Old Chico Brand Crystal Wheat. Only available locally, Old Chico Crystal Wheat is our lightest offering. This filtered beer is brewed with malted wheat and barley – leaving it light bodied, refreshing, and wonderfully drinkable.
I’d link you to Sierra Nevada’s information on this beer but their website doesn’t seem to include it amongst their beers…? Old Chico is a really light wheat beer. As you can see from the picture above it has a golden blond color and a fine white head. Old Chico has a floral bouquet with subtle hints of banana and wheat. Beer had a clear citrusy taste with a hint of apple on the roof of the mouth. I was surprised to find a bit of hops flavor in the beer as well that lingers. Not the best wheat beer I’ve ever drank but certainly will do on a hot, summer day.
You might have a hard time finding this beer outside of Northern California. That is okay though as there are plenty of good wheat beers out there and Old Chico isn’t amazing merely competent.
, playIt's like Arkham Horror with more dice and no giant board
I’m a sucker for most anything related to Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. I’ve read all the stories, numerous other author’s tributes and ripoffs, seen the movies, played the games, etc. I eat this stuff up. So, when I found out that Fantasy Flight had released a new game, in what they are now calling the Arkham Horror Files, using the Mythos as the backdrop I leaped.Elder Signs is, according to its website:
a fast-paced, cooperative dice game of supernatural intrigue for one to eight players by Richard Launius and Kevin Wilson, the designers of Arkham Horror. Players take the roles of investigators racing against time to stave off the imminent return of the Ancient One. Armed with tools, allies, and occult knowledge, investigators must put their sanity and stamina to the test as they adventure to locate Elder Signs, the eldritch symbols used to seal away the Ancient Ones and win the game.
Sadly, after I got the game it sat around while I tried to find a suitable day to have some friends over and play. Last Thursday I succeeded in getting two friends over and we sat down to play.
Elder Sign: mid game.
The game takes heavy inspiration from Arkham Horror, the games share artwork, characters, items, and Ancient Ones, and just like in that game the players are tasked with collecting enough elder signs to insure the Ancient One does not manifest in this world. But, instead of moving across a board, collecting cards, etc. the players use dice. The six large cards you see in the center of that picture are locations/events going on in the museum you’re all trapped in (the greenish one below is similar card but is in “another world”) the cards have lists of icons on them that correlate to matching icons on dice (six normal, two special) players are tasked with completing all the lists on a card in order to complete it and gain whatever rewards the card gives, if they fail they instead reap the consequences. Characters have sanity and stamina, items which allow them to heal, defeat monsters, switch their dice, store, dice, and use the two special dice.
As players take their turns the game’s clock advances and the various effects on the various cards (adventure, Ancient One, etc) come into effect such as monsters appearing, the players taking damage or giving up items, or adding tokens to the doom track (when it feels the Ancient One manifests; you don’t want the Ancient One to manifest.) I know it sounds kinda weird and none of us really got the hang of things until we sat down, started playing, and rolling dice. Once we did though everything fell together and we started having a blast!
adventure cards, anther world cards, item cards, and in the top right the Ancient One card
What we all found so enjoyable about Elder Sign is that the game retained the nerve wrecking tension of Arkham Horror but never bogs down. Our first game took two hours but we finished our second one in less than one hour! The other great thing is that with the dice you never know how you’re going to do. Early in the night we’d look at a card and say, “Oh, that one is so easy! I don’t even need to use any cards or special abilities.” Only to find ourselves after all the dice rolls looking up what happened when we failed. Four investigators were devoured that way. By the end of the night any time someone started saying a card was easy the other two would yell out, ” STOP saying that!” and then they’d knock on wood! I’m looking forward to getting seven people over here and seeing how the game is with that many people. I’m hopeful it will be one of my new go to party games, BANG! can’t pull all the weight.
If you’re looking for a fun, quick dice game with great mechanics and enough chance in there to make even the “easy” parts hard I don’t think you’d go wrong with Elder Sign.
Wailua is Hawaiian for two fresh water streams mingling. This was just the inspiration we needed for our aloha series wheat ale brewed with tropical passion fruit. A refreshing, citrusy, sun-colored ale with the cool taste of Hawaii
From their website:
Swimming in a fresh water pool at the base of a cascading waterfall is what we all imagine we would find in paradise. On Maui, follow the old Hana Highway and you will find such a place – Wailua Falls. This plunging cascade of clear water is the inspiration for our Limited Release Wailua Wheat Ale. This golden, sun colored ale has a bright, citrus flavor that comes from the tropical passion fruit we brew into each batch. Sit back, relax and enjoy paradise anytime.
I can pour a pint, let me tell you!
The first thing I noticed is how fruity this beer is! Furthermore while there is a hint of citrus as the quotes up above mention the more noticeable flavor is passion fruit. Please note that when I say this beer is fruity I’m not talking cocktail fruity, hard cider fruity, this is very much still a beer and while the passion fruit flavor is strong it isn’t sweet. The beer has a clean, crisp finish and leaves a satisfying passion fruit aftertaste in this mouth.
This beer is only sold during the spring and summer and that is a shame cause I’d drink it year round. But, since it’s only around for the BBQing months I hearitly recommend picking this beer up next time you’re grilling instead of Corona or other domestic lager.
Rating (out of five):
I wasn’t expecting to have a five star beer yet but here it is. So in it goes to the newly created False(B)blogic Hall of Beers.
When I heard that half of the team that created Super Meat Boy was making “some sort of rogue-like” I was sufficiently interested to follow the game’s progress on the developer’s blog. When it came out and I saw the game it had me scratching my head. People’s description’s didn’t help either, “it’s a dual stick shooter in random generated Legend of Zelda dungeons with an item-based leveling system” Uh, okay… What does that even mean?
The creator’s explanation didn’t make a lot of sense either:
Isaac is a roguelike shooter based on the dungeon structure of Zelda (nes). At its core it controls like Smash TV / Robotron in a randomly generated semi RPG world filled with powerups items and special abilities. There is not a traditional leveling system in Isaac, instead we used an item system. Every level will have a treasure room, shop, boss and other secret/special rooms that might contain unique items. Special items come in 4 sets, Usable items, Special Weapon upgrades, Passive upgrades and stat boosters. 90% of items in the game stack, so as you progress your character will change into a monstrous powerhouse not only in stats and abilities but also in appearance… Aside from these core items, Isaac uses its pickup items as resources in what i call micro puzzles. the core resources in the game are Coins, Bombs, Keys, Hearts, cards and pills each of these pickups can be used in different ways to acquire special items, gain access to shops and hidden areas, kill enemies and also affect gameplay in many other ways.
This is all the direction you're going to get...
So I downloaded it and have been playing it the last hour or so. And, that is exactly what the game is! So, if you had as much trouble parsing just what you do in this game from the text above I’m not going to be able to help you. Sorry! I can tell you that the game is fun and strangely addictive. Why strange? I don’t like rogue-likes. They take bad game design, turn around, and market said bad game design as the central aspects of the genre. Nothing is explained to the player, visually, aurally, or narratively. Every encounter with an object can lead to a player’s death without any indication from the game. Items, if they don’t kill you when you pick them up, are just as opaque as the rest of the game requiring you to use them in order to determine their use. Some people enjoy rogue-likes, I get it; but, some people enjoy enemas. I’m just saying. Binding of Isaac isn’t as bad as ADOM but it isn’t clear what is ever going on either (unless you’re taking notes, I suppose… But, I’m playing a video game not doing homework!)
Enjoy the rich color palette
My other complaint has to do with the graphic design. I was tired of browns, red, and pinks after DOOM II I don’t know why people are still designing games with such limited palettes. And for whatever reason Edmund McMillen’s character designs just aren’t doing it for me in this game. I haven’t got past the Caves II though so maybe the art shows a little more variety later on. I’m hoping that is the case.
