Beer Review: Newcastle Winter IPA

Greetings.

I thought I'd start off my beer reviews with the one beer that brought me back to this blog: Newcastle Winter IPA.

You see, I went into the local Harris Teeter after a gym workout, and saw that they had this beer in a six-pack.  I was immediately interested due to my previous personal love for Newcastle Brown Ale (that is, until I discovered the joy that are IPA's).

Add to the mix that I had previously seen this only in 12-packs, so it became a no brainer.

After having one or two at home, I became curious to see if they had done a fall/autumn version of a Newcastle brew.


Boy, did I miss out! 


Newcastle Werewolf.  Wow.

I never saw this beer in the local grocery store; had I seen it, I would have snapped it up in a heartbeat.


So, after drinking my six pack of Winter IPA over a couple of days, I decided that this past weekend I would hit the local Total Wine & More to see if they may have a single bottle of this lurking around the shelves.  I knew it was a long shot, considering that it was at least 6 weeks after Halloween, and that's usually the time that all of the fall/autumn/Oktoberfest beers are yanked off the shelves.

So, as I thought, I did not find the Newcastle Werewolf I was looking for, but I did find this, which I thought was a neat idea for a Thanksgiving beer:


Harpoon Grateful Harvest Cranberry Ale.

I will do a full review of this beer (with pictures of course) when I do the sampling.  It'll be either tomorrow or Wednesday evening depending on my 'schedule'.


Okay, now back to the original beer to review: Newcastle Winter IPA.


It was a decent beer.  It was a milder IPA than the ones I have seen/tasted before, but it had enough flavor to keep your attention without running you off from the overpowering alcohol that normally accompanies IPA.  I rated it 2.9 out of 5 on Rate Beer.


I would suggest trying it as a single if you can get your hands on it.

Thanks for reading, I'll be back tomorrow with another beer review!

An Actual Poker Post

Greetings.

Two posts in a little over 12 hours after taking 6+ months off.  How about that?

I decided to take a tour of a website that 'claims' to be available to the USA: Carbon Poker.

Your first clue that there might be something amiss is that the website doesn't end in ".com".  Well, when I type it in with the ".com", it routes to the ".ag" site.

For the uninformed: .ag is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Antigua and Barbuda.

So there you go.

Additional note:  according to this site, there are only 6 poker sites that are taking US players for real money.

Now then, where was I?  Okay, Carbon Poker's site.  I test drove the site this morning, playing a couple of play money tourneys to see (1) how the site felt and (2) to see how much game I have after taking virtually 8 months off from poker.

Answering #1, the site was great.  I could change the layout and colors of the table to my liking, to include changing the cards, the carpet, the table, the whole thing.

Answering #2, apparently I still got it.  I played a 10-person tourney and finished 2nd, and I played a 60-person tourney and finish 4th.

Overall, I would rate Carbon Poker 4 1/2 out of 5 stars.  

As for playing on that site for real money, I am decidedly on the fence until the US Government decides how and when their citizens can play cash games legally.  It sucks to say that, but when you have the fiasco that went down with Full Tilt Poker's site and their subsequent handling of player funds, it is a necessary evil.

That's all for now, a beer post coming later today.

Thanks for reading.

Happy Holidays - Wait, I'm Actually Posting a Blog?

Seasons Greetings.

Yeah, I haven't been here for quite awhile.  So, why come back?

Well, I did happen to pick up a CHRISTMAS SIX PACK at the Local Total Wine and More.

 So, I decided that I would review each of those beers and then post them here as I do it.  Try to get back into the swing of things I guess.

I have a plan to review at least two of them each day then do some other catch up posts to get this blog back to the low, low standards that I had set.

Sound good?  Okay, great, I'm going to be back tomorrow (SUNDAY), though technically it's already Sunday morning (12am) here, so let's just say later on today.

Good?  Good.