Here's some barely edited, off the cuff IT speculation for you:
So wearable computing has been getting some press recently and of course people are coming out of the woodwork to say that in a year or two Apple will release their wearable device and the market will take off. While this is probably valid and it fits Apple's M.O. to wait for smaller companies to setup a space and make some gaffes, most of the speculation has been that Apple will enter the smartwatch space based on patent applications and acqui-hires by the rounded-corners giant. Recently some people have been reporting that Apple's interest may have waned due to consumers not buying into smart watches at all. The space remains pretty stagnant and it's likely that the gaffe right now is to even get into it.
However I can't imagine why a company like Apple would go into smart watches to begin with, even if the market for them was thriving.
Put simply, the other half of Apple's mostly winning strategy the past decade and a half or so is to distill the experience of whatever product down to a few of the most useful and simple features, and them package that up in a way that's tightly integrated with the rest of Apple's offerings. The key common ground with all their devices has been the iTunes platform, where they've spent massive amounts of money on development and licenses for music, movies, newspapers, books, games, etc. The iPod started as a music player, and iTunes sold music. Then they added pictures, and then stepped to video. And then iTunes sold movies and TV shows. With the iPhone the iTunes application became a sync hub for that media plus an address book backup and a mobile app store. I think iTunes got into books a bit before the iPad came out, but it's pretty clear that a major use case for the iPad was as an eBook reader. This has all made sense, but the idea of them making a watch does not. Listening to music on your watch is no good. You'd be running a headphone cable to your wrist, and you use your hands and arms a lot during the day. It's clumsy. The screen is too small for movie watching to say anything of reading a book. You probably couldn't play games on it either. So why would they abandon everything they've done and make a watch that doesn't play to their strength of an integrated ecosystem?
My theory is that if Apple does enter wearable computing it will be with a Glass-like device. It makes more sense. It's something that they can make look good, as a major criticism of Glass has been that you look like a doofus while wearing it. They could let it bluetooth pair with your iPhone to access its media. It's a superb platform for listing to music and I bet it'd be a pretty good reader too. They could integrate it with Apple maps to provide a HUD. Probably a dozen other things I can't think of. It'll be the iEyes or i^2 or something. This is of course providing they're even thinking about it, but they may just see wearables as a fad for now.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
--PXA
Monday, September 30, 2013
Horror Pre-Season: The Conjuring & Insidious 2
Alright, so I'm a bit late to the plate this year with the pre-season, but I have been watching movies. While I anxiously await Ti West's newest endeavor, James Wan has proven he's one of the genre's best directors.
The Conjuring came out in July and I saw a lot of similarity between it and what Wan was trying to do with Insidious. They're both stories about average families that move into a new house and begin experiencing a series of terrifying supernatural events they're unprepared for until in a last-ditch effort they call on the services of a paranormal investigator. However The Conjuring remains much more rooted in reality than Insidious did, and by doing so avoids repeating many of the issues I had with the original Insidious.
The Insidious franchise deals with evil spirits that exist in a supernatural realm called the "Further" who aim to possess the living. In its world there are mediums who can communicate across the veil and astral projectors who can send their spirits into the Further and directly interact with the spirits therein. In The Conjuring there is no spirit realm and so the ghosts in its story are just behind our reality, sometimes manifesting in the darkness and gaining strength to affect our world by the fear of their victims.
So The Conjuring is the story of the Perron family played by Ron Livingston and Lili Taylor who move into a new house in the country. Immediately after moving in the family is plagued by night terrors, the wife wakes up with odd bruises, things rattle, pictures fall, the family dog refuses to enter the house and is killed. Until the family contacts Ed and Lorraine Warren played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga. The two are noted paranormal investigators and conclude the house is haunted. They discover historical records about a witch who attempted to sacrifice her children to the devil and then killed herself on the property, which has now been divided up into several plots which have all been haunted. The witch possesses each family's wife and drives them to kill their own children, leading to the plethora of tortured spirits which haunt the house.
The movie is absolutely top-notch and very frightening. Some of the most effective scary scenes being carried on the performances of actors freaking out at literally darkness with nothing in it at all. The pacing is pretty good and Wan does a pretty great job balancing the haunting story with the possession plot and extra setting when some of the haunting begins to affect the Warren's home. The only thing I can really think of that plays against the movie's favor is one or two moments of feel-goody "love and happy memories save all" stuff and a few instances where it was hard to grasp the internal layout of the house due to the heavy use of tunnels behind the walls in the climax. But aside from that it's pretty damn great movie. When I watched it the first time I had thought that it was pretty much another crack at the same basic thing as Insidious, just with a more Catholic and 70's angle, and on that note I found it pretty successful.
But then they actually made more Insidious. Chapter 2 starts off probably a few hours after the original ended and goes from there. Off the bat I'll disclose that out of both Insidious movies and The Conjuring this is probably my least favorite. While it was fun to watch and had some good scares some of it just felt a bit flatter and already-trod. Which I suppose is the issue with horror franchises, once you reveal what's going on your sequel either needs to provide something new or MOAR! To its credit Insidious 2 doesn't try to pad around pretending there's still a mystery as to what's going on and it's story is much more of a continuation of the original than another Insidious. However the tone never quite seems to match up, while Insidious and The Conjuring had great natural peaks and valleys to the tension Insidious 2 seems to be permanently ratcheted about halfway up, in this perpetual slightly strange haze. The Conjuring had a similar sense of muted colors that I recall but for Insidious to adopt it after the original was so visually striking seems like an odd move.
It also seemed like a lot of the makeup on the iconic characters from the first movie was somewhat lacking. The guy with the slicked back hair was really imposing in the original but when he shows up here he just seems like a sickly dude. This may be hinting that the characters are perceiving him differently since they know a lot more about the supernatural elements so he's not as threatening anymore. The elephant in the room both makeup wise and story wise is the old woman that's taken possession of Josh's body at the end of the original Insidious and is now wandering around in a Patrick Wilson suit. Without going too into detail on the twisted origin story of this installment's big bad, it's a bit trite. I've seen the twist a few times before this and probably the only time it was really well done was the first time I saw it, which is unlikely to have been the first time it was done in horror/mystery. There are definitely more interesting things they could have done with their setup, which was actually pretty good. Also compared to the crazy chase through the Further in the original, the climax of this one is a bit of a letdown. It's over just a few minutes after they realize what needs to happen and it's decidedly un-supernatural.
All that said I wouldn't say it was bad. The performances were decent and it was an entertaining movie, still better than the vast majority of the horror I watch. Just comparatively it falls flat against its predecessor and The Conjuring feels much more like a spiritual sequel to Insidious.
The Conjuring came out in July and I saw a lot of similarity between it and what Wan was trying to do with Insidious. They're both stories about average families that move into a new house and begin experiencing a series of terrifying supernatural events they're unprepared for until in a last-ditch effort they call on the services of a paranormal investigator. However The Conjuring remains much more rooted in reality than Insidious did, and by doing so avoids repeating many of the issues I had with the original Insidious.
The Insidious franchise deals with evil spirits that exist in a supernatural realm called the "Further" who aim to possess the living. In its world there are mediums who can communicate across the veil and astral projectors who can send their spirits into the Further and directly interact with the spirits therein. In The Conjuring there is no spirit realm and so the ghosts in its story are just behind our reality, sometimes manifesting in the darkness and gaining strength to affect our world by the fear of their victims.
So The Conjuring is the story of the Perron family played by Ron Livingston and Lili Taylor who move into a new house in the country. Immediately after moving in the family is plagued by night terrors, the wife wakes up with odd bruises, things rattle, pictures fall, the family dog refuses to enter the house and is killed. Until the family contacts Ed and Lorraine Warren played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga. The two are noted paranormal investigators and conclude the house is haunted. They discover historical records about a witch who attempted to sacrifice her children to the devil and then killed herself on the property, which has now been divided up into several plots which have all been haunted. The witch possesses each family's wife and drives them to kill their own children, leading to the plethora of tortured spirits which haunt the house.
The movie is absolutely top-notch and very frightening. Some of the most effective scary scenes being carried on the performances of actors freaking out at literally darkness with nothing in it at all. The pacing is pretty good and Wan does a pretty great job balancing the haunting story with the possession plot and extra setting when some of the haunting begins to affect the Warren's home. The only thing I can really think of that plays against the movie's favor is one or two moments of feel-goody "love and happy memories save all" stuff and a few instances where it was hard to grasp the internal layout of the house due to the heavy use of tunnels behind the walls in the climax. But aside from that it's pretty damn great movie. When I watched it the first time I had thought that it was pretty much another crack at the same basic thing as Insidious, just with a more Catholic and 70's angle, and on that note I found it pretty successful.
But then they actually made more Insidious. Chapter 2 starts off probably a few hours after the original ended and goes from there. Off the bat I'll disclose that out of both Insidious movies and The Conjuring this is probably my least favorite. While it was fun to watch and had some good scares some of it just felt a bit flatter and already-trod. Which I suppose is the issue with horror franchises, once you reveal what's going on your sequel either needs to provide something new or MOAR! To its credit Insidious 2 doesn't try to pad around pretending there's still a mystery as to what's going on and it's story is much more of a continuation of the original than another Insidious. However the tone never quite seems to match up, while Insidious and The Conjuring had great natural peaks and valleys to the tension Insidious 2 seems to be permanently ratcheted about halfway up, in this perpetual slightly strange haze. The Conjuring had a similar sense of muted colors that I recall but for Insidious to adopt it after the original was so visually striking seems like an odd move.
It also seemed like a lot of the makeup on the iconic characters from the first movie was somewhat lacking. The guy with the slicked back hair was really imposing in the original but when he shows up here he just seems like a sickly dude. This may be hinting that the characters are perceiving him differently since they know a lot more about the supernatural elements so he's not as threatening anymore. The elephant in the room both makeup wise and story wise is the old woman that's taken possession of Josh's body at the end of the original Insidious and is now wandering around in a Patrick Wilson suit. Without going too into detail on the twisted origin story of this installment's big bad, it's a bit trite. I've seen the twist a few times before this and probably the only time it was really well done was the first time I saw it, which is unlikely to have been the first time it was done in horror/mystery. There are definitely more interesting things they could have done with their setup, which was actually pretty good. Also compared to the crazy chase through the Further in the original, the climax of this one is a bit of a letdown. It's over just a few minutes after they realize what needs to happen and it's decidedly un-supernatural.
All that said I wouldn't say it was bad. The performances were decent and it was an entertaining movie, still better than the vast majority of the horror I watch. Just comparatively it falls flat against its predecessor and The Conjuring feels much more like a spiritual sequel to Insidious.
Friday, August 16, 2013
The Beerening: Bagel Beer thoughts and tasting notes
However, I got a bad cold afterwards and didn't want to wait so long to get a tasting notes video up.
Tasting Notes:
Bagels were very good. Not having any real basis for comparison between homemade bagels, I would say they were very nice. Slightly sweet, not too doughy. Not dense but not exactly fluffy, the inside seemed to rip more like pretzel than bread. Also chewy but not too much so. One interesting thing I noticed was spots of the outside where hot break material got stuck to the bagels didn't cook like the rest of the outside and make the shell you'd expect. It didn't effect the inside or have much of a noticeable flavor.To the beer: As I mentioned in the video, I went a bit off style with the inclusion of the roasted barley. It's just a bit past the dark end of what the BJCP called ESB, maybe more into Brown ale territory. As I said though, I don't mind the color too much. I like ESB more when it's toward the darker end and a bit chewier, which is what I was hoping to get with the roast barley and oats.
It's slightly cloudy and brown (though not quite as dark as my Brown Ale), and forms a nice white head. However the head retention hasn't been very good for a beer with a pound of oats, though it may just be an effect of being under-carbonated. I'm still dialing in the PSI and had it too low for a while so it might just be pouring aggressively and off-gassing instead of more natural head. Though maybe this is a side effect of using the wort for bagels? Jury's out, which means both this bitter and bagel making need to be done again. In the name of the scientific method.
There's a lot of chocolatey flavor from the roast malt in there, which I was expecting, but it is much more dominant than I wanted. I was hoping that it would be there but with some sweetness and caramel behind it as well, which is lacking. Overall, it is a very nice beer that has a clean flavor and is quite easy drinking and I am powering through the pints.
Notes for the future:
The bagels were delicious, but as you can see in the video they fell apart. I need to investigate alternate methods of forming the ring shape. 2 of the 6 bagels held together very well, and I think those were done by working water into the ends of the joint before working it together and smoothing the outside of it very well. I was worried they were too wet, but that may just be what's required. Another idea is to form balls and then poke a hole through and stretch the dough. Again, I'll just need to make more bagels.I'm enjoying the beer but I think it can get closer to my original intent with a few small changes. Dropping the roast barley to even less should tone down the chocolate to a more manageable level and increasing the range of crystal malts and mashing higher should help raise the Final Gravity. I'm beginning to think I measured wrong when I was at the store and bought half a pound of it. I'll still use less next time I brew this, but it's amazing that at only 2% of my total grain bill a heavily roasted grain had such a profound impact on my beer.
Anyway, I may re-iterate this later in another tasting video.
Cheers!
--PXA
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Boomshine et all location update AGAIN
So, such is my luck that just a few weeks after I posted the previous HTML5 experiment location update my VPS provider decided to pull out of the data center my VPS was located in due to shoddy maintenance on the physical hosts. Coming August 1st that VPS will go offline. I've been moving my data from that machine to a new one in another data center, so from now on the HTML5 code including Boomshine will be available at:
http://172.246.127.134/html5/
And the existing location mentioned in the last post will go offline on August 1st.
I had no idea it was coming, but hopefully this is the last one for a while and it's stable now.
...I should just get a domain name already, anyone know of a reasonably priced registrar that won't hold my domains hostage (I'm looking at you, ENOM)?
--PXA
http://172.246.127.134/html5/
And the existing location mentioned in the last post will go offline on August 1st.
I had no idea it was coming, but hopefully this is the last one for a while and it's stable now.
...I should just get a domain name already, anyone know of a reasonably priced registrar that won't hold my domains hostage (I'm looking at you, ENOM)?
--PXA
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
Boomshine location update
Ahoy,
It recently came to my attention that people were actively using or referencing the HTML5 Boomshine port I had written a while back. However a few months ago I switched hosting companies for my sandbox server and neglected to update the original article.
For anyone looking, the code is back online at: http://192.95.11.89/html5/boomshine/
It recently came to my attention that people were actively using or referencing the HTML5 Boomshine port I had written a while back. However a few months ago I switched hosting companies for my sandbox server and neglected to update the original article.
For anyone looking, the code is back online at: http://192.95.11.89/html5/boomshine/
Saturday, June 22, 2013
The Last of Us experience
Ok, so this isn't the video game writing I normally do, but I felt like I needed to write something about my experience around this game. I'm still working on another beer article, but motivation is scarce. This has been on my mind a lot lately and I wanted to get it out there quickly, so this is a barely editing accounting of my experience buying and playing The Last of Us. I'll admit to not being very far in the game, but there's a reason for that.
So The Last of Us is a Playstation 3 exclusive game developed by Naughty Dog, and it was released in the US on June 14th. I ordered the game on June 15th via some odd configuration of eBay and newegg which I saw posted on reddit.com/r/gamedeals. I'm generally a patient gamer but the hype around the game and the fact I could get it for an entirely reasonable price made me go for it. I got the game on the 18th with plans to play it the evening of the 19th.
Knowing the game was going to need to be updating immediately, I put the disc in and told it to download and install the patch. My 6 months of PS3 ownership have taught me that the PS3 is now going to be absolutely useless until it's done which could be upwards of an hour from now. So later that night I went to check on the status and it was done. It was too late to play, so I turned off the console.
The next day, I went to play the game after work only to discover that my PS3 controller had run down its battery. I'm told that keeping a USB hub near your sofa to charge your PS3 controllers is all the rage nowadays, but I've apparently not kept up with the times and the closest place for me to charge my controller is the PS3 itself using the 3 foot cable that ships with the console. My hopes dashed, I plugged the controller in to charge and played some Mass Effect on Xbox.
The next day I went again to play using my freshly charged controller. Starting the game yields a loading screen for a few minutes before bringing up the menu which was peaceful, yet sparse and showing signs of decay. Selecting new game yields another loading screen. This one is all black apart from some sparkles that look like they could turn into the PS3 main menu at any point. After a minute or two some "Loading..." text appears in the bottom right corner with a percentage that slowly climbs. When the percentage finally reaches 100%, the loading screen starts it again. A few more 0-100 runs of the "Loading..." text and the opening cinematic finally begins.
So I play the game, and it's pretty well done. A little heavy on the cutscenes, but still not bad. Then I start to get into the main part of the gameplay and realize I'm really bad at this. But I'm not bad at this because I don't understand what to do, I'm bad at this because the control scheme is fucking me up. I feel like the game really demands I know the controls pretty immediately. I find whenever I try to be really stealthy I'll be trying to sneak up on a guy and then football victory-check a brick directly into the ground or lunge at the empty space next to someone. It's pretty frustrating. And if there's more than 2-3 bad guys I'm generally better off just starting a huge fight and beating everyone to death with a board instead of taking them out one at a time. I tried to take out that fucking Clicker in the beginning of the MBTA station level right before the Goldstone building like 4 times and failing at it before I just shot it in the head a few times then Molotov'd the mob that ran in. That pissed me off because that is not how I want to play this game.
Rewinding a bit, a few hours before that point I decided I want to save, in case I was about to do something totally boneheaded and I didn't want to restart the entire section. Now I stare at a message saying "Autosaving still in progress" for a minute, then an unresponsive options menu for a bit with several messages about Autosaving before finally being allowed to select a savegame file. It's around this point that my girlfriend casually quips, "This got 10 out of 10?"
I want to bring this up in relation to a 9 out of 10 game that I played on the Xbox 360: Batman Arkham City.
I bought Arkham City several months after release date from a gamestop and brought the disc home. I put it into the Xbox and turned on the controller. I don't think the controller had been dead, but if it had I have plenty of rechargeable batteries around because I use them in: My wireless mouse, other Xbox controllers, digital cameras, digital scale, TV remote control, my brewing thermometer, and a few other things I'm sure I've forgotten.
I intend to play the game tonight, but am greeted by an update screen. Which is no big deal to me, I know that historically the Xbox will finish updating in under a minute. My experience has not led me astray and the game is ready to play and at the menu before I can think about how uncomfortable my couch is. I start a new game and with less than 30 seconds of loading, the opening cinematic starts. I then proceed to play the fuck out Arkham City and continually revisit the game.
This experience also applies to every Xbox 360 game I have played: Mass Effect, Left 4 Dead, Alan Wake, Assassin's Creed(s), etc, while a similar "Oh Gods I hope it doesn't need to update" scenario unfolds every time I try to play something on the PS3.
Now the point:
I firmly believe that the strength of a console lies in its games. Graphics and capabilities are generally equal and have been for a generation or two, so the exclusives and online services are where the difference is made. I am not a Xbox fanboy or part of the PC master race. But, I find the PS3 and incredibly inconvenient console to use. It seems like there is no such thing as deciding to play a game and then playing it on the PS3. The console feels replete with loading screens and saving progress bars. If there is an update, you might as well cancel your plans. And the lack of replaceable batteries in the controllers will never fail to aggravate me. It's a wireless freaking controller, it feels like it's missed the point if I have to plug it in to use it.
I firmly believe the experience of The Last of Us is being hindered by its console exclusivity. I think the PS3 is holding me back from really enjoying the game and that sucks. I'm not going to say I'd be able to control it better if I were on a PC or Xbox 360, that's unfair. But the time and waiting I had to put into playing the game at all, and the time I need to spend waiting for the game to be ready for me to play it every single time I want to really saps the enjoyment. This is compounded by the fact that the platform seems to continually pull me out of the game whenever I save.
I'm hoping they eventually port this because I'd like to see how it fairs without the PS3 getting in the way because it really feels like it does.
So The Last of Us is a Playstation 3 exclusive game developed by Naughty Dog, and it was released in the US on June 14th. I ordered the game on June 15th via some odd configuration of eBay and newegg which I saw posted on reddit.com/r/gamedeals. I'm generally a patient gamer but the hype around the game and the fact I could get it for an entirely reasonable price made me go for it. I got the game on the 18th with plans to play it the evening of the 19th.
Knowing the game was going to need to be updating immediately, I put the disc in and told it to download and install the patch. My 6 months of PS3 ownership have taught me that the PS3 is now going to be absolutely useless until it's done which could be upwards of an hour from now. So later that night I went to check on the status and it was done. It was too late to play, so I turned off the console.
The next day, I went to play the game after work only to discover that my PS3 controller had run down its battery. I'm told that keeping a USB hub near your sofa to charge your PS3 controllers is all the rage nowadays, but I've apparently not kept up with the times and the closest place for me to charge my controller is the PS3 itself using the 3 foot cable that ships with the console. My hopes dashed, I plugged the controller in to charge and played some Mass Effect on Xbox.
The next day I went again to play using my freshly charged controller. Starting the game yields a loading screen for a few minutes before bringing up the menu which was peaceful, yet sparse and showing signs of decay. Selecting new game yields another loading screen. This one is all black apart from some sparkles that look like they could turn into the PS3 main menu at any point. After a minute or two some "Loading..." text appears in the bottom right corner with a percentage that slowly climbs. When the percentage finally reaches 100%, the loading screen starts it again. A few more 0-100 runs of the "Loading..." text and the opening cinematic finally begins.
So I play the game, and it's pretty well done. A little heavy on the cutscenes, but still not bad. Then I start to get into the main part of the gameplay and realize I'm really bad at this. But I'm not bad at this because I don't understand what to do, I'm bad at this because the control scheme is fucking me up. I feel like the game really demands I know the controls pretty immediately. I find whenever I try to be really stealthy I'll be trying to sneak up on a guy and then football victory-check a brick directly into the ground or lunge at the empty space next to someone. It's pretty frustrating. And if there's more than 2-3 bad guys I'm generally better off just starting a huge fight and beating everyone to death with a board instead of taking them out one at a time. I tried to take out that fucking Clicker in the beginning of the MBTA station level right before the Goldstone building like 4 times and failing at it before I just shot it in the head a few times then Molotov'd the mob that ran in. That pissed me off because that is not how I want to play this game.
Rewinding a bit, a few hours before that point I decided I want to save, in case I was about to do something totally boneheaded and I didn't want to restart the entire section. Now I stare at a message saying "Autosaving still in progress" for a minute, then an unresponsive options menu for a bit with several messages about Autosaving before finally being allowed to select a savegame file. It's around this point that my girlfriend casually quips, "This got 10 out of 10?"
I want to bring this up in relation to a 9 out of 10 game that I played on the Xbox 360: Batman Arkham City.
I bought Arkham City several months after release date from a gamestop and brought the disc home. I put it into the Xbox and turned on the controller. I don't think the controller had been dead, but if it had I have plenty of rechargeable batteries around because I use them in: My wireless mouse, other Xbox controllers, digital cameras, digital scale, TV remote control, my brewing thermometer, and a few other things I'm sure I've forgotten.
I intend to play the game tonight, but am greeted by an update screen. Which is no big deal to me, I know that historically the Xbox will finish updating in under a minute. My experience has not led me astray and the game is ready to play and at the menu before I can think about how uncomfortable my couch is. I start a new game and with less than 30 seconds of loading, the opening cinematic starts. I then proceed to play the fuck out Arkham City and continually revisit the game.
This experience also applies to every Xbox 360 game I have played: Mass Effect, Left 4 Dead, Alan Wake, Assassin's Creed(s), etc, while a similar "Oh Gods I hope it doesn't need to update" scenario unfolds every time I try to play something on the PS3.
Now the point:
I firmly believe that the strength of a console lies in its games. Graphics and capabilities are generally equal and have been for a generation or two, so the exclusives and online services are where the difference is made. I am not a Xbox fanboy or part of the PC master race. But, I find the PS3 and incredibly inconvenient console to use. It seems like there is no such thing as deciding to play a game and then playing it on the PS3. The console feels replete with loading screens and saving progress bars. If there is an update, you might as well cancel your plans. And the lack of replaceable batteries in the controllers will never fail to aggravate me. It's a wireless freaking controller, it feels like it's missed the point if I have to plug it in to use it.
I firmly believe the experience of The Last of Us is being hindered by its console exclusivity. I think the PS3 is holding me back from really enjoying the game and that sucks. I'm not going to say I'd be able to control it better if I were on a PC or Xbox 360, that's unfair. But the time and waiting I had to put into playing the game at all, and the time I need to spend waiting for the game to be ready for me to play it every single time I want to really saps the enjoyment. This is compounded by the fact that the platform seems to continually pull me out of the game whenever I save.
I'm hoping they eventually port this because I'd like to see how it fairs without the PS3 getting in the way because it really feels like it does.
Thursday, May 16, 2013
The Beerening: On craft beer, beer styles, and how to "get into" beer
I've been thinking about the topic of introducing what I think is good beer to my friends for a long time, however it's very relevant at the time of writing since there have recently been a slew of articles with insider and outsider perceptions of what craft beer looks like and what it's like to get into. The actual points of view range from "Why does beer have to be so fancy, what have you guys done?" to "Craft beer has too many snobs, we need to chill" to a recent article that "Craft beer's obsession with extreme beers is giving craft beer culture a bad rep". But the point is that it's interesting, it's generating discussions which could get people into beer. Advertising and beerfests and brunches and all that, I don't think, get people into beer. Other people who genuinely like beer are what get people into beer.
But specifically I wanted to address some points I had about what seems to have been a pretty contentious style recently: The American IPA.
IPA stands for India Pale Ale, the history of it has a few origin stories, and some conflicting marketing and research complicating things. From what I've heard a great book that straightens the whole mess out is "IPA!" by Mitch Steele. However, I haven't had a chance to read it. Mitch's presentation at last year's NHC was very good though. I don't want to get too historic but basically the strength of the IPA as a style is dependent on the strength of your regions hop plants, and America has done some crazy things with hops between great growing conditions and breeding programs. It was a great way we could call beers "ours", by using our fresh great new American hops that smelled like pine trees and oranges and mangoes (and onions and cat pee depending who you ask). I don't know specifically what the IPA was like in pre-prohibition America but I know that post-prohibition we basically made American Lager and copied a few UK styles (like the IPA). But the IPA of the time wasn't what people wanted. It had morphed into a lower ABV, maltier, more subtle thing and lager was easier to drink. So as Lager became The American beer other beers fell to the wayside, and eventually we hit rock bottom in 1980.
When the US craft brewing scene began to resurrect itself it effectively did it with the Pale Ale and the IPA. A lot of people credit Sierra Nevada with beginning the resurgence, though I've also heard some of the credit go to Anchor Steam. It obviously appealed to a lot of people and now IPA is the most popular style of beer in the country. With that popularity comes a lot of breweries hoping to make themselves a reputation on a flagship IPA. Sometimes it's great, sometimes it flops, but the net result is a lot of creative people doing whatever they can think of the make their mark on IPA. I love the variety and a lot of it is regional which harkens back to a pre-modern notion of styles as beer brewed to the tastes and strengths of a particular region. But where I take issue is that the significant buzz around a single style like this has a tendency to obscure other, just as worthy, beers.
If you follow the larger online beer discussion the most extreme beers continually dominate the conversation. Which is fine since to a degree we're all beer nerds trying to find the next must-have, but when you picture yourself on the outside looking in it's a very different picture.
We're in a position now where craft beer is a big deal. Newcomers are hearing about craft beer and trying to find a good inroad. This is an huge contrast to when I got into beer 7-8 years ago when an "amazing" beer section was 3 shelves in the back of the store. I got into beer by spending a ton of money on beer I knew nothing about, and it was a really expensive way to learn about my tastes and styles. But I was young, just turned 21 and had my first real job so I was Capital-S Stupid with my money. I still spend a ton of money on beer, but I know what I'm getting into now. There are a lot of people who are looking at craft beer who are way smarter than I was and they won't do that, they're the people who want to look around the clubhouse a little and tour the gym before they decide if they want to join. And our club looks like a bunch of folks swimming around in a giant pile of green, sticky, hop cones.
The majority of our internal conversation is over hoppier beers. Specifically a very certain type of IPA, the majority of which is produced on the West Coast of the country. Where can I find Pliny the Elder, Pliny the Younger is about to be tapped. Green Flash puts hops in the beer 8 times. This bar is using a randall (a device which is used to force pressurized carbonated beer through a chamber of hops or other herbs/spices on the way to the glass for the freshest flavor)! I'll never claim that's all there is, because there's also a lot of discussion about new beers, seasonals (especially summer), oaked stuff, wild & sour beers, etc. And that's fine, but from the outside looking in you'd get a very skewed picture.
Further complicating the issue is beer rating sites, beer blogs and people's top 10 beer lists. If you, as a novice, wanting to see what's good you might look at a list of someone who seems to know what they're talking about. Odds are you will find extreme IPAs and Double IPAs. I'm not going to say that this is incorrect by any stretch but there's an element of hype that pushes these highly rated beers even higher on community sites (though personal lists may be more even-handed). Someone with context seeking out these beers because they're rated so highly could have a rough surprise.
While I do agree that the insane hype surrounding the Double IPA is not warranted, I'm not going to say we should stop talking about it so we don't turn people off. Just maybe stop talking about it so loudly so it doesn't look like we're saying it's the best beer in all creation.
Put another way: We in beer have a tendency to think of "beer" as it stands in the public consciousness as pale and bland, while craft beer is flavor. We tend to want to impress other people with the great flavors we have in craft beer and so try to trot out what we think our best flavors are, and a lot of people really like IPAs. But we forget that variety and quality is what makes craft beer something we enjoy, not always amazing and unique flavors. So we bungle the attempt at putting our best foot forward by putting our favorite beer forward, and that's not always the best approach.
So since this post thus far has been mostly reiteration, what do I think is the right way to go about this? Friendly guidance. People need to know that craft beer is about quality and variety, they need to be able to figure out ways to relate the flavors present in that variety to things they already know. Everyone knows that wine is made of grapes, but people have less of an idea of the variety of grains you can make beer out of. When people are interested in our beer we can't be absolute with them since it's all about taste. My favorite beer probably isn't yours. We cannot say "This IPA is AMAZING" to someone who doesn't have the context to understand IPA in the realm of beer, we have to know what flavors they might like and then can point out great beers in those styles. We also need to do away with misconceptions like hoppy == bitter and dark == heavy. But telling people they are wrong isn't going to work. If you're drinking with someone and they say they don't want your dry Irish stout because dark beers are too heavy, offer them a contrast like a black IPA that is generally crisp and refreshing with a touch of roastiness or something lighter colored that they might be more receptive to but still shares some flavors with stout like a scotch ale or an Irish red.
In short, beer is about dialog and for once people outside of craft beer are starting that dialog. We have a great chance not to blow it by setting aside our personal favorites and using our knowledge to find the beer for them.
Drink on!
And, Cheers!
--PXA
(p.s. my favorite beer is Trappist Rochefort #8)
But specifically I wanted to address some points I had about what seems to have been a pretty contentious style recently: The American IPA.
IPA stands for India Pale Ale, the history of it has a few origin stories, and some conflicting marketing and research complicating things. From what I've heard a great book that straightens the whole mess out is "IPA!" by Mitch Steele. However, I haven't had a chance to read it. Mitch's presentation at last year's NHC was very good though. I don't want to get too historic but basically the strength of the IPA as a style is dependent on the strength of your regions hop plants, and America has done some crazy things with hops between great growing conditions and breeding programs. It was a great way we could call beers "ours", by using our fresh great new American hops that smelled like pine trees and oranges and mangoes (and onions and cat pee depending who you ask). I don't know specifically what the IPA was like in pre-prohibition America but I know that post-prohibition we basically made American Lager and copied a few UK styles (like the IPA). But the IPA of the time wasn't what people wanted. It had morphed into a lower ABV, maltier, more subtle thing and lager was easier to drink. So as Lager became The American beer other beers fell to the wayside, and eventually we hit rock bottom in 1980.
When the US craft brewing scene began to resurrect itself it effectively did it with the Pale Ale and the IPA. A lot of people credit Sierra Nevada with beginning the resurgence, though I've also heard some of the credit go to Anchor Steam. It obviously appealed to a lot of people and now IPA is the most popular style of beer in the country. With that popularity comes a lot of breweries hoping to make themselves a reputation on a flagship IPA. Sometimes it's great, sometimes it flops, but the net result is a lot of creative people doing whatever they can think of the make their mark on IPA. I love the variety and a lot of it is regional which harkens back to a pre-modern notion of styles as beer brewed to the tastes and strengths of a particular region. But where I take issue is that the significant buzz around a single style like this has a tendency to obscure other, just as worthy, beers.
If you follow the larger online beer discussion the most extreme beers continually dominate the conversation. Which is fine since to a degree we're all beer nerds trying to find the next must-have, but when you picture yourself on the outside looking in it's a very different picture.
We're in a position now where craft beer is a big deal. Newcomers are hearing about craft beer and trying to find a good inroad. This is an huge contrast to when I got into beer 7-8 years ago when an "amazing" beer section was 3 shelves in the back of the store. I got into beer by spending a ton of money on beer I knew nothing about, and it was a really expensive way to learn about my tastes and styles. But I was young, just turned 21 and had my first real job so I was Capital-S Stupid with my money. I still spend a ton of money on beer, but I know what I'm getting into now. There are a lot of people who are looking at craft beer who are way smarter than I was and they won't do that, they're the people who want to look around the clubhouse a little and tour the gym before they decide if they want to join. And our club looks like a bunch of folks swimming around in a giant pile of green, sticky, hop cones.
The majority of our internal conversation is over hoppier beers. Specifically a very certain type of IPA, the majority of which is produced on the West Coast of the country. Where can I find Pliny the Elder, Pliny the Younger is about to be tapped. Green Flash puts hops in the beer 8 times. This bar is using a randall (a device which is used to force pressurized carbonated beer through a chamber of hops or other herbs/spices on the way to the glass for the freshest flavor)! I'll never claim that's all there is, because there's also a lot of discussion about new beers, seasonals (especially summer), oaked stuff, wild & sour beers, etc. And that's fine, but from the outside looking in you'd get a very skewed picture.
Further complicating the issue is beer rating sites, beer blogs and people's top 10 beer lists. If you, as a novice, wanting to see what's good you might look at a list of someone who seems to know what they're talking about. Odds are you will find extreme IPAs and Double IPAs. I'm not going to say that this is incorrect by any stretch but there's an element of hype that pushes these highly rated beers even higher on community sites (though personal lists may be more even-handed). Someone with context seeking out these beers because they're rated so highly could have a rough surprise.
While I do agree that the insane hype surrounding the Double IPA is not warranted, I'm not going to say we should stop talking about it so we don't turn people off. Just maybe stop talking about it so loudly so it doesn't look like we're saying it's the best beer in all creation.
Put another way: We in beer have a tendency to think of "beer" as it stands in the public consciousness as pale and bland, while craft beer is flavor. We tend to want to impress other people with the great flavors we have in craft beer and so try to trot out what we think our best flavors are, and a lot of people really like IPAs. But we forget that variety and quality is what makes craft beer something we enjoy, not always amazing and unique flavors. So we bungle the attempt at putting our best foot forward by putting our favorite beer forward, and that's not always the best approach.
So since this post thus far has been mostly reiteration, what do I think is the right way to go about this? Friendly guidance. People need to know that craft beer is about quality and variety, they need to be able to figure out ways to relate the flavors present in that variety to things they already know. Everyone knows that wine is made of grapes, but people have less of an idea of the variety of grains you can make beer out of. When people are interested in our beer we can't be absolute with them since it's all about taste. My favorite beer probably isn't yours. We cannot say "This IPA is AMAZING" to someone who doesn't have the context to understand IPA in the realm of beer, we have to know what flavors they might like and then can point out great beers in those styles. We also need to do away with misconceptions like hoppy == bitter and dark == heavy. But telling people they are wrong isn't going to work. If you're drinking with someone and they say they don't want your dry Irish stout because dark beers are too heavy, offer them a contrast like a black IPA that is generally crisp and refreshing with a touch of roastiness or something lighter colored that they might be more receptive to but still shares some flavors with stout like a scotch ale or an Irish red.
In short, beer is about dialog and for once people outside of craft beer are starting that dialog. We have a great chance not to blow it by setting aside our personal favorites and using our knowledge to find the beer for them.
Drink on!
And, Cheers!
--PXA
(p.s. my favorite beer is Trappist Rochefort #8)
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