Sometimes, decisions have to be made.

I think I'll be increasing the number of new beers I want to try before I turn 30. I had been shooting for 30, which averaged out to about one new beer every ten days. The problem is, one beer isn't that much, and when I'm in the store selecting a brew for the evening, I don't necessarily want two or three bottles of the same thing if I've never had it before.

Maybe I'll bump it up to 75 or 100...

The Deadliest Posting

When he's not risking life and limb to keep crab on America's plates, Captain Sig Hansen can be found whoring his name out to Rogue Brewery to be slapped on a bottle of beer.

Nah, seriously, though, Rogue's Captain Sig's Deadliest Ale is a tribute to the men who risk life and limb to keep us elbow-deep in mud bug meat. A portion of the proceeds even go to the Fisherman's Fund, a fund that I assume goes towards fisherman.

As for the beer itself, this ale is possibly one of the best ales I've ever had. Crisp, full-bodied but without being overpowering or bitter, and with a flavor that I can tell would take the heat out of a blazing summer afternoon.

Probably more available here in the PNW, but keep an eye out for it.

They should have called it the "deliciousest ale." Wait. Never mind. That would be stupidest.

Once you try black...

The Spoetzl Brewery in Shiner, Texas makes arguably the finest bock (high-malt) beer in America. I got to try their Black Lager the other day, and it is some heavy, heavy stuff. Like a certain Irish stout of fame, it is dense and a little bitter, but unlike the Irish stuff, it's reminiscent of roasted nuts and BBQ.

Good stuff, wouldn't buy it though...

Yummy food and beer

After a recent doctor visit, I stopped in the International District/Chinatown for a bite.

For lunch I ate at a restaurant I hadn't tried before, the Purple Dot. There I had lo mein, which is nothing new, and beef "delicacies," or delicious innards and tendons sauteed with soy sauce and garlic.

I also picked up a bottle of Laughing Buddha Pandan Brown Ale, a dark ale made with pandan leaves, a fragrant Asian leaf, as well as sugar cane and chocolate malt. Very full-bodied without being too hoppy or rich.

Why do the French call it "sweetbreads" and the Asians call it "delicacies?" Because if they called it cow esophagus, stomach lining, pancreas, heart, thymus gland, and tendons, no one would eat it. You may think it sounds gross, but I bet you eat it when they grind it up, slap a casing on it, and call it a hot dog.

If you shoot the head you kill the ghoul

I semi-successfully completed my first movie marathon as projected on my list: the zombie movie marathon was completed over a couple of days while I was recuperating from my first surgery. The idea was to complete a lengthy string of some of the best ("best being relative - we are talking about zombie movies) gore-tastic undead flicks ever set to celluloid.

I had to spread it out over a couple of days, what with fading and out of consciousness due to pain killers and interruptions like doctor appointments and errands.

I did manage to get through a few hours of the undead gobbling the flesh of the living and the living, in turn, smearing the contents of zombie bodies across the walls. In hindsight, it's probably better to spread this out; you can really only take a few hours of splatter before you need a break because your brain gets pretty numb and you start to think that all your problems can be solved with chainsaws and twelve-gauges.

The Zomb-a-Thon:

1. George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead

The one that started it all, the B&W classic from 1968 set the standard for zombie flicks. Recently deceased corpses become re-animated through mysterious means and stalk the living in order to eat their flesh and pass on whatever ailment it is that turns stiffs into zombies.

2. Braindead (aka Dead Alive)

Before Peter Jackson was handed the reigns of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, he created what is often hailed as the goriest splatter film of all time. A bite from a Sumatran Rat Monkey turns a brow-beating New Zealand mother into a zombie, and hilarity ensues as her son tries to keep her and the growing army of undead under wraps and out of each others' pants. Gross.

3. Dawn of the Dead

The 2004 remake of the George A. Romero classic pits a group of "survivors" stranded in a shopping mall against unending hordes of zombies right outside. Much faster-paced and (better?) than the 1978 original, with the ferocious and speedy ghouls we demand in our go-go modern society.

4. Re-Animator

An evil genius grad student uses a formula invented by his mentor to bring the dead back to life. Things get out of hand when...well, when he does what I just said.

5. George A. Romero's Land of the Dead

Ever wonder what happens at the end of the movie when the humans seem outnumbered but resilient, and then the credits roll and we have no idea who won? Spoiler alert: the zombies! Humans have fenced themselves into a secure section of a once major metropolitan area while all around them the walking dead have taken control. Worse than that, they're starting to get smart and use tools! It's sort of like a really refreshing take on evolution.

6. Zombie (aka Zombi 2)

An Italian film that was touted as a sequel to Night of the Living Dead (it wasn't) and set the stage for Italy to become the zombie flick capital of the world. This film is actually beautifully made, and considering the budget, the effects are awesome. When you find yourself watching a classic Disney movie and notice something missing, that something is an underwater battle between a zombie and a shark. Damn it man, that's good cinema.

7. Dellamorte Dellamore (aka Cemetery Man)

The last time so many people being brutally shot in the heads was this funny, Helter Skelter was playing in the background. A rather dreary Brit is the caretaker of a cemetery where the recently buried come back to life and need to be shot in the head and re-buried nightly. There is actually a lot of romance and scads of humor in this one, a new level of dark comedy.

8. Shaun of the Dead

The British indie hit that lampoons all the zombie cliches, and does it brilliantly. Shaun and friends are painfully oblivious to the invasion of living dead until they are some of the few humans left. Making it funnier is that in England, there are no guns on the streets and relatively few power tools, and the resourceful heroes are forced to use LPs, cricket bats, and disembodied legs as weapons. How do you fight monsters in a much more peaceful and unarmed society? I had no idea this would be as funny as it was; maybe it was better because I relate fairly well to the born loser characters.