7/24/10

Saranac Imperial IPA- Whole Foods Houston St., NYC- 12oz glass into Brandy Snifter-8.5% ABV- Reddish amber color. About a finger and a half of creamy head. Pretty strong retention with a moderate amount of lacing. Hoppy, piney aroma. Creamy mouthfeel with lots of little bubbles. I sense I am tasting some alcohol in this beer. Also bitterness which doesn't seem complimented by anything, just kind of bitter. There is a clingy, stickiness in the aftertaste which is kind of unpleasant. Not really digging this beer and I certainly wouldn't want to drink more than one of these today. I chose this beer because I don't normally see Saranc beers around to often. Saranac Pale Ale, to the best of my knowledge, was the first microwbrew I ever had back in college around 1994. Saranac was the micorbrew of choice if we drank one. It was pretty rare. We mostly drank 12 oz. bottles Milwaukee's Best which we bought by the case for about 6 or seven dollars. The bottles came in a rugged cardboard box which if returned with the bottles we could get about half the cost back of the case and in turn put it towards the cost of a new case of beer. We were also fond of Busch Beer kegs and Olde English 40's. I am sure alot of people would like this Imperial IPA and although it has nice qualities, its not exactly the beer for me.

On the turntable is Lightnin' Hopkins- Gotta Move Your Baby- Recorded with Sonny Terry on Harp, Leonard Gaskin on Bass and Belton Evans on Drums. After drinking a few beers last night and talking about Charlie Patton with my cousin I decide to throw on some blues today. My friend generously gave me this record back around the time when Martin Scorsese's Blues Series was playing on PBS. I had started getting into the blues in the late 1990's with John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters and Leadbelly but there were a lot of guys I was unfamiliar with. One of those guys was Lightnin' Hopkins and he has become one of my favorites for acoustic blues. I don't have a whole lot of first pressing blues records, due to their general high price and the fact that I can find most good collections way cheaper on CD. Though listening to blues music on vinyl is nice. This record does look like a first pressing for Prestige Records but I think it is a reissue because the record label says 1972. The recording I am guessing is from the early 60's when Prestige Records had a subsidiary label Bluesville Records. Developed I have read primarily to record older blues musicians who regained popularity in the early 1960's during the folk boom. This recording was recorded by Rudy Van Gelder, the legendary Jazz producer and engineer for hundreds of classic jazz recordings from the 1960's through 1970's. Another really nice cover on this one, the picture of Lightnin' looks like the prototypical old time bluesman!