Beer of the Week: Fraoch Heather Ale

Beer score: 5.5

Company: Williams Bros. Brewing Co.
ABV: 5.0
IBU: 12

Heather ale is a Scottish brew made from heather flowers and Scottish malts.

This brew had a slight vinegar scent when I poured it, but there's not much of that in the tasting. Over all, the smell is very faint, slightly sweet with perhaps hints of honey.

Has an interesting mixed flavor of sweet and bitter with a flowery taste. There's more of that honey along with some herbal and flowery flavoring.

Not a superb brew, but not a bad one. Non beer snobs will probably find this most unusual.

Worth tasting for its uniqueness, but I don't think it's worth being a regular drinking beer.

Beer of the Week Blast from the Past: Dixie Crimson Voodoo Ale

Beer score: 4.1

Another beer that's no longer with us, mainly because the Dixie Brewery which made this drink went out of business due to a hurricane. Fortunately another brewery took Dixie's recipes, so some of the Dixie beers live on. Unfortunately, this wasn't one that made the cut.

Anyway, I had this one a few times back in the day. It wasn't great, but it wasn't awful, and I always hate to see a beer go away.

This beer had a decent bitterness with a little too much of a burnt sourness. The bottle called this a red ale, but it didn't taste much like one.

Books read in 2024: No. 43 -- Player's Handbook (2024): Dungeons & Dragons

by Wizards of the Coast

Started: Oct. 1

Finished: Oct. 4

Notes: This is the latest edition of the Player's Handbook for D&D. The publisher has been adamant that this is not a new edition, that it is fully compatible with 5e, though fans often refer to this particular version as 5.5e. I'll check it out and see what I think. Funny enough, I didn't care for the original 5e Player's Handbook a decade ago, but I've been playing the game for 10 years now and mostly enjoy it, though I do have my quibbles.

Mini review: Many of the changes are relatively minor, such as the Vicious Mockery cantrip doing d6 instead of d4 damage, but probably the biggest changes are in how the classes work, though I will agree this version of D&D is compatible to 5e. Do I think this is an approvement? Over all, only slightly so, for some things are done better but others feel like change was done simply for the sake of change. Will I transition to this latest version of the game? Possibly, but it'll depend on my gaming companions. My guess will be we will mix 5e and this 5.5e to accomplish what we want. I will say I feel most of the changes here were done to give players' characters a power boost, and not really for any improvement to story telling or role play, but that's just my opinion.

Books read in 2024: No. 42 -- No One Here Gets Out Alive

by Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugerman

Started: Sept. 10

Finished: Oct. 1

Notes: For years I've had an idea for a short story which would feature Jim Morrison, the late singer of The Doors, but I've never felt I knew enough about the man to attempt my tale. I'm not sure I'll actually ever write the story, but this biography should at least provide me with the info to make the attempt.

Mini review: I wouldn't say Morrison was necessarily a tortured soul, but I would say he was a troubled soul. And could be a bit of an asshole. This book covered his early life to the appropriate degree, giving the right amount of information without going overboard on unimportant details, and it covered Jim's years with The Doors to an excellent degree, but I felt it flew through Jim's death rather quickly and without a lot of detail. In some fairness, the way this book reads, there weren't a lot of details, and Jim's death is something of a mystery even to this day, with some folks at the time suggesting Morrison had faked his own death. Personally, I think it unlikely he faked his death, though I wouldn't say it's necessarily impossible. A decent enough book, and fans of The Doors would likely find this one interesting.