I really like beer.  Beer is an amazing beverage.  I written a beer review that I posted here on the site and I really want to review another beer.  The only problems are that I do NOT want to do a promoted beer (your Coors, your Buds, your Millers) and do something that gets little to no advertising (at least where I am from in the California Bay Area).  I do have some choices at my disposal, but I do not know which to choose. 
 
- ACME IPA Pale Ale 
- Fat Tire Amber Ale 
- Blue Moon 
- Shock Top 
 
I would really like to review one of these beers, but as I am strapped for cash, I need to pick just one.  If the community does not want a review of one of these beers, please suggest another.  The review on the chosen beer will be posted in a couple of days. 
 
Thank you for the help GB!!!

 
This beer comes to us from the North Coast Brewing Company in California. It's got one kick-ass looking bottle too, and it better be for the price I paid for it.  It is a fairly rare beer, but if you look hard enough, you will find it.

Now, this is my first experience with a Russian-type stout, so I didn't know quite what to expect. But to cut to the chase: this beer absolutely blew me away.

Pour: Very dark brown/black, opaque. Dense, foamy 3-fingered tan head with good retention and all sorts of neat lacing on the glass. One of the prettiest beers I've ever seen.

Smell: In a word, the aroma is strong. The most dominant thing on the notes are roasted chocolate malts ...and it's got a ton of them. Under that is a pretty potent coffee note, some fruity smells, and a bit of molasses. A little bit of the alcohol fumes come through in the nose, and actually not as much hops as I was expecting which makes it very unique.

Taste: I don't know if beer can make one cry, but you might shed a tear or two over this one! Rich, dark chocolate malt taste immediately hits you. Lots of coffee and a bit of milky sweetness in there too. The fruits that were present in the aroma are also present here to a lesser degree. Hops were much more present on the palate, and balanced out the flavor of this beer absolutely perfectly. A small, yet noticeable alcoholic aftertaste. One of the most balanced beers I've ever had.

Mouthfeel: Creamy and heavy yet smooth as silk. Fairly low in carbonation. About like drinking slightly carbonated milk.

Drinkability: It's a filling beer, but very easy drinking. I could have a couple of these at most though, probably.

Final Notes: What can I say? This was an amazing beer in every way. Nice palate that's not overly complex (don't expect a stout to be though), has tons of flavor, a strong smell, and the lacing is simply eye-candy. I will say however this is definitely not a beer for the faint of heart. Also, it's 9% ABV, so one that really needs to be treated with respect. This would make an awesome beer to drink in front of the fireplace or out by the campfire in wintertime. This is the first beer I think I've ever thought was perfect. It's that good.  Five Pints out of Five.
 

What I don't understand is why 99.9% of the time when a company announces that they will have DLC for a game and that it is in the works less then a month before a game is released, people go through the roof with anger.  Sure there are some games and developers that get attacked and deserve it, but most don't.  The only times that that is acceptible is when the CONTENT THAT THEY ARE MAKING YOU PAY FOR IS ON THE DISK!!!!  Soul Calibur IV is the best example of this.  They charged $5.00 to unlock a character that is on the game disk itself.  Things like that are unacceptable and should stop.  But the majority of the time this is not the case.   
 
My main case in point is the very recent release of Borderlands.  The DLC is called The Zombie Island of Doctor Ned.  It was announced October 15th.  A whole five days before the game came out.  I remember reading on this site a couple of things that made my skin crawl. 
 
-"So, Gearbox, you've already started designing this stuff, eh? Tell me then... Why is this not in the box of the actual game? *Cough* micro-transactions... *Cough* I'm not disappointed to see it, certainly looks great: I'm just disappointed to see such a blatant marketing strategy at work." 
 
-"ehhh, I'm sorry, but this kind of DLC announcement is what I dislike. Something like this could've been put in the actual game, but instead they're trying to milk the consumer. Not saying the content is bad or anything, and heck, it would be ok even if it was announced after the game came out by a few months, but the game isn't even in stores yet. And yet they already got stuff in finished for this. It would sit well with me if they actually worked on it AFTER the game was released, not during the game's actual development.  " 
 
-"Another one bites the dust.  Chalk this up with Dragon Age as two games I was looking forward to but now am going to pass on because of ridiculous DLC scams to make the game more expensive.  How about devs just put everything into the game until release, then start working on a large, PC-worthy expansion pack if you want to extend the game properly.  "

 These are things that just make me angry.  Does no one realize that development on a game is complete weeks if not a full month before the game releases?  It does not take long to get good screens for announced DLC to be prepared.  There is no firm release date for the Borderlands DLC in question which means that it may not be complete.  In the several weeks between a game going gold and release date, it is not inconciveable for DLC to be developed in that time frame.  People who get up in arms over DLC being anounced for a game DAYS before its release asking why the content is not on the disk is just ridiculous.  Should the game constantly get delayed so that they can get the content on the disk???  No.  The main thing is, the content is extra.  It is not intended to be a part of the full experiance.  The full experiance is on the disk.  I'm sorry this kind of stuff just pisses me off to no end.  thanks for sticking through my little rant.

One of the level 15 quests is called Marley and Moe.  It is a level 15 quest that should be a level 18 quest.  Marley and Moe are two Named Skags that wander the world.  It was my job to take them out.  I was at the time a level 14 Siren playing solo.  I figured that I would level up on the way to where they were wandering.  I did ding, and was still killing normal Skags when Marley rushed me from over the hill.  I knocked me back several feet.  Moe came up and started shooting lightening at me.  Now all of my weapons save one did Fire damage, and Marley is a fire Skag, so I was forced to use my two shot revolver (albeit a very powerful revolver) to damage him.  I kept getting smashed and beat up over and over again by the pair and the several random Skag spawn points that I accidently ran into.  It was not a good day.  I finally felled Marley and grabbed the health that he dropped and instantly phase walked to put some distance between myself and Moe.  When I came out of phase walk I got slammed in the back by something and went flying.  The something that hit me in the back was a lvl 14 Badass Fire Skag.  Now I have Moe to deal with AND the Badass Fire Skag.  Its like the fight started over again.  Thankfully Moe was easily dispatched with my fire weapons leaving the Fire Skag.  Using the same fingers crossed Revolver shots on the Fire Skag I finally felled him.  I had less then 20 HP remaining.  This entire encounter lasted around a half hour of constant fighting and dodging.  Thank God the normal Skags dropped tons of ammo for me.  Needless to say, I put my controller down after that fight and took a well deserved break from the action.  I'll be getting back into it tonight after work.

So as all of you Californian's know, today is the biggest rainstorm in October since the 50's, and like an idiot, I forgot my parking pass for the parking garage here at work.  This ment that I had to park 2 BLOCKS away from work AND I didn't bring an umbrella BECAUSE I WAS EXPECTING TO PARK IN THE PARKING GARAGE THAT IS ATTACHED TO THE BUILDING!!!!  Long story short.  IM A BLODDY IDIOT!!!!