Posts filed under ‘Beer’

This website that I’ve never seen before, SaveOnBrew.com offers up advice on how to save money whilst drinking during this highly important national holiday known as Saint Patrick’s Day. Why do we celebrate with booze? Mike suggests that it is just an excuse to drink. He’s right, but it is also an excuse to get all stereotypical without being called a racist. That’s because Saint Patrick famously rid Ireland of snakes and the Irish like to drink,  so on Saint Patty’s day we drink to celebrate snake beatings. This is also a good time to drunkenly ask women if they’d like to beat your snake in honor of the day.

Here are Jennifer Davidson of SaveOnBrew.com’s tips:

1. Look for cheaper brands. “Imports by nature are not terribly cheap, but one can find a 6-pack of Great Lakes Conway’s Irish Aleor Killian’s Irish Red Ale for about $7, or Sam Adam’s Irish Ale and McSorley’s Irish Pale Ale for $8,” Davidson explains. “On the other end of the spectrum, premium beers like Guinness, Harp, Murphy’s and Smithwick’s are going to be priced several dollars higher.”

2. Another way to find the cheapest beer is to try one’s luck at getting into the spirit of the day. “Let’s face it: anyone who dresses like a leprechaun, a Notre Dame Fighting Irish, or a shamrock is going to have random strangers buying him or her beer all night long wherever he or she goes,” says Davidson. “The louder, friendlier and Irish-looking a drinker is, the better. Most importantly, do not pose for any free pictures. If they want a leprechaun on their Facebook page, they’ve got to pay up.”

3. Stay at home. “Yeah, I know I’m going to catch some flak for that, but it’s MUCH cheaper. Take the money you save, grab a keg of Guinness, invite your best friends and some random hotties, and make a night of it. Pro-tip: go heavy on the Irish car bombs – you know, Guinness with a shot of Jameson – because passing out is a great way to save money and avoid having to stumble to the store to resupply,” Davidson laughs.

Of course, I think the underlying message is that Davidson wants you to use SaveOnBrew.com to find cheap deals on beer in your area. So I took a little look and apparently I can get Hamm’s at a local store for $0.54 each aka $12.99 for a 12-pack. Hrmm, not a bad deal, except this is only an advertised price. SaveOnBrew.com has no way of knowing unadvertised prices and my friend tells me that he gets the 30-packs of a lesser quality brand for $13.99. Still, Hamm’s is not a bad option and neither is SaveOnBrew.com, except if you live in Minnesota like I do. You see, we have these weird liquor laws that prohibit grocery stores and gas stations from selling higher abv booze.  So when SaveOnBrew.com shows my favorite beer Killian’s advertised ad my local Cub grocery store as a 12-pack for $9.99, I need to keep in mind that it is only going to be the 3.2% abv stuff. All in all, it is nice to have a way to see advertised prices. By the way, my tip for using it is to keep withing the 5 mile range, other wise your might eat your beer savings up with gas.

This is a doppelbock, I didn’t just misspell the title. At 7.80% this sickeningly sweet doppel pours deep and dark. Lots of carmel and chocolate malt notes. Lots of muddy german hop notes. Tasty this is.

Another ABA or American black ale, at almost six bucks I was a little hesitant to buy this. I have had most of the brewdog offering that are available to me. Considering their brewery is in Scotland I feel privileged to have had 4 of their 65 beers. I am more than familiar with Stone so the gargoyle on the bottle made me curious what concoction lay before me. Properly chilled this beer pours really thick, it is only slightly carbonated as they intended.  First taste is a dramatic mix of malt and floral hops quite the experience. Mid taste that same flavor deepens and widens expressing an interesting play across you palate its really heavy yet smooth and creamy. The roasted flavor really sticks with you when you are done. This is a fantastic collaboration, I look forward to any future offerings.

ESB’s are the new IPA’s and this is a fantastic representative. Tasty, floral like running your teeth through a field of hops. It’s bitter right up front and I like it. This copper colored ales has a fruity floral but bitter first sip has a tasty finish. This is something I would drink again. I got a growler and I’m going to get another.

I usually have nothing to say but nice things about these fellas, however I think this IPA misses the mark. It’s a decent beer but to me it really doesn’t have a lot of IPA characteristics other than having a lot of hops. It’s muddy a mixture of malts went into this and blurred the line on being an IPA. At 6% it’s a solid drinking all day mowing the lawn beer but if you’re looking for an IPA from Brewdog get the Hardcore IPA.

Is there beer in there? I’m not sure with all this head… This is a really nice Russian imperial stout, true to style it reeks of alcohol. This black/brown stout pours with massive foam but it is only lightly carbonated. Hints of cocoa and brown sugar give way to a pleasant wood flavor. This tastes and finishes a lot  more boozy than 9.7% should but that’s a good thing. Dark beer fans rejoice this is a decent beer.

Dark, deep, black, almost like motor oil. Hardly descriptors that describe creme brulee, however southern tier has done it again. This tastes like a liquid creme brulee, no seriously it does. Lots of vanilla, caramel, sugar, toffee flavors that change midtaste into butterscotch this is a beer for the senses. This makes a fantastic dessert beer, something interesting to share with friends.

You can find an update to this post here

While working on a co-worker’s computer today, I came across a curious problem. The computer in question was being upgraded to Windows 7, and was configured to support four monitors via two Matrox G450 PCI video cards. These cards have been around quite awhile and have been supported from Windows 2000 through Server 2008 R2, so I figured I would have no issue installing the new OS.

When all was said and done, Windows could not locate the drivers for the video cards on the installation DVD, nor could it install them via Windows Update. So, I did what any normal person would do, and headed straight for Matrox’s web site.

Much to my dismay they did not seem to have any drivers listed for these cards for Windows 7. The closest I could come to the proper drivers was this set of WHQL drivers meant for Windows Server 2008 x64 and Server 2008 R2. When I tried installing the drivers, my video cards were detected properly, but the installer simply could not finish the job. Each time I tried, the installer would fail.

I went through the standard procedure of attempting to update the driver via the Device Manager, only to be told that no better driver could be found. Even when I selected to locate the driver myself and picked the folder where the Matrox installer had extracted all of its files, I simply could not install the driver.

I returned to the Device Manager and selected to update my drivers once again. I chose to locate the driver on my own, but instead of simply picking the folder this time around, I clicked “Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer”. From that dialog window, I clicked the “Have Disk” button and again browsed to the folder where the Matrox installer extracted its files. I looked through the list of .inf files in the directory and one caught my eye – it was named W7G4G5.inf. I opened the file in a text editor to take a look around, and after poking around for a few moments, I knew I had the file I wanted. The file’s name signified that it was meant for all G4XX and G5XX Matrox cards running under Windows 7.

I selected the file and clicked OK. The Windows Hardware wizard presented a box asking me to pick between the Matrox G450 PCI card and the Matrox G450 PCI card. Decisions, decisions. In the end, I picked the first card in the list and let Windows do its thing. Everything installed properly and I was on my way.

The whole process is actually quite simple, but for the uninitiated, it can be a daunting problem. I imagine that most people would end up digging around online looking for a driver pack that does not exist, so hopefully this saves somebody a bit of hair pulling and a lot of time. I really have no idea why the installer comes packaged with the proper Windows 7 drivers, but is unable to actually install the software. Either way, it’s an easy fix.