Costume Quest - Xbox 360 Arcade

    It's Halloween! Tonight, kids all over are dressing up as ghosts and ghouls in hopes of scaring up some candy from their neighbors. I have a lot of good memories of trick-or-treating as a child, and even more of chowing down on my bag of Halloween candy for the next two weeks! Costume Quest brings back these good memories, as well as some of the excitement I would feel as a kid when Halloween came around each year.

Dead Inside - Pipeworks Brewing Co. and Angry Chair Brewing

    Dead Inside is an IPA created collaboratively by Pipeworks Brewing Co. in Chicago, Illinois and Angry Chair Brewing in Tampa, Florida. The beer is brewed with experimental "Idaho 7" hops, for a unique flavor profile.

    Dead Inside pours a hazy, golden orange with around an inch and a half of off-white head with great retention.

    There is a lot going on in this beer's aroma! The sweet scents of apricot, papaya, citrus and other tropical fruits are extremely strong and very enticing. A very slight piney, resinous scent compliments the fruit smells nicely. The smell alone of the beer has my mouth watering.

     Pipeworks' and Angry Chair's collab brew is full bodied with a mid-level of carbonation. The beer feels creamy and slightly oily in a pleasant way as the flavors stick to your tongue. The IPA has an alcohol content of 8.5% ABV.

I'm dying to get into that party!

     Dead Inside's flavor is nothing of the sort. Luscious stone and tropical fruit flavors burst from the beer with each sip. There's a very subtle hint of pine resin in the flavor as well, and it works just as well with the fruit flavors as it did in the beer's aroma. Hoppy bitterness is balanced very well by malt and fruity sweetness. I'm blown away by the balance that has been struck between these two opposing flavors.

    I have to say, this label leaves me with so many questions. Is this goat-man feeling beaten down and hopeless in a fit of nihilism? Is this satyr a graduate student? Does he literally have dead things inside him? If so, did he eat that entire skeleton, or how did it come to be in there? Was the skeleton animated when he ate it? Wouldn't this beer be better named "Undead Inside" if that were the case? Will drinking this beer turn me into a goat-man? Why does he have shoulder pad-like hair and no other upper-torso hair? At some point I had to just shut up and drink the beer!

    Dead Inside was an extremely tasty surprise. It's rare for me to find and IPA that surprises me lately, but Pipeworks and Angry Chair pulled it off! Massive fruit flavors, an amazing bitter/sweet balance, and managing to keep some of the classic piney flavors of an IPA coming through all make this one of the more memorable IPAs I've had recently. I've never had any of Angry Chair's beers before, but after drinking this collaboration, I'm definitely going to seek them out!

Amulets and Ale Rating:

Find Amulets and Ale on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/AmuletsAndAle! Instagram: @amuletsandale

Necromangocon - B. Nektar Meadery

    Legend has it that years ago a group of friends found an ancient book hidden deep in the darkest reaches of their basement. Against the friends' better judgement, the book's clasp was undone - unleashing the knowledge held within. It is said that the book levitated and that its pages began to turn themselves at an alarming rate. Amazingly, the friends found that the recipe for a mead was instantly burned into their minds. Little did the group know, the creation of this mead would lead to consequences so dire that they cannot be fully understood by the human mind. Well, that's what the label says anyway...

    Necromangocon (Necro for short) is a mead brewed with mango and black pepper. The mead was created by B. Nektar meadery which is based in Ferndale, Michigan. It may be of interest that another name for mead when it is brewed using fruit or fruit juice is melomel, though I'll stick to calling this brew what the meadery has labeled it.

    Necro pours a very light and transparent golden color. Absolutely no head forms at pouring, though a few tiny bubbles cling to the sides of the glass and swirl about its middle. I feel that I should note that it's not really a common characteristic of mead to have much head retention or a head at all.

Time for a little light, dark reading. Reader beware!

    B. Nektar's brew has a very faint aroma made up of honey, mango, and other floral scents. There's is a definite sweetness to the mead's aroma, as well as a very slight yeast spiciness.

    Necromangocon is light bodied, and almost a little watery. Similarly, the mead is lightly carbonated, with just a few small bubbles tickling your mouth as you drink it. Necro has an alcohol content of 6% ABV, which while low for a mead, isn't surprising as B. Nektar specializes in session meads.

    Necro tastes lightly of sweet, floral honey. Mango flavors are light, but bright, though I would have liked a little more out of the mead. There is only the slightest tingle of pepper at the end of the flavor. Necro tastes to me a bit more like a sweet, sparkling white wine than mead.

    Light, floral fruit and honey flavors combine with a crisp and slightly sparkling mouthfeel to create a pleasant beverage with a slightly spicy kick at the end.  I find myself wishing that Necro was a bit thicker, and of a higher alcohol content for a bit more warmth to the drink. Overall, I'm glad that I gave Necromangocon a try. B. Nektar's brew also now has the honor of being the first mead ever reviewed on Amulets and Ale!

Amulets and Ale Rating:

Follow Amulets and Ale on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/AmuletsAndAle!

Layers of Fear - Xbox One

    Layers of Fear is a First-Person, Psychological Horror game created by Bloober Team and published by Aspyr Media, Inc. The game was released in February, 2016 for Mac, PC, Playstation 4, and Xbox One. It has been announced that the game will see release on the Nintendo Switch in the "near future". What awaits us as we begin to peel back these layers of fear?

Two Evil: Geyser Gose - Two Roads Brewing Company and Evil Twin Brewing

    Two Evil: Geyser Gose is a Gose (say it similarly to "goes-uh") created in a collaboration between Evil Twin Brewing from Copenhagen, Denmark and Two Roads Brewing Company in Stratford, Connecticut. Geyser Gose features many unique ingredients that were procured when the brewers visited Iceland. This beer has a lot of international travel to thank for its creation!

    Geyser Gose pours a golden-straw color with a slight haze to it. A thin, white head tops the beer for a few seconds before settling down into a slight film on top of the brew.

    The Gose has a pleasantly tart citrus aroma that reminds me of lemonade. There is also a hint of some earthy notes - a smell that makes me think of hay or grass but not as strong. I've had quite a few of these beers lately, and I've only just recently noticed that something in the beer's aroma makes me think of being around the ocean's salty smelling air.

    Geyser is pretty light bodied, and has a medium-high level of carbonation. The Gose leaves just a tiny bit of an acidic feeling in your mouth, again, reminding me of lemonade. With an alcohol content of 5.5% ABV, Geyser Gose isn't exactly a session beer, though its so refreshing you might be tempted to try.

The first thing I'd visit in Iceand.

    According to Two Roads Brewing, Geyser Gose is made with Icelandic moss, herbs, sea kelp, Icelandic yogurt, rye, and smoked sea-salt. These ingredients may seem strange, but they work together so well that you hardly notice any one flavor without concentrating on separating them out in your mind. The main flavor in Geyser Gose is tart citrus fruits. This citrus flavor is light enough that the beer is extremely refreshing rather than cloying. There is also a slight saltiness to the beer, which is characteristic of a Gose. Much more subtle, flavors which taste like the ocean smells (minus the fishiness), and a slight mineral-like flavor are also present in the beer.

    I have not personally visited Iceland before, but I have heard only good things about it. I like to pretend that there are geysers in Iceland which have spouted this beer for ages unknown. Eventually, human settlers learned that they could collect this liquid shooting from the earth, and enjoy its refreshing and rejuvenating qualities. It seems a likely story that these collaborating brewers "came up with" this beer on their own. I find it much more likely that they stumbled upon one of these geysers on their trip to Iceland and immediately formulated a plan to can nature's bounty. It seems extra cheeky of the brewers then to indirectly admit to what they did by naming the beer Geyser Gose!

    I tried Geyser Gose for the first time early this summer and it quickly became THE beer of summer 2017 for me. I can't emphasize enough how refreshing this Gose is - especially on an outdoor patio, at the lake, or at the beach. My only complaint is that the beer seems to be a little over-complicated with its massive list of specialty ingredients that are hard to taste without concentration. I find myself wondering how much each ingredient actually adds to the overall flavor of the beer. I love Geyser Gose how it is, however, so I don't want to risk losing anything!

Amulets and Ale Rating:

Follow Amulets and Ale on Facebbook! http://www.facebook.com/AmuletsAndAle