Rating: Good.
As you can see am a professional at rating beer
Overall: Refreshing Blond Ale from Nottingham.
Castle Rock Harvest Pale
Pours a pale golden colour with a small lingering head. Aroma is full on bitter citrus noted hops. Tastes of hops, grass notes, and sweet malts. Moderate bitterness. Average light body. Has a dry finish. 4,3% strength.
Rating: Good.
As you can see am a professional at rating beer
Overall: Refreshing Blond Ale from Nottingham.
Rating: Good.
As you can see am a professional at rating beer
Overall: Refreshing Blond Ale from Nottingham.
Harvested Hops
Favourite reads this summer
I got through a lot of books this summer, most of which were classics. Here's a list of my favourites.
If I'm going to start reviewing books, I want to make it clear, I am not going to write whole paragraphs listing the plot. He did this. He did that. She said so and so. Seriously, bloggers who do that are not reviewing, their just giving you the damn story before you've read it. I intend on writing little about plot, focusing more about style, themes, and what I liked.
Slaughterhouse 5, Kurt Vonnegut.
I wasn't sure what to expect from this. I found it be a combination of genres, so much so its a unique novel. It explores the absurdity of war, death, and time travel. I liked how it was written in simple short prose with one sentence paragraphs.
Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov.
Granted, its not for the light hearted, as the narrator, Humbert Humbert, is a sly man obsessed with young girls he calls nymphets. Disturbing yes? Nabokov lets you see the world through a paedophiles eyes. He does this while at the same time showing Humbert as a -somewhat demented- human. The style features a lot of word play, puns, and lyrical run on sentences.
For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway.
My first Hemingway novel. Written in a very simple style, its an intense war story with a major theme of death. What interests me is despite being set in the Spanish civil war, the novel doesn't align itself with any ideology other than anti-fascist.
Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
Dostoyevsky lets you into the mind of a murderer, a drop out student called Raskolnikov. The story is intense as the protagonist's guilt builds, and tries to justify the crime to his moral self. The translation is good and feels modern.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson.
A drug fuelled search for the American dream. First line:
The drugs add a surreal nonsensical element that the narrator is unaware of, which at times made me laugh out loud. An example of this:
Nine Stories, J.D. Salinger.
Salinger is best known for his novel 'Catcher in the Rye', but he also wrote some great short stories. My favourite was 'A Perfect Day for Bananafish', a catapult of an ending, and 'Teddy', a Hindu influenced story. This definitely influenced my writing.
The Dharma Bums, Jack Kerouac.
This is Kerouac's outdoor adventure. Think 'On the Road' meets the outdoors and Buddhism. It follows Ray Smith (kerouac) mountain climbing, hiking, hitchhiking, and wild party's. Made me want to hike in the countryside, and write haiku's.
The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald became my favourite writer over the summer. His lyrical perfect timing prose style is like poetry. Its a story of excess, lost love and want in the jazz age. Social commentary, or an art piece, I love it.
Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer.
A non-fictional biography of Christopher McCandless who, inspired by Leo Tolstoy, Henry David Thoreau, and Jack London, set off to Alaska. Krakauer uses personal experience and other similar stories to explain McCandless actions. Brilliant journalism.
War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy.
I started reading this one in spring from 17th of February, and finished it on the 15th of April. The length and the amount of characters seems daunting at first, until you've read a few chapters. It has friendship, romance, huge battle scenes, philosophy, religion, and a lot more. What more could you want from an epic novel? I actually think Pierre Bezukhov is my favourite character in literature.
If I'm going to start reviewing books, I want to make it clear, I am not going to write whole paragraphs listing the plot. He did this. He did that. She said so and so. Seriously, bloggers who do that are not reviewing, their just giving you the damn story before you've read it. I intend on writing little about plot, focusing more about style, themes, and what I liked.
Slaughterhouse 5, Kurt Vonnegut.
I wasn't sure what to expect from this. I found it be a combination of genres, so much so its a unique novel. It explores the absurdity of war, death, and time travel. I liked how it was written in simple short prose with one sentence paragraphs.
Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov.
Granted, its not for the light hearted, as the narrator, Humbert Humbert, is a sly man obsessed with young girls he calls nymphets. Disturbing yes? Nabokov lets you see the world through a paedophiles eyes. He does this while at the same time showing Humbert as a -somewhat demented- human. The style features a lot of word play, puns, and lyrical run on sentences.
For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway.
My first Hemingway novel. Written in a very simple style, its an intense war story with a major theme of death. What interests me is despite being set in the Spanish civil war, the novel doesn't align itself with any ideology other than anti-fascist.
"Once tonight we have been impeded by the ignorance of the anarchists. Then by the sloth of a bureaucratic fascist, then by the oversuspicion of a Communist."Hemingway writes of massacres on both sides of the war, showing the turmoil of civil war. Apparently President Barack Obama was influenced by this novel.
Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
Dostoyevsky lets you into the mind of a murderer, a drop out student called Raskolnikov. The story is intense as the protagonist's guilt builds, and tries to justify the crime to his moral self. The translation is good and feels modern.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson.
A drug fuelled search for the American dream. First line:
"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold."Your on the roller coaster straight away.
The drugs add a surreal nonsensical element that the narrator is unaware of, which at times made me laugh out loud. An example of this:
"at one point I tried to drive the Great Red Shark into the laundry room of the Landmark Hotel - but the door was too narrow, and the people inside seemed dangerously excited."Apart from the hilarious quotes, it has great prose, and in many ways similar to 'the Great Gatsby'.
Nine Stories, J.D. Salinger.
Salinger is best known for his novel 'Catcher in the Rye', but he also wrote some great short stories. My favourite was 'A Perfect Day for Bananafish', a catapult of an ending, and 'Teddy', a Hindu influenced story. This definitely influenced my writing.
The Dharma Bums, Jack Kerouac.
This is Kerouac's outdoor adventure. Think 'On the Road' meets the outdoors and Buddhism. It follows Ray Smith (kerouac) mountain climbing, hiking, hitchhiking, and wild party's. Made me want to hike in the countryside, and write haiku's.
The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald became my favourite writer over the summer. His lyrical perfect timing prose style is like poetry. Its a story of excess, lost love and want in the jazz age. Social commentary, or an art piece, I love it.
Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer.
A non-fictional biography of Christopher McCandless who, inspired by Leo Tolstoy, Henry David Thoreau, and Jack London, set off to Alaska. Krakauer uses personal experience and other similar stories to explain McCandless actions. Brilliant journalism.
War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy.
I started reading this one in spring from 17th of February, and finished it on the 15th of April. The length and the amount of characters seems daunting at first, until you've read a few chapters. It has friendship, romance, huge battle scenes, philosophy, religion, and a lot more. What more could you want from an epic novel? I actually think Pierre Bezukhov is my favourite character in literature.
Jennings Sneck Lifter
On the bottle it says..."In northern dialect sneck means door latch and a sneck lifter was a man’s last sixpence which enabled him to lift the latch of a pub door and buy himself a pint, hoping to meet friends there who might treat him to one or two more."Who knew you could learn words and phrases from a beer bottle.
Pours a deep ruby red colour with a good tanned head. Aroma is toasted caramel, fruitcake and a little coffee. Tastes of toasted malts, little woody notes, and perhaps a hint of chocolate malt. Moderate sweetness. Nice hoppy bitterness. Smooth mouth feel. After taste is light bitter roasted linger. 5,1% strength.
Rating: Good.
As you can see am a professional at rating beer
Overall: A good enjoyable premium bitter.
Tsingtao Beer
640ml Bottle imported by Halewood international uk.
Pours a clear pale golden colour with short lasting white head. Aroma is floral hops, corn and a little barley. Tastes similar to pilsners from main land Europe. Sweet malts and corn. Slightly metallic hint. Soft watery mouth feel. After taste is dry and clean. 4,7% strength.
Rating: Not bad.
As you can see am a professional at rating beer
Overall: Nothing special, but surprisingly its a damn refreshing lager.
Pours a clear pale golden colour with short lasting white head. Aroma is floral hops, corn and a little barley. Tastes similar to pilsners from main land Europe. Sweet malts and corn. Slightly metallic hint. Soft watery mouth feel. After taste is dry and clean. 4,7% strength.
Rating: Not bad.
As you can see am a professional at rating beer
Overall: Nothing special, but surprisingly its a damn refreshing lager.
Tweetdeck on xfce / ubuntu
If you're a twitter fan new to xfce or (x)ubuntu, attracted to the efficient and fast environment, you will notice tweetdeck is useless. The buttons show up, but nothing else.
Unfortunately it seems tweetdeck only knows how to store username/password information on Gnome and KDE. When you start tweetdeck from the terminal you are given: "Unknown desktop manager, only Gnome and KDE are supported".
Fortunately there is a way around this with a little bash script.
First make sure 'launch gnome services on start up' - option found in session and startup - is ticked. It should already be ticked if your an ubuntu user - if your not I'm guessing you need the Gnome keyring service installed for this to work.
Next, the script. For (x)ubuntu users you can simply use this:
Copy the above into your favourite text editor and save as "tweetdeck.sh". Once saved, right click the file, and open properties. Look in permissions and tick "allow this file to run as a program" to give it permission to run. Now click the script to run tweetdeck. Done.
For other distributions try this:
From www.mindby.com. I'm sure it works for openSuse.
Happy tweeting.
Unfortunately it seems tweetdeck only knows how to store username/password information on Gnome and KDE. When you start tweetdeck from the terminal you are given: "Unknown desktop manager, only Gnome and KDE are supported".
Fortunately there is a way around this with a little bash script.
First make sure 'launch gnome services on start up' - option found in session and startup - is ticked. It should already be ticked if your an ubuntu user - if your not I'm guessing you need the Gnome keyring service installed for this to work.
Next, the script. For (x)ubuntu users you can simply use this:
#!/bin/bash
GNOME_DESKTOP_SESSION_ID="gnomeisgo" /opt/TweetDeck/bin/TweetDeck
Copy the above into your favourite text editor and save as "tweetdeck.sh". Once saved, right click the file, and open properties. Look in permissions and tick "allow this file to run as a program" to give it permission to run. Now click the script to run tweetdeck. Done.
For other distributions try this:
#!/bin/bash
GNOME_KEYRING=`ps x | grep gnome-keyring | awk '$5 ~/^gnome-keyring/ {print $1}'
`
DIRNAME="`dirname $0`"
GNOME_DESKTOP_SESSION_ID=$GNOME_KEYRING $DIRNAME/TweetDeckFrom www.mindby.com. I'm sure it works for openSuse.
Happy tweeting.
The complete joy of homebrewing
Writen by Charlie Papazian. Known to many as the homebrewers bible it has sold more then one million copies over 25 reprintings and 3 editions. After an introduction the book is split into three parts: beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Each section has adequate information. There is, in the beginners section, a step-by-step guide. If your totally new to beer there is a style guide too. In intermediate and advanced there are recipes, various methods, ingredient details, helpful charts, and even a bit of yeast science.Some of my first beers were from the intermediate recipes. They deal with kits, extracts, small amounts of malt, adjuncts and hops. I did a Cushlomachree stout (page 208) from a coopers stout kit and it turned out to be, up to then, the best I made.
The advanced section deals with all grain brewing. Water adjusting, culturing yeast, grinding grain, mash tuns, lauter-tuns and different mashing methods. If it goes over your head dont worry Mr Papazian writes: Relax. Don’t worry. Have a homebrew!
As a reference, I cannot stress how useful this book is. When I'm looking to buy ingredients or following a recipe, I can always check the hop chart, style guideline or look up an adjunct. Just last year I wanted to try using pears from our garden tree. I looked up fruits and found instruction on how to pasteurize fruit (page 89-90). If your starting to be a serious homebrewer there are three and a half pages on growing hops in appendix 7 (page 353).
If your new to brewing or looking for an excellent reference I recommended it.
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