Day 478: Tired Hands Bokonon

If there's two things I can count on from Tired Hands Brewing Company, it is good beer and obscure literary references. I present to you Bokonon as evidence.

Bokonon is an enlightened hoppy brown ale per the description on record at Tired Hands. Since I'm used to the peculiarity of Tired Hands' beer names, I got to googling this one. Turns out that Bokonon is a Kurt Vonnegut-created religion from his book titled Cat's Cradle. I haven't read much Vonnegut so this was new information to me. 

Oddly and perhaps in a twist of Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon, I read this quote by Vonnegut just last week:

Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. 

I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.

As I find myself recklessly hurdling into one of the busiest times of my year, I find solace in this particular quote. And I agree wholeheartedly that it is by far better to laugh than cry.

But what about that beer?

It poured a hazy chocolate brown color with a full tan head. It had a piney hop smell. The flavor is exactly as promised: a hoppy brown ale. It's light, piney, a little earthy. Has lots of malts. There's a bitter chocolate thing happening and has a great mouthfeel.  If I were spending more time at Tired Hands that day, I would have definitely ordered a second one. 

Beer stats

Style: Brown ale

ABV: 6.9%

IBUs: Unknown

Rating: Excellent

Previously reviewed from Tired Hands

My review of Good, Good Things, Trois Enfants

Gary's review of Good, Good Things, Fripp

Beer 460: Full Sail Session

I'm fascinated by the phenomenon in which you hear or read about something that at the time sounds so obscure but which insinuates itself throughout your waking life.

For example, on Sunday Gary was changing the lightbulb in our porch light and heard our neighbor blasting Yah Mo B by James Ingram and Michael McDonald. He tells me about it when I arrive home, but it was odd enough for him that he wrote a post about yacht rock. Not having the savant-like repertoire of music knowledge like Mr. Blog Named Brew, I had to ask for a definition. Instance one and two of yacht rock references. Fast forward to Tuesday when I'm driving home and one of my preset radio stations plays a couple of yacht rock songs. Number three. Fast forward to tonight when there's an entire show dedicated to yacht rock on another station that I just happen to be listening to. Instance four.

Strange, but true.

This is known as Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon. Trust me, my writing about it is going to cause it to pop up several times in your life during the next few days or weeks. The definition is simple: It's when one happens upon some obscure piece of information--often an unfamiliar word or name--and soon afterwards encounters the same subject again, often repeatedly. Anytime the phrase “That’s so weird, I just heard about that the other day” would be appropriate, the utterer is hip-deep in Baader-Meinhof.

Is the phenomenon all in our minds? Could be. Our brains have an amazing ability to recognize patterns--a key to learning. But what causes a particular pattern to stand out amongst all the other patterns we encounter on a daily basis? Why don't we log all the beginnings of sequences and note more patterns. It seems to be the relative obscureness of the pattern that signals to your brain, "Hey! Pay attention to me!" Interesting, huh?

I thought I was onto another instance of Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon this past week when I was inundated by information about a new set of session beers from Full Sail Brewing in Oregon and then ended up at a BYOB dinner where one of the beers of choice was Full Sail Session Black lager. I think that was just a coincidence.

It comes in a fantastic chubby little 11 oz. bottle and pours a cola color with a light tan head. It has a strong chocolate malt smell with lots of roastiness. The flavor is best described as a chocolate lager. It has a full roasted malt flavor with a thin mouthfeel. More sips revealed a definite lager-ness to it. There was a strong grain flavor and it reminded me of a stout but not quite a stout. It's a wildly different beer that I really enjoyed.

Beer stats
Style: Black lager
ABV: 5.4%
IBUs:  18
Rating: Good

Previously reviewed from Full Sail
Gary's yacht rock / Session lager review