DRINKY DRINKY: GWINIZ DU - BUCKWHEAT BEER

During my stay in Bretagne, I had the opportunity to taste a couple of different beers that'd I'd never tasted before (and some apple cider and pear cider too).

Most of my beer tasting was from one brewery, the Brasserie de Bretagne (simply: The Brittany Brewery). I tried their blonde (pilsner*), white/wheat/blanc, and this interesting amber beer made with "blé noir" (black wheat or buckwheat as we Americans say). I'm not sure if they keep all the wheat out of it, but I know that there are US breweries making beer for a "gluten-free lifestyle" (including one in lovely Ramapo, NY).

In any case, here's how it happened. I bought a mixed 6 pack of wheat and buckwheat from Brassiere de Bretagne. I tasted the wheat beer, which was fine and then I happened to have Gwiniz Du in a bar. It was weird and I didn't like it the first time I tried it - too different from other beer, my brain couldn't wrap itself around the beer. I packed the 3-pack up and brought it home and tried it again and i liked it the second (third and fourth) time(s). I'm not sure if 1) I got a bad bottle in the bar, 2) the chilling, then unchilling then rechilling of the beer made it good or 3) it's an acquired taste and now I like it after having (so to speak) lost my buckwheat virginity.

The beer is quite sour, with a weird sweet/sour finish. It's very complex with many flavors that my palate is unable to distinguish. Overall, I'm fairly impressed, for a French beer this one is pretty high on my list. The French in general make bland Bud-like pilsners that are fine if you're slamming a thirty-pack at the beach, but not something that my beer-snob psyche really likes to be seen drinking - between Heini and the French macros, I always take Heini, if that tells you anything.

As heavy as this beer is (5.4 abv, dark amber color), it actually works in mildly hot weather. It doesn't stick around in your mouth for too long and leaves it feeling more-or-less fresh (although there is a prevailing sour taste, even a few moments the beer is gone) One last point for Gwiniz Du, it survived the aforementioned skunky test. It was in a fridge for 3 days, then spent a full day in the sun in the back of the car, then two days at room-temperature then got put back in the fridge. And it doesn't taste like shit now. That earns it a couple of merit badges in my book. It also took gold at the Paris General Agricultural Fair in 2006 (edit: 2008 as well). That may seem like a laugh, but they take their agriculture very seriously here.

If you find it (you probably won't if you don't go to a beer fest and/or Brittany), pick up a bottle, just for the hell of it. If not, try one of Brasserie de Bretagne's other offerings. It's something different.

*Fuck Mozilla for not including "pilsner" in their default American-English spell-check dictionary.

JIMMY MCNULTY'S BACK AND OTHER STUFF

(No spoilers).

I've got a ton of shite that I've wanted to blog about for the last week and a half or so, but with the whole getting back to France, struggling with jetlag and getting back into the work thing, I've not really had time.

Anyway, I watched S5E1 of the Wire last night and I'm just happy to see that McNulty's back to his drunk and stumbling, womanizing ways...he's far more enjoyable like this than the stand-up guy that he was last season. I won't go into any depth because I know that Kammann's not watched it yet, but I will say this: FUCK SLATE FOR RUINING EVERYTHING GOOD THAT EVER HAPPENS ON TV. They did this same thing for the final season of the Sopranos; they are these talking heads who think that critiquing pop culture makes them even more smarter. I don't fucking care if you think that the Wire is more Shakespearian or Dickensian. I'm done with Slate; I swear I'm going to remove it from my RSS reader...tomorrow.

SCREW THE SABRES. I had the opportunity to watch 4 games in the last three weeks. They won one, lost two in the shootout and lost one by 3 goals. I honestly can't complain about the loss in Jersey, cause we were there and I said that if it went to a shootout I wouldn't bitch; I lied, but I was happy to see a shootout. On New Year's Day the game was so fucking awesome that it's not really that big of a deal that they lost. I'd have liked to see them win, but watching Sid-the-Kid save hockey and then scream like a school girl was pretty funny. You know he loves hockey, and that's great to see. Lindy was smiling while he was losing...That you never see.
I caught the 3rd period of the Sabres shit performance in Atlanta on Sunday...Come on 5 to 2. What the fuck.

Jeff talked about this beer, but Blue Point Oatmeal Stout Cask was my personal beer of the year. It was the first cask beer that I'd had and it was just brilliant. Three Philosophers was probably second. Let's hear it for NYS beermakers. I had these on two consecutive days between Christmas and New Years. Plus we ate at Hudson House...Those few days made up for the rest of the crappy year.

T.I.H.™ OPEN FUCKING OFFICE 2.3. Sun Microsystems can suck my balls for providing a free program that is such a pain in my ass. Ok I don't hate it enough to pony up $400 for Microsoft Office, but I've been fighting with Oo2.3 since yesterday morning and it's starting to grind on me. Part of it may be my fault, because of my inexperience with FauXcel, I keep making mistakes that have little-to-nothing to do with Oo2.3, but still, the eggheads who program should have thought that someone, like me, may try to paste entire sheets into one cell and planned for this. But they didn't, so it crashes and I have restart at my last save point (I just did it for the third time in the last 30 minutes: I suck).

CAN SOMEONE WAKE ME UP WHEN IT'S TIME TO VOTE FOR RALPH WIGGUM? I'm so fucking sick of the primaries and they just started. Ok, we understand, it's going to be either Hillary or Obama...or someone else and McCain or Huckabee...or someone else. One state does not make a trend, and it's irrelevant anyway. Do people actually think that anyone is going to make a difference? It's all about cash.

Who determines the size tires on your car? I just bought tires for mine. I've got 175/65/R13 80T's. If they were 175/70's I would pay about 15 euros less per tire, but because there's a 5% difference in the tire's profile, I have to pay more. I'm convinced that VW does everything in its power to make your life a living hell if you don't buy your parts from them. It took me an hour to change the back wiper on that fucking car because VW has some propriety rear wiper system...Turns out that propriety means nothing to a man with a hammer, pliers, a razor blade and some bolts. Fuck VAG.
I think I'm going to put dubs on my VW Polo...20 inchers bitch. My 55hp (I'm not kidding) should handle that perfectly well!

Check that...FUCK Oo2.3 IN THE PANTS. It just crashed for no fucking reason whatsoever. FUCK FUCK FUCK!
They have this asshole "recovery" thing that just "recovers" your document to the last time you saved it. Goddamn fucking cocks...they must work with Gary ("I SUCK") Bettman. I know that it's "free", but damn it, it's as fucking unstable Lindsay Lohan on ice skates.

This cunt program has crashed 4 times on me this morning...I have honestly lost at least 2 hours of work. Dickheads. Fuck them.

Download it now, kiddies. Openoffice.org.