drink it, but by the time the aftertaste rolls around, it feels like you’ve eaten a meal. I’m just a simple caveman, I don’t understand your complex brewing processes. 6

Efficiency: I find Belgians to be near the pinnacle of craft beer efficiency. Their flavor is generally light and refreshing with only a moderately bitter aftertaste. Even that bitterness is generally countered by the citrus clovey sweetness of the other ingredients. The only downside is they generally dry your tongue and wear out their welcome. This beer is no different. The flavor is fantastic and the sandpaper-tongue is muted terrifically. That said, other Belgians do this with much stronger ABV. 8

Versatility: The relative difficulty in obtaining this beer in anything other than the 12 Beers significantly limits its versatility score. You wouldn’t use it to impress your friends. You wouldn’t show up at a Belgian (style) party touting it as your favorite Belgian. If anything, it’s a cheaper imitation of really good Belgian ales. Unfortunately, since you have to buy a 12-pack to get two of them, the regular Belgian 22s probably work out to be cheaper by volume. 2

Final Grade: 27 (of 50) – Good beer.

Johan Santana – 2008 salary – $19M. 2009 salary – $20M: There’s not much to say about Santana. There’s no bit of last year’s collapse on him short of the comic relief of giving up a grand slam to Felix Hernandez. Santana was a bad bullpen away from being 23-7 with 200+ strikeouts and a 2.53 ERA. The stories about Santana slowing down his last year in Minnesota were apparently greatly exaggerated. Or he moved to the NL… one or the other.

Prediction: With the new bullpen, I’m going to pencil in the Cy Young award for Queens. I don’t think Lincecum’s going to repeat this season and Webb’s due to finally slow down. With CC out of the NL again and Cole Hamels with a possible injury, I don’t see anyone beating Santana this year.

Oliver Perez: 2008 salary – $6.25M (arbitration). 2009 salary – $12M, new contract guaranteed through 2011. Ollie wasn’t exactly the Mets first option in the offseason and finally picked him back up almost as an afterthought when the Derek Lowe deal fell through. Considering the price, I’m going to assume that teams were put off by the idea of getting Evil Ollie as a throw in when signing Good Ollie. With what pitching is going for, the Oliver Perez deal is about what he is worth and I’m glad Scott Boras realized it. Now, the issue seems to be that he spent most of the WBC getting fat instead of pitching, so we’ll pencil him in for a DL trip by mid-May. He’s currently getting lit-up in Spring Training and, while that’s not a huge deal, it indicates there’s going to be a problem once real games start in, you know, a few days.

Prediction: Ollie pulls a serious muscle some time in late April due to the idiotic placement of the WBC and doesn’t get back until late June. While on the DL, he finds Duaner Sanchez and Sanchez teaches him all about the killer eats down in Miami.

John Maine – 2008 salary – $450k. 2009 salary – $2.6M (arbitration): I really have no idea what will happen with Maine this year. He’s one of those guys who tends to pitch through injury so you really can’t tell if he’s going bad because he’s hurt or because he’s bad. The disconcerting bit about Maine is that he lost a decent amount of velocity last year and it caused his K/9 rate to go down from about 8.5 in 2007 to about 7.9 in 2008. Accompanying this was a more disturbing rise in his BB/9 to 4.3 from 3.5. Neither trend is particularly settling. If Maine’s injuries are behind him, we’ll get a good year out of him. If they aren’t, it’s going to be another rough year watching him try to nibble corners instead of blowing guys away with two strikes and being pulled after five innings. ESPN’s projections have him coming in at 14 wins, a 4 ERA, and 178 K vs. 78 BB. Really, that seems about right. If it isn’t, he’s a DL trip or two from being the 7th inning guy. All that said, his spring has been encouraging and his velocity is returning. It’s a matter of finding his control again.

Prediction: Maine winds up being a much better starter than Perez this season. He ends up winning 16 with a sub 3.5 ERA as Dan Warthen finally manages to fix his mechanics.

Mike Pelfrey – 2008 salary – $450k. 2009 salary – $475k: I’ve spent the last few weeks convincing myself to not be excited over Pelfrey’s well-above-expectation 2008. Another guy who suffered for lack of bullpen help last year, Pelfrey went 13-11 in a season where a significant chunk of his losses and no decisions featured masterful performances where he gave up three runs or less. Pelfrey is a good example of why Mets’ fans are a bit too crazy sometimes. The guy spent barely 33 starts in the minor leagues. They brought him up and he got rocked in his early starts. Instead of sending him back down, the organization made him work on his stuff at the major league level. Everyone was ready to trade him before he figured it out. He went on to have a terrific season. The only worry I have is Pelfrey hitting the 200-inning wall. It didn’t seem to effect him TOO much last year, but now we still have to see if he can bounce back and do it again.

Prediction: Pelfrey continues to improve in 2009. I get to find out what happens when the walk year of a minor league deal happens after a guy’s been brought up.

Livan Hernandez – 2008 – Minnesota Twins/Colorado Rockies. 2009 – $1M: As a five-starter, I’ll definitely take a guy who almost always gets to 200 innings and 10 wins. Even if I am signing up for the occasional 15 hit, 7 run nightmare — I also get the occasional 7 inning, 2 run masterpiece. Whatever, I have it with Ollie Perez, too, so what’s having it with a second starter?

Jon Niese – 2008 – minor league. 2009 – minor league: Niese was given 3 starts down the stretch run as part of the aforementioned Operation: Triple-A Is Pointless. One was brilliant and two were the opposite of brilliant. He’s in a good place right now. Livan will eat innings for this year and keep his spot warm. I expect Niese will probably be brought up sometime during Ollie Perez’s second DL stint after the league catches back up with guys like Claudio Vargas.

Prediction: 7 starts, 2-3, 5+ ERA.

K-Rod – 2008 – Los Angeles Angels. 2009 salary – $8.5M: The Mets are convinced the bullpen was the beginning and end of all last year’s problems. Never mind the fact that the team’s slugging percentage drops to .365 in innings 7-9 and that they couldn’t buy a run in the last three innings of baseball games. It’s totally all on the bullpen. I do know that Billy Wagner had proven himself to have a little bit of the Trevor Hoffman in him. He could rattle off ten to twelve perfect saves at the beginning of the season. Then, cosmically, give up things like game-tying RBI to Grady Sizemore in the All-Star Game. I’ll leave it to my esteemed colleague from the West Coast who follows the western division of the Homerunderby-ball league to fill me in on the quality of the Mets acquisition, but for now I’m happy with it. Besides, the Mets have been known to have a problem with overcelebrating. They needed a bit of tempered class on the mound to bring respect and honor to the franchise.

Prediction: K-Rod eclipses Jose Reyes as the Phillies’ least favorite Met. David Wright takes at least two HBPs for this.

JJ Putz – 2008 – Seattle Mariners. 2009 salary – $5M: In possibly the greatest indication of the Mets’ feelings on their bullpen, they banished Aaron Heilman as far away as they could possibly send him and incarcerated poor Joe Smith in Cleveland. Heilman was then flipped to Chicago, where he’ll finally get his chance to start… probably. I look forward to him going 26-4 this year… or 4-26 — I could see either. Honestly, the Putz trade is probably a better deal than the K-Rod one. The Mets’ middle relief was terrible. Last year, getting from the starter to Wagner was an adventure. This was really an underrated, key pick-up.

Prediction: The Mets try to pick up Putz’s extension early in the season and sign him for another two years on top of that.

Sean Green – 2008 – Seattle Mariners. 2009 salary – $471k: Another piece of the JJ Putz trade, Green is a 29-year-old right-handed reliever. All I got is that he’s a relief pitcher with a league-average ERA. I’ll take it and like it. I’d like to extend a thank you to the Seattle Mariners for their part in rebuilding the Met bullpen.

Prediction: Sean Green takes Shawn Green’s jersey number and the Wilpons save part of their 300 million Schrute Madoff bucks.

Pedro Feliciano: Takes the role of “lefty specialist” from Scott Schoenweis, who was shipped to Arizona for Connor Robertson. Schoenweis, who appreciably took last season hard going so far as to break in to tears after the final game, will be remembered in New York for his final pitch to Wes Helms — a tie-breaking, eigth-inning shot that might still be traveling. I don’t blame Schoenweis for this because he never, ever should face right-handed batters in any circumstance. Lefties hit .178 off him. Righties hit .333. Obviously, he was the correct guy to be facing a righty in a must-win situation. Feliciano goes between long-relief and lefty specialist. He’s been a reliable bullpen guy for the last few seasons, so huzzah.

Prediction: Feliciano remains our Latino poor-man’s Scot Shields.

Bobby Parnell, Carlos Muniz, Brian Stokes: The three guys left in the bullpen. They all played a small bit part in the bullpen last year, but nothing to hate them over quite yet. I’m sure I’ll hate them quite soon, but for now, I pretty much got nothin.