Hopothesis interview at Crafts and Drafts

Behind every good beer there are some damn fine people to be found. We ran into plenty of them at Crafts and Drafts this past weekend in Milwaukee. What's better than good company with great beer? The answer is nothing and we dare you say otherwise (you'll be wrong). We were able to catch up with a few of our favorite breweries both new and old.

First up, is the brand new Hopothesis brewery based out of Chicago.

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Let Oktober begin with a Leinenkugel review

This will probably be one of the more well known beers we review but I must admit this is my favorite time of the year for beer. I'm a huge fan of the Oktoberfest and Marzen style beers and they've become a staple at my household as the leaves begin to fall. I happened to have a Leinenkugel Oktoberfest sitting around to go with my scrambled eggs this morning (breakfast of champions) so I thought, why not do one of my favorite things and play some games while drinking a beer? Dr. Doom and Sagat say listen up kids. 

After the initial pour, the beer comes with the pale amber color you'd expect from a Marzen with less than a finger of head. It has mostly a sour smell but you can catch a hint of the malt as well. With the first taste you immediately catch all the malt up front and it ends with some hops almost creating a copper taste. It's pretty light bodied for an Oktoberfest and it could be considered a session beer. Overall not one of my favorites, a pretty average Marzen lacking any real depth in taste. Not something I'd keep around but damnit if it didn't taste alright with my eggs. It gets 2.8 out 5 shells. Be sure to check out Refresh and Reload on twitter @askrandr and hit up the RSS feed for games, beer and superior opinions. 

Power of Live... and beer.

As of late we have been talking about community, beers and gaming. The big circle of life and how this shit all moves together. Today I’m going to talk about beer and community, but through the magic Xbox Live and PSN. Follow along club members.

Back during the days of Atari, Intellivision and arcades the only way to enjoy time with friends was sitting next to one another. Which is still great, but when I get home from a 10 hour day from hell I want to sit back, crack open a beer and talk to my friends..but I don’t want their asses at my house cause it’s been a long day and I’m wearing a Tardus bathrobe. Couldn’t have done shit about it back in the day but now I can have my cake and eat it too. These days I power up the Xbox 360, slap on the Turtle Beach headset, pull the top on a Scottish Ale and let the internet do my bidding. Here in lies my current train of thoughts even if they are in the midst of an alcoholic haze.

You play a game with friends, add them to your list and 90% of the time you never play with them again and later have to delete some bum to make room for a new bum. Most of the time the only people you play with are those you know in real life..unless you shared a moment. Yes everyone I said a moment, but you took it wrong. I’m talking about beating Gears of War III together as the sun comes up or playing fighting games until your hands are numb. These moments are things I will always remember and they never could have happened without Live, even if It is only 10% of the time.

To me it is one of the best things in the world, not to just beat a game but to beat a game with 4 friends, a great beer and in the comfort of your own home. Well, that's something that makes me all warm and tingly, or it could be the 8% love Oskar Blue's just gave me.

Let the club know your moments in gaming that you and a great friend had because of the magic built by Xbox Live, PSN or over the PC. If you don’t bring your homework you're buying beer for the club.

Gaming and craft beer communities create their own culture

With R&R finally implementing beer reviews, it's only right to start reading some of our peers beer blogs. I stumbled upon one a few days ago named girls like beer too, which you can find right here. I encourage you to go there for a knowledge explosion not only about what tastes good but the inner workings of the beer enthusiast community. The first article I read from Jessica detailed some of the more interesting talks at the beer bloggers conference in regards to its community, distributors and bloggers. Now because I'm a gamer at heart and smart as hell, I discovered some similarities between both communities. Luckily for those who don't belong to both or who haven't been invited to our monthly club meetings, R&R is hear to tie it all together. 

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IPAs and Platformers the ultimate conundrum

You ever try picking the right twin out in a line up? Quite frankly neither have I and I don't know any twins that are likely to commit a crime in hopes of sticking me in that shit storm. Point being that scenario is comparable to the conundrum we are faced with today except this one is obviously far more dire. Now I love IPAs as much as the next guy but at some point it becomes hard to find ones that stand out. The right hops makes or breaks IPAs and to a lesser extent any beer. The same idea applies to platformers in the gaming world- even more applicable with the come back the genre has made recently-It's damn hard to make good one. Platformers require a great amount of character and some addicting game play to achieve longevity. So you ask where are the badass platformers? Where are the next level IPAs? In my experience both examples are some of the hardest to nail in their respective industry, but don't worry, the brothers at R&R are on a never ending journey to find the "good shit."  While we can't guide you to all of them, we did discover a fine pairing recently. During Lazarus' visit, we stumbled upon Harpoon's Leviathan Imperial IPA as we were preparing to call our shopping complete (that last find usually ends up being the best beer). Oddly enough, we discovered Spelunky around the same time which clearly displayed this article was meant to be.

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