Snapdragon Pink

Who invents this stuff?  You look up and here it is, growing in a pot suspended on a hook.  Impossibly pink flowers.  I mean you played with snapdragons when you were a kid, right?  You grasp the flower by your thumb and forefinger and squeeze a little and there’s the dragon’s mouth.  Open wide.  I didn’t.  But I could have.

IMAG1378

But not pink.  Not this impossibly perfect pink.  It’s a medium pink, almost creamy.  It’s not a dusky pink or a hot pink.  It’s not “Pink”.  It goes pink.  Antirrhinum majus.  “By pinching sides of flower lightly, you can make jaws snap open.”  I never.  It might have jaws but it’s got no teeth.  Nor does it go “snap”.  It’s dead quiet, ladies.  So what is it?  Where do these names come from?  Snapdragon snapdragon.

IMAG1388These are modified snapdragons.  They’re so modified they’re not even snapdragons.  You know.  These people again.  Ipomoea carnea.  They’re pink, but of a vastly different hue than the snapdragons.  It’s true.  These images were taken within seconds of each other in what you might call “flat” lighting conditions.  It’s a whole different pink.  Come on now.

I wouldn’t know anything about that.  And then, just before we decide we’re winding this thing up, some Azalea starts producing it’s own brand of pink flowers.  It’s hard.  Azaleas. We didn’t know.

 

 

 

Belhaven Black Scottish Stout Draught

Lousy Beer Can Image
Lousy Beer Can Image

It’s amazing the things you can unearth on the most miniscule of research budgets.  What you have to do is show initiative.  Together we can kick heck out of this thing.

Social Media was on fire last week with our beer commercial.  Crazy on fire.  Pretty gratifying when you think about it.

This is certainly an inky black stout if e’re there was.  And from some place called Scotland.  Has anybody checked that Scotland actually exists?  It’s up there somewhere east of here.  I’m kidding, right?  I’ve been to Midlothian, which is just west of East Lothian, from whence this beer hails.  Some place called Dunbar.

Not that Dunbar.  I think it should be “Lousy Image Beer Can”.

I’ve even read “Heart of Midlothian” by Sir Walter Scott and you won’t find anyone else on this blog making that claim.  I read part of it while flying into Midlothian.  Scott didn’t write one called “Heart of East Lothian” which pretty much puts an end to that idea.

Hail yeah, it’s smoky and furnacy.  It’s like six shifts in a coal mine.Belhaven Black

It’s black all right.  Black as night.  Black as Edward, the Black Prince.  Black as a black cat cross my path.  This stuff is dark.  It’s tasty.  It’s different and you like things that are different.

It’s a lighter, draughtier version of Belhaven’s Black Scottish Stout which tips the scales at a healthy 7% ABV.  This stuff’s 4.2.  They added some lightness.

IMAG1326That’s it for experiments in beer.  Please have a safe and prosperous dog days of summer.  I’ve never actually understood the meaning of that expression.  I guess we’re all lying around like hot dogs waiting for some rain.  Is that it?  No.

Steamworks Kolsch Lagered Ale

Steamworks KolschThe question is, what are you willing to do for 300 words? It could come to this. Come to writing beer commercials. For free.  It’s all right.  It’s any work that lies to hand.  It’s “Kölsch”.  Sure it is.  Love those little dots over the “ö”.  I wouldn’t waste a lot of time over the site.  It’s “Under Construction” but I’ve no idea for how long.  Steamworks

“Lagered” ale.  Look that up.  I don’t know.  I just like the can and what’s inside it.  That’s when they make a bunch of ale then cool it way down like a lager.  What’s a lager?  Pretty sure.

Great artwork.  It’s what’s striking about the Steamworks line-up.  The Kölsch, among other things, has a fanciful, fun rendering of something out of the Montgolfier brothers.  Another writer has used the word “whimsical”.  And that it is.

Brandever A local graphic design concern doing a lot of great work.  Art direction by Laurie Millotte and Bernie Hadley-Beauregard.  Concept by James Ng.  The illustration itself is by a guy you should check out, St. Louis-based  Michael Halbert

This is a well-captalized beer.  I’m glad I found that out so that instead of merely gumming another can of Steamworks Kölsch or any other Steamworks brew and wondering who’s behind these brilliant illustrations I can have a clue as to what’s going on here.  “Kölsch” in the can.

And then you remember Cologne.  Not the fragrance but the town.  Köln.  And, like a true student of life, you pick up on how this “Kölsch”, and many others like it bearing the same name, are based on a style of beer that originated in Cologne/Köln.  Cologne’s a really old town in Germany.  Of course it is.  And if there’s one thing they know about not just in Cologne but all over Germany it’s beer.  Let’s get started.

DSCN0197