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!

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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!

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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?