Beer in the Headlights
Which brews impress our experts in a blind taste test, and which are roadkill?
Cover Stories
Know Your Humboldt Breweries: Six Rivers Brewery
“See how clear that is.” Six Rivers Brewmaster Carlos Sanchez holds a sample glass of Trula Pilsner up to the light for us both to inspect. The golden-colored lager is so clear it almost seems fragile. “You can’t hide any flaws in this beer,” Sanchez says. Six Rivers Brewery is the only local brewery to…
Know Your Humboldt Breweries: Lost Coast Brewery
To get an idea of the size of the Lost Coast Brewery empire, just walk through its Eureka brewhouse — a labyrinth of giant fermentation tanks, bottling machinery and stacked pallets of ready-to-ship product that seems too big to believably be in Humboldt. To say you could get lost in there might sound cliché, but…
Know Your Humboldt Breweries: Redwood Curtain Brewery
Bottles? We don’t need no stinkin’ bottles. If you’ve ever tasted a Redwood Curtain beer, odds are it was from the tap, maybe even produced mere feet away from where it entered your face. Located in the unglamorous Bay View Industrial Center on Arcata’s South G Street, Redwood Curtain Brewery’s Tasting Room is low on…
Know Your Humboldt Breweries: Eel River Brewery
Earlier this year, Eel River Brewery produced a specialty beer to promote Earth Day and raise money for California Certified Organic Farmers. The name? Earth Thirst Double IPA. In an age when “green” branding is almost inescapable, Eel River Brewery has promoted itself as “America’s first certified organic brewery” since 1999. But owner Ted Vivatson…
Fruit Bashing
Beer snobs and fruit beers don’t mix. It’s just one of those Don’t-Mess-Around-With-Jim truths you pick up somewhere in life. Since they were already forced to slog through a marathon 30 beers, we thought it best not to ask our highfalutin, beer tongues-for-hire to endure the handful of locally produced fruity brews (known, uh, in…
Beer in the Headlights
Click here to see full beer tasting results. Ron Kuhnel doesn’t so much drink beer as he forms fleeting, intimate relationships with it. Onlookers to these brief but passionate courtships will note that fully four of his five senses become engrossed, with only his ears forced to sit on the sidelines. If beers audibly communicated,…
Guest Post: View from the Occupation
(UPDATE: Arcata Police Chief Tom Chapman released this letter calling on Occupy Arcata to “remove all tarps, tents, and structures from the Plaza immediately. Continued violation … will be subject to arrest.”) The following was posted by Travis Turner — a Navy veteran, freelance writer/photographer, and Humboldt State student — on his Facebook page Thursday…
Pretty Fine Pilobolus
Horizontal became vertical, electricity became visible and chairs morphed into the only solid ground in a slippery world on Tuesday, when Pilobolus dancers leapt, slouched and spun across the Van Duzer Theater stage. The Connecticut-based troupe reached into a repertoire that spanned most of its 40-year existence and pulled out one dazzling winner and mixed…
The Algae Diet
We get how this works! It’s easy: Just spray summa that magical “Klamath algae” into your maw and nobody will want to ask you out to dinner anymore, or even welcome you at the home table. Presto! Your diet begins. (Alternatively, and just as good a method: If you get the wrong Klamath algae, the…
Murre Hard Times
Common murre, Trinidad State Beach Photo by Ken Malcomson Oh, cruel, hard Nature, won’t you let me wander your beaches without encountering so many of your soft little reminders of Death? Of All Things Must Go? Seriously: Seventeen sleek little feet-up feather bundles laid amidst piles of drying eel grass is quite enough. Their poor…
Slap Steps
The 39 Steps is most famously a movie made by Alfred Hitchcock in England, before he relocated to Hollywood. It was preceded by the John Buchan novel and followed by several other film and TV versions, all from the UK. The 2005 play of The 39 Steps by Patrick Barlow now on stage at Ferndale…
Know Your Humboldt Breweries: Mad River Brewery
It’s always nice to have the respect of your beer peers. Through the course of our travels to the other Humboldt breweries, we asked them which of their local peers they were most impressed with. Every one of them cited Mad River Brewery as an exemplary operation, especially where it counts — in the beer.…
Tea and Occupy
Editor: I am writing in response to the “Already Occupied” article (Oct. 13). I would find it extremely unfortunate if Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party movements do not recognize that both movements share similar goals. Of course, each movement would have to put aside their differences on some issues in order to work…
The Best
It was a double-bill that just had to happen. After local singer/songwriters Josephine Johnson and Chris Parreira tied for “Best Solo Musician” in the Journal’s “Best Of Humboldt” poll, we pretty much dared them to do a show together. They agreed, so we decided to make it happen — this Saturday at the Arcata Playhouse.…
Open Source
It’s logical that accomplished jazz violinist/composer Jeff Gauthier, founder of Cryptogramophone, makes eclectic music reflective of his label’s community of diverse musicians — from The Nels Cline Singers to Ben Goldberg to Todd Sickafoose — just as his own playing has contributed to his colleagues’ recordings. With his “Goatette” line-up, featuring the Cline brothers (percussionist/drummer…
Disaster Attitude
First the rumble, loud, louder, LOUDER until it thunders under your feet. Then BAM! CRACK! And the terrifying shaking, the deafening, dread symphony of rattle, thud, jingle and smash. When it’s over, you crawl out from under the sturdy table you dove under the second you realized it was an earthquake — right? didn’t…
Time for Outrage
It’s arguably a good thing some challenges are too immense to be tackled alone. Cooperation, reciprocation and compassion – the tempered tools of our species’ survival – when wielded against seemingly insurmountable struggles, remind us of what it is to be human. At the seasoned age of 93, Stéphane Hessel has written an appeal to…
‘Cuz They’re Adorable, OK?
They brighten your day with their adorable enthusiasm. They snuggle you when no one else will. They unknowingly star in billions of YouTube clips that you’ve wasted billions of hours watching, forwarding and wall-posting on Facebook. They are pets. You love them. Don’t fight it. And since they’ve given you so much, couldn’t you give…
The 10 Percent Brain Myth
Pioneering psychologist William James (1842-1910), brother of novelist Henry, was known to provoke his audiences by saying that they were probably performing at a fraction of their full mental potential. If he had known how recklessly today’s New Age hucksters would capitalize on this idea of unused brain capacity, he might have been a little…
Foot Losers
FOOTLOOSE. I’m old enough to remember the original Footloose (1984), lo these many years later, but young enough to have lost any significant nostalgia for it. Still and all, writer/director Craig Brewer’s remake is such a pallid imitation of a familiar movie that it’s surprising he got away with making it. The biggest flaw…
Putting the Fun in Fungi
I don’t fish or hunt. I’m not even much of a gardener. But somewhere in my DNA is a link to my hunter-gatherer past. Every August when the blackberries ripen, I succumb to the urge to harvest. Every autumn, I glean our apple tree to convert into crisps and sauce. Then, there is mushrooming. I…
Organic Funk
It’s kind of amazing for a band founded 16 years ago: Five out of six players in the current line-up of the Marin-based jamfunk combo Vinyl are founding members. One reason for the longevity is the way it started. “It was just guys getting together in a garage to jam,” said bass player Geoff Vaughan.…
Preferred Guides to Western Mushrooms
Mushrooms Demystified by David Arora (Berkeley: Ten Speed Press), 1986 At nearly 1,000 pages this is for the serious mushroom hunter. All That the Rain Promises and More . . . by David Arora (Berkeley: Ten Speed Press), 1991 This pocket guide describes some 200 of the most common Western mushrooms. You will still need…
Gendered Words
Editor: In Barry Evans’ excellent Oct. 13 Field Notes column (“Vive la Difference”) on gender and language, he notes that English generally “marks” or augments nouns applied to males to generate female counterparts. He provides examples such as heir/heiress and god/goddess and says he’s “hard-put to find a counter-example.” I can offer one: widow/widower. Richard…
Untitled
The pale grub of the moon keeps staring……
Fall In Humboldt County
Fall In Humboldt County
McKinleyville Arts Night
Third Friday McKinleyville Arts Night Friday, Oct. 21, 6-8 p.m. is presented by members of the McKinleyville business community. Receptions for artists, exhibits and/or performances are from 6-8 p.m. on the third Friday of each month. Phone 268-1800, for more information. 1) McKinleyville High School 1300 Murray Road In the Multipurpose Room. Robin Weburg, Nature’s Scattered…
