tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3871409676946408069.post2390165692547103611..comments2023-10-14T03:58:59.333-06:00Comments on The Tao of D&D: Getting Old & BeerAlexis Smolenskhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10539170107563075967noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3871409676946408069.post-89884658798492195292014-11-19T14:26:07.086-07:002014-11-19T14:26:07.086-07:00I so agree, Dave! Glenfiddich or Glenlivet on ice...I so agree, Dave! Glenfiddich or Glenlivet on ice? Mon dieu!<br /><br />I wonder how many readers will appreciate how appropriate it is to swear in French over Scottish liquor.<br /><br />As an aside, I have a long history with vodka as well, Dave - where my issue is the insistence on bars keeping the vodka stored at room temperature.<br /><br />Mine is buried deep in my freezer, where it belongs.Alexis Smolenskhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10539170107563075967noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3871409676946408069.post-74808288106376531732014-11-19T14:22:23.784-07:002014-11-19T14:22:23.784-07:00Interesting! Stateside, I continue to seek out an...Interesting! Stateside, I continue to seek out and try new flavors of malted beverages, and there's been a great proliferation of them here. I tend to prefer porters and stouts, but like to try all sorts.<br /><br />My biggest complaint isn't about beers, it's about clueless bartenders when I order a good scotch. I drink it neat and I'm (a slow learner) continually surprised by the vacant stares when I say things like, "A MacAllan 18, neat." "Uh, you want that on ice?" AAARGH!Davehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10231423670489116607noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3871409676946408069.post-17918013613945025742014-11-17T22:14:44.249-07:002014-11-17T22:14:44.249-07:00No, I will definitely give no examples. That just...No, I will definitely give no examples. That just becomes a pointless exercise. I did not mention the brand names of the beer I did not like, did I?<br /><br />As far as the beer being cheap/expensive, I think you may have misunderstood me. It is cheap for the bars to buy from the manufacturer - they then mark it up crazily and charge far more than its worth to the customers, who are mystified by brand names and willing to pay the price.Alexis Smolenskhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10539170107563075967noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3871409676946408069.post-73028147935756811012014-11-17T22:08:39.849-07:002014-11-17T22:08:39.849-07:00No matter on what you write, it always gets me thi...No matter on what you write, it always gets me thinking. I live at the other end of the same country (for american readers, that would be the province of Quebec) and we do have a large amount of micro-brewerie.<br /><br />The "beer-scene" here is much different it seems, most of our local breweries are not on the cheap side but marketed as upscale (sometimes massively so). You mentionned guiness as a good beer, would you care to give some more exemples?<br />Michttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02363668416664911106noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3871409676946408069.post-993989016518529512014-11-17T22:08:02.590-07:002014-11-17T22:08:02.590-07:00The price for "malt" was based on world ...The price for "malt" was based on world production for malted grains vs. the total amount of beer produced. Remember that cost for malt depends on where in the world you happen to be; there are only a few places that make malt that they don't intend to then use for beer, so naturally the price will be high.<br /><br />My numbers for statistics show that world production in 1988 were not quite 10,000,000 tons; that's not actually very much. Divided by 500, as all my products are, that's only 200,000 tons - worldwide. That makes it rare enough that a large sack of it is bound to be expensive.Alexis Smolenskhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10539170107563075967noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3871409676946408069.post-87687894618795831532014-11-17T21:07:40.720-07:002014-11-17T21:07:40.720-07:00It's interesting how much our tastes change fo...It's interesting how much our tastes change for all sorts of comestibles. What passed for beer during the periods of time in which most D&D campaigns are set must have been really awful stuff. There's a number of videos on YouTube that demonstrate how to make ale the medieval way, which was certainly on a far smaller scale than what microbreweries are producing, and from the reactions there it doesn't seem to suit the modern palette at all. Even in those days it tended to go off quickly and seems to have been the cause of a great deal of vomiting. We all take what we can get, I suppose, but Guiness is a rare treat where I live, too. <br /><br />By the way, Alexis, in one of your price lists some time back you had listed a sack of malt for what seemed to me an exorbitant price, and I wondered if you wouldn't mind going into how you arrived at the number. I have a character setting up a brewery in my campaign and by the calculations it should have been far less expensive, or simply something that characters should be able to make themselves by soaking grain in burlap sacks over the course of a few days. The brewery my player has set up is in an area that produces ample grain and barley, and I would think the owners of alehouses in the area would all be making their own malt quite cheaply. <br /><br />--Tremain XenosT. Xenoshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03437826007093032573noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3871409676946408069.post-25788710183560666722014-11-17T17:02:14.437-07:002014-11-17T17:02:14.437-07:00I don't know if this is a factor of age, as I ...I don't know if this is a factor of age, as I am significantly younger than you and I face the same frustrations with bartenders trying to give me vodka when I want gin, or staring at me blankly when I order really basic cocktails.<br /><br />I think my generation just sucks at drinking.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com