Guest Post - A Review Noir: Stone R&R Coconut IPA

We are lucky to have our first guest post from a lady who knows a thing or two about a thing or two.  Here is one example.  Please check out her website-- it's leslietime

 A Review Noir: Stone R&R Coconut IPA

“I’ve heard the flavors get more pronounced as it warms up!” chirped the golden retriever of a barmaid with the handfuls of hair cascading from her cap.

I nodded and gave her a half smile, wondering cruelly if she says that to every customer, about every beer.  I would never get my answer.

 

I evaluated at the pint in front of me with gimlet eyes.  The contents were the exact color of the hardened sap stuck scornfully to the trees of my youth, waiting to unleash its viscid revenge on my hair and skin.  It was the color of a tiger’s eye.  It would be a color I would come to disdain, and eventually, detest.

 

The first sip.  Internal panic.  Something’s wrong.  The coconut was entirely missing; all that was left in its place was throat-searing hops and another, soapier taste, lingering all too long.  A brief fantasy flickered behind my eyes, of heroically jumping behind the bar and ripping the tap handle off, thereby saving dozens of Glendale’s finest from certain death from drinking a spoiled brew.  Lofty dreams for a small town girl.

I reflected further and had no choice but to conclude that the brewers intended all of it.  Perhaps the soap was some kind of karmic punishment for too much cursing and carousing; as if Fortuna’s wheel had attempted to wash out my mouth.

I was faced with a hopeless choice.  If the callow, flighty, flouncy barmaid was to be believed, the flavors were going to intensify over time. Should I choke down the hateful quaff as fast as my mouth would carry me, or I gamble on it improving?  I was still chasing the dragon of the promised coconut; I wanted to feel a warm breeze on my cheeks and sand under my feet.  Was it even possible?

 

I trudged onward, deeper into the heart of darkness.  The residual foam left creeping spiderwebs along the inside of the glass, reaching towards me, taunting and mocking.

Time limped on.  The hops became hoppier.  The soap, soapier.  I guiltily averted my eyes from approaching bar staff, not wanting to be asked what I thought of the glass in front of me.  The ending, like most true endings, was uneventful.  A brief feeling of relief and then nothingness. In a way, I’m still there, seeing the wretched amber liquid sway in front of me, borne back ceaselessly into the past. 

 

1 out of 5 stars.

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Elways - what kills you makes you dead

Elways is where all those lights are chillin

Elways
174 Gore Creek Dr  Vail, Colorado 81657
I don't know anything about sports or whatever but that John Elway has managed to figure out a thing or two about how to make cash money post football - with this whole restauranting venture.

Elways has always been on my list based on the fact that people are always raving about it. I'm pretty meh about steakhouses which speaks volumes because there isn't much that sits between my feelings of major positivity or doblanegativity.  But steakhouses?  Who needs them, they feel like the most boring of houses.  I don't know or care much about steak although one time I made Ina Garten's (some kind of steak)with provençal butter which was so incredible it would make your balls drop.  If that is a thing.  I don't know how that works obviously but I imagine you are just walking down zhe street one day and BAHLONK balls.

Anyway, who cares.

As I was saying because steakhouses are usually all - hey, gurl why don't you buy a meat product and then also buy a vegetable to give it some company and by the way that steamed broccoli will cost you an extra $9 because this is a steakhouse in AMERICA and that is called freedom. My point is, that I find it of a waste of my time and I am never willing to cough up the dollars to go.  Until recently when a friend got her hands on hot pocket gift certificate money. My favorite kind of money. So, for one night, we lived like Kings.  Or Jacks.  Whatever, we lived like the cousins of Kings.  The highlight was probably that we chose the Vail location which makes me feel so incredibly lucky.   If you have the opportunity to hit an Elways, I would highly recommend the Vail location as it is absolutely beautiful in every way, The Mary Poppins of Elways, if you will.  Delightful in its beauty, it is beautifully lit, beautifully situated and beautifully peopled. Although downside to the Elways beautiful people is that they are kinda assholey. It seemed very let's take the nanny our for a night so we can feel good about making her work 16 hour days while we saunter around town, but let's keep our little children nearby but hidden in the foliage like little serial killers, waiting for just the right moment of peace and calm to murder us with their horribleness. Speaking of serial killers, how about that BTK.  I bet he feels so stupid. Moral of the story, don't use church floppy disks when you are writing your FOOOLED YOOOOOOU letter to the Wichita Police, dummy. 

Anyway, the people are shit, but that is to be expected.  I always forget how much I hate people until I am seated near or around them.  But I am pretty sure I have no right to be judgmental since my friends and I had a fantastic time drinking cocktails galore which I am sure chain reactioned into loud talking much of which was pretty inappropriate. So, they were fine.

Back to the food. As I said I don't give a shit about steak.  So I had some fish.  It was salty. I feel like any dish over $50 should be the right amount of salty, like seasoned enough so it doesn't taste salty. I'm pretty sure that every employee of Elways has watched some episode of a cooking competition show and knows rule number one is not to over season meaning CHILL ON THE SALT. And these guys were all - fuck it.  I salt because it makes me feel alive, or whatever, maybe they didn't care?  I mean what an embarrassing rookie mistake.  I was not the only one at my table to experience saltlick for dinner so shame on you John Elway.  You need to keep a better eye on your sous chef's sous chefs or whomever it was that took my sea bass and snotted on it. 

Now, I didn't really mind so much, even though it sure sounds like I do, but I am a complainer who would have been pissed if I had to use real currency but it was completely fine because it was FREE!  And I am pretty sure when we threw down our hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pesos in gift certificates the waiter was all - NOW I GET IT.  These people don't fit in here.  Not one of them is named Priscilla or Bridget or Bradley or Cumberbatch. None of them say hip hip and all that jazz and no one called each other sport, well that one girl did.  We also finished off about 900 cocktails, which were just fine.

In conclusion, go to Elways in Vail and sit on the patio and spend a lot of money on cocktails until you get a little drunk and maybe have a grilled artichoke because that was by far their best dish.  So yes, it was too salty but still so lovley.  You must go.  If you haven't managed to get yourself to Vail Elways then you MUST go.  You really must.  It is something that you just have to do.....before you die, which is going to be any minute once you finish your salty dinner.

Where Have I Been? UPDATE

Dear Diary UPDATE,

I am writing to you out of anger and confusion.  A few days ago I said unto thee how I loathed this fellow I never met and yet today I find out he might very well be the genius or sorta genius that he claims himself to be? Why come you always feel compelled to prove me wrong?   

Apparently, he created these beautiful treats I cannot wait to devour and yet never want to give in to:

Fried chilis for my burger and fried chilis standing alone, waiting to march down my sweet sweet gullet one by one or two by six I don't know exactly how it will happen but I want it and I don't.  I don't want to participate in his madness but I want to know every inch of this beautiful bastard of tastiness.  Why does it hurt so much to be so wrong and so right simultaneously diary?  Is he my serpent at the ready to show me the dark side?  What is happening to me diary?  Is this a gateway into chasing the dragon that is the mcgriddle? What have you done to me?

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Dear Diary,

I have so much and yet so little to tell you about this and that and nothing and all of it. Why haven't I written you in so long diary? Well, I got into a fight with my spiritual leader about my pork intake and well, one thing lead to another and I had to say goodnight, not goodbye to what was once my most favorite method of love making, placing the pork gently on mi lengua and writing about how it causes spontaneous orgasms. FYI that makes me want to barf? Why am I so super guhross diary? I will say this, secret diary that no one will ever read, I wanted to write to you when I fell in love with Steve's Snappin Dogs, and when I was offended times 1,000 by the incredibly absurd seating arrangements at Pinche Tacos, and how I Grey Gardensed the shit out of Jackson Hewl, Wyoming but I didn't. I felt creatively flaccid and maybe wasn't ready to tell you what it was like to push my wheelchaired mother into every bathroom stall of every gas station in all of the Wyoming and the Yellowstone and part of the Montana. PS diary, it humbled me greatly and absconded with what miniscule dignity I was hiding. I wondered as I wandered how many boner jokes could or should a lady incorporate into a conversation about food? I finally answered, not enough but I didn't hear myself because I was too busy obsessing over rugs and bedding and moving furniture to the here and from the there and making curtains and painting cabinets and making fake album covers for my fake 2 lady band, Space Cans with my bff and obsessively watching million dollar decorators and just doing shit ladies do and not shit foul mouthed eatersanonymousers do and sometimes the two do not go hand in hand, and sometimes I don't feel like spending 20 minutes of my work day ranting about nothing to no one in one breath of free association unedited nonsensical malarchy.

And Who THE FUCK IS THIS FUCKING GUY?

But today, I was reminded what drives me, my sweet delicious cherub of a diary, not my love for all things delicious but my contempt for the most fucking annoying people on the planet. Like this major tampon who prides himself on having invented the McGriddle and Stuffed Crust pizza. This may seem a tad harsh, but doesn't he totally look like a guy who watches himself in the mirror while he "ahem" does it and blurts out succesories quotes upon ejaculation? Well, he opened a restaurant that I both want to devour and destroy.

The food pics look fantastic - I don't know what it is but I want to motor boat it.

I want to glory hole you so hard

Unfortunately such loveliness is accompanied by people who say shit like this "Destined to become an iconic downtown Denver landmark", and "where you can get hand-crafted comfort food with an urban twist-whenever you want." What the fuck is an urban twist? Does that mean everything has been soaked in Dr. Pepper Red Fusion or comes with a Mountain Dew Code Red? Question to diary? Why are all urban drinks red? Because blood flows red in the streets of the city? Also, this pee pad of a restaurant says shit like "Behind the doors and in the dining rooms, one may find bachelorettes toasting former freedoms, important legislature being discussed, or pre-concert parties warming up for the night’s big event. So if you’re looking for downtown’s only place to be seen, look no further." Ugh this makes me not want to see you or be seen in you. I don't want to see freedom losing while I'm trying to eat that catastrophe pictured above. I just want to delicately break that yolk and watch the egg drool down the plate and catch it with my tongue as I swallow it all in one slurp. Nothing more and nothing less.

Maybe this Tom motherfucker is a genius or maybe he is the worlds worst but I won't know until I try it and I want to but I already hate it there because of this mixologist old timey bartender shit that bores me to tears as its popularity drifts in from the coasts. Make me a drink and make it good. Why weren't you all doing this before? Were you making me a shitty manhattan before but now that you are in fancy dress you are going to give it 100%? I hate your stupid face whatever this is.

And another thing Denver, please stop trying to make this speakeasy movement happen. I don't want to whisper a password or go through faux secret passageway. For some reason, when LA went with the mixology thing years ago, they didn't feel compelled to make every asshole walking through the door play charades before ordering a drink so why doth you Denver? I do not play along which is why I do not participate in the haunted house shenanigans around halloween. PS, If I really want to go to a speakeasy, I will go to the Cruise Room which is way awesomer and really was a speakeasy so eat a dick all people who are involved in this absurdity.

In conclusion. I don't know how I feel diary. Why does everything get ruined by its own desire to be considered pretentious? I prefer boughetto thankyouverymuch.