Well, here it is...the dawn of a new era.
My first review will be on an interesting seasonal brew from
Magic Hat: Hex.
The self labeled "Ourtoberfest" is an Octoberfest (or marzen) style beer. For those that are wondering, and Octoberfest beer is one that is brewed in the summer and served in the fall, with a little heavier body for the upcoming colder months. A lot of Octoberfest style brews have some sort of fall influence with the occasional pumpkin flavoring to a heavy malt flavor.
Hex is pleasantly unique. It has a light start witch then turns to a hoppy bitterness towards the end. The malty flavorings try to mute the bitterness, but are rather unsuccessful. Those that like a fully body beer and an occasional IPA may enjoy this style. The malt flavors coat the tongue well, but has almost a sourness, which I felt was the only problem with this beer.
I haven't really met a beer I didn't like, and this is no exception. Unfortunately, this is not a beer I would seek out to buy again. Although it is very different from other Octoberfest beers on the market, the sourness of the beer put me off enough that I really couldn't have more than two of them. If you do see it out there, give it a shot, you might enjoy it.
Well, that wasn't as hard as I though. The bad thing is that I should be doing my homework instead of writing beer reviews. Also, this post seems terribly boring... I guess I could talk about my Canada experience, but I really gotta get back to my homework.
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Well, that was about as long as I could take it. I really, really dislike homework. O.K. so Canada... I went this last weekend with no plans really, just to go and find something cool to do. It didn't start off so well because me and a buddy of mine ended up getting stopped at the Canada border. It started off pretty good, normal entry questions like "where are you going, where are you coming from, etc." The the border agent asked us if we had any tazers or mace since they're illegal in Canada. My buddy (who was driving) said "Yeah, uh..no." Which if you heard it sounded exactly like I wrote it...but the guard seemed to have heard "Yeah, I know." Which made him pretty suspicious since he kept asking how we knew that. My buddy kept trying to tell him that we didn't have any weapons, but the guard made us go to the office to get a more thorough inspection. He gave us a piece of paper and instructions to go into the door marked "2". We did, and there were several other people, none of which seemed to be in any line or really doing anything but waiting. We wen to the first guard we saw and they told us to go to the desk at the other side of the office. We went with our passports and yellow paper in hand and waited for about 10 minutes before someone acknowledged our presence. The told us to wait by the other people and they'll call us up. What we ended up having to do was wait for all of the other people to get helped, then we could give them our yellow paper and then wait some more for them to go over our passports. After they did that, they inspected our vehicle, which took about 2 minutes. In all, we waited over 30 minutes for a 2 minute car inspection.
Anywho...it turns out that there was a blues festival during up in the are we were staying. That didn't really matter though because my buddy and I decided to start partaking in adult beverages at around 5pm and ended up missing every single act (which really sucked because we payed $10 for wrist bands). Dinner at an English style pub was a disaster, so we were both on pretty empty stomachs. We ended up playing some pool and finding a dive bar near the hotel. As we were walking up the stairs to the bar, a young lady who was in front of us and with three other guy friends, fell down the stairs leading to the bar. She was O.K., and went into the bar laughing with her friends. Well, my buddy and I are known to talk a little smack, and when we heard the girl talking about her falling we gave her some crap about it. She was a good sport about the whole thing, and a round of tequila made them comfortable enough to sit with us. In addition to that, we had a bartender that would disappear for 10-15 minutes at a time in the back. Luckily, the owner was sitting in the bar area (she was about 50-60 years old and was falling asleep in her chair as she chuckled at out antics). She gave us his name and I would occasionally shout it towards the back to get him to serve us. Now, this is where things get a little fuzzy. My buddy and I ended up back at the English style pub. We ended up sitting next to a couple having drinks. It turned out that the girl had a boyfriend, but went out with the guy as a "friend." We found this out when she told us she used the guys phone to call her boyfriend. We couldn't believe it and spent the next hour or so trying to get this guy lucky. I don't think we helped, but it was pretty fun. That was about the last thing I remember until I woke up on the pull-out bed in the hotel room at around 4am.
We made it back O.K. with a short inspection going back into the States, but definitely nothing like when we were going in to Canada. We also picked up some maple syrup, which should be nothing short of awesome.
Well friends, that's my story...hope you enjoyed it. We'll I've got to pack and get ready for my trip home. I have a new goddaughter waiting for me. I'll post some pics or something if I get around to it.
Until then...
Peace.
