I had the pleasure of tasting all of these over the last week or so.

Rogue’s Chipotle Ale – I have a deep and abiding love for the smoked jalapeno. For those not in the know, that’s what a chipotle pepper is. The combination of heat and smoke is a beautiful thing. So when I saw this I thought, “Why not?” Surely it would be two great tastes etc, etc. Sadly, no. While it was certainly a passable ale and at 35 IBU had a good bitterness to it, the flavor was lacking. There was a little bit of actual heat to the finish, but zero smoke. Smoke is central to the chipotle. It was also a little medicinal. Not really worth the seven buck bottle and I don’t think I’ll be revisiting it.

Rogue’s Hazlenut Brown Nectar – I was really looking forward to this one I read a review of it at the Accidental Hedonist’s site. Kate knows her stuff and the review is aces. This struck me as more of a Belgian Dubble than a straight up brown ale, due to the sweetness. It wasn’t too sweet though and the nuttiness was distinct. Would I have been able to tell it was hazlenut? Maybe not, but the combination of flavors was perfect. I’m not so sure that a non-beer drinker would like it, but perhaps if they were sitting on the fence.

Southern Tier’s Pumking – Those of you that know me and my affinity may be surprised by the following statement. This is better than Dogfish Head’s Punkin Ale. Now that’s not to say that Punkin isn’t truly awesome. It’s just that it dropped a notch. If you want a beer that’s got a wallop of flavor including not just the traditional spices, but actual pumpkin here it is. At 9% ABV it’s got a good punch, so you might want to share this with a friend as it’s a big bottle.

Southern Tier’s Creme Brulee Imperial Stout – Apparently the folks at Southern Tier Brewing like them some potent flavor and potent beer. Cause this and Pumking certainly are. At 10% ABV this is another sipping beer, though there’s no burn. Open the bottle and you get a nose FULL of vanilla. It’s got a slightly oily mouthfeel and as Imperial Stouts go it’s no Sammy Smith’s. It’s very drinkable. The only odd thing is, as good as the aroma is, there’s not much of a vanilla flavor. I definitely recommend giving it a try though.

Mmmmmmm beeeer…. is a post from: Spiritual Tramp

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I wonder who my own theological equivalent rock star would be. I’m not sure. CS Lewis if he were still alive. Maybe N. T. Wright.

Anyway, the two of us met for a beer with some of the folks from the Skeptical Society (might not be the actual group name) and the Charlotte Atheists and Agnostics. I got to meet some nice gents and pimp Archangel. We talked briefly about religion in general, music, and idle chit chat. Time was short so we didn’t get into much trouble.

The talk itself was good. We got front row seats which was truly awesome. Dawkins mostly used his time as an opportunity to do some readings from The Greatest Show on Earth. Can’t blame him for that and they were good, informative, and relatively free of cringe-worthy moments. Perhaps the biggest problem I had with what he said was the notion that evolution is as factual as the earth being round. To a point I would agree with that. Evolution as a process happens. I don’t think that can be disputed or at least hasn’t been falsified (yet) and he doesn’t think it ever will be (but he does say it could be which is splitting hairs juuuuust a little I think). What I do take issue with is the notion that that process is what took single celled organisms and made them into people. That’s nowhere near as certain as a round earth in my opinion.

He also made a few statements about religion and indoctrination. He spoke of a geologist that he knows. The man is well educated, apparently highly thought of in his field, and yet he remains a Young Earth Creationist (no I didn’t catch the gents name). According to Dawkins the man even said that even if all of the evidence in the universe pointed to an old Earth (apparently he doesn’t think any of it does) he would still remain a YEC because in his opinion that is what the scripture plainly taught. Dawkins said (and I can’t quote him directly) something like that proved how dangerous indoctrination was. I suppose it’s not possible that the man decided for himself, for good reasons, that scripture was true. I don’t know what those reasons are and I don’t agree with Young Earth folks, but I’m not going to wag the indoctrination finger.

There was a Q&A afterward that wasn’t exactly inspiring. There were a few softballs like “Where do you find the patience to deal with believers?” and the couple of adversarial questions he got were fairly weak. I would have liked to see some folks who really disagreed with him and had what they felt were good reasons to step up. That or a debate would have been feistier.

The true high point of the evening was when we went to a pub after it was all over. I sat and talked with a few of the CAA people about morality, the Decalogue, the Fall, and a brief skim around the problem of evil. There was a moment there when my snark kicked in. A guy sat beside me and once he knew I was a Christian he asked me why I believed in Christ. It’s not a question that I could do justice to quickly, but I figured I would give it a shot.

Before I could get so much as a half dozen words out he started trotting out the whole notion that the Gospels weren’t written until much later and everything was filled in so that he could fulfill prophecies after the fact and oh my gosh if you’d just read this book and be rational and reasonable. Well I slapped my hands on the table and said, “All I have to do is read a BOOK? Why didn’t someone tell me?” Perhaps not my proudest moment. It did give me pause to think about all the times atheists/agnostics have probably been treated the same way, “If you’d only read the Bible/CS Lewis/A Case For Christ you’d see the light!” So that helped me some with perspective.

He didn’t stay much longer but the two folks I did finish out the evening talking to were quite lovely and we had an actual conversation. It was cut short by the lateness of the hour, but I do hope that through the magic of the internets we’ll be able to pick it up again. It was nice sharing a table with a group of people I couldn’t disagree with more on religion (one guy said that “it’s all BS” and he realized this at the age of 14 after preaching in a charismatic church for a year) and for it to remain civil (for the most part) and fascinating. I’m eager to repeat the experience. I think it would be ultra-cool if we could get some of the more even tempered folks from the CAA and the more even tempered folks in my Christian circles and do a pub crawl with a Zoom H4 recorder.

We’ll see if we can make that happen.

Off to See the Wizard is a post from: Spiritual Tramp

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