The Vain Search for Porkslap and Moodus Noises

Welcome to Moodus, CT.  Puffinmuffin and Prof. WoodChuck found two compelling reasons to visit this small town 70 miles from Providence: a liquor store (Connecticut residents refer to them as "Package Stores") promising to sell Porkslap Pale Ale, our pick for favorite beer at the 2009 Philly Craft Beer Festival, and the Moodus noises, an unexplained phenomenon immortalized by H.P. Lovecraft in his story "The Dunwich Horror".

Sadly, the liquor store no longer stocked Porkslap, and could find only one dusty can, which was presented to us as a consolation prize. It should also be noted that we were costumed, as "90's Us". L. Puffinmuffin and Prof. WoodChuck first met in 1997, and it was not love at first sight, possibly because we looked like this:

To be fair, Puffinmuffin had been sick for the three days prior to this photo. However, it actually made the costume more authentic. Trust me, puffy eyes and a glazed look were all the rage in 90's Warwick. No. Really.

At this point, many of you might be wondering what might make two otherwise reasonable adults dress like teen version of themselves and wander off into the woods looking for sounds. The Moodus noises are a strange geological phenomenon which worked its way first into local folklore and then into literary history. The people who first settled the area were told by the native inhabitants of the supernatural rumblings which would periodically emanate from the hills. Sadly, we had no opportunity to hear those rumblings, but Lovecraft describes them - in the form of a fictitious sermon preached by a character in "The Dunwich Horror" - as, "a Rattling and Rolling, Groaning, Screeching and Hissing, such as no Things of this Earth cou'd raise up".

Our search for the Moodus noises lead us to a small park at the end of a residential road, which we assumed would take us to Cave Hill.  Puffinmuffin was pretty sure that Cave Hill was named for the Moodus Caves, which is supposedly one of the best places to hear the aforementioned noises. It'd the kind of dead end destination that makes a great beginning for bad horror. Two young lovers thought they were taking a romantic stroll in the woods, but it was a walk into - TERROR! (yeah, that's why I'm not in advertising).  Aside from a snake  L. Puffinmufin nearly trodded on, it was a peaceful hike to the top of Cave Hill on an almost perfect fall day. We sat at the top, listened for the infamous noise and tried to drink our sad, lone can of Pork-Slap. Unfortunately we didn't hear much but the wind in the leaves and the occasional truck rolling by.  Also our consolation can of beer had been sitting in the fridge for so long it was completely and utterly undrinkable.  But perched there in the quiet woods on a day that so perfectly suited for Halloween it was impossible to be disappointed.

The next item on our menu of fun was a cheery sounding place called The Devil's Hop Yard. We hadn't know it was there when we left, but we were told it was a creepy place by two locals who were very nice after they realized we were only dressed like that because it was Halloween. Lovecraft described it as "...a bleak, blasted hillside where no tree, shrub or grass-blade will grow." While we can't be certain he was talking about this particular park in Connecticut, if he had been we could be forgiven for thinking his description was a little off. In fact, the park we saw was beautiful and thick with trees.

Click here to see Prof. Woodchuck take up the story.

On the way back, we had a late - and delightfully liquid - lunch at the Willimantic Brewing Company, a delightful little brew pub in a converted post office. The Prof had a half rack of incredibly tender baby back ribs with homemade beer BBQ sauce, and a sampler of five of the signature beers:
1) A mysterious pale substance called the Elm, which was the only beer either of us had that was not brewed at the brew pub. It had a faint aroma of lanolin.
2) Carrier's Credo Cream Ale. What makes a cream ale creamy remains a mystery, as the only cream ale either of us had tasted prior was the horrible dive bar standard Gennessee Cream Ale. The Carrier's was considerably better - pale and slightly bitter without being too hoppy.
3) The Husky IPA, second-best of 3 IPAs on tap (the mascot of nearby UConn is the husky, by the way). We had a somewhat similar beer at the Heartland Brewery in Union Square in NY, called the Cornhusker, and therefore wondered if the beer might actually contain corn of some sort.
4) Harvest Ale, which L. Puffinmuffin had from the cask. The regular version was malty and somewhat boring.
5) Barrel Aged Extreme/Knight/Funkhammer. Despite the clunky name and even clunkier 9% alcohol content, this was a surprise favorite of the day for the Prof because of its resemblance to the Flemish Sour ale at Monk's Belgian cafe in Philadelphia. It's very sour, not at all bitter, and definitely an acquired taste. Don't drink it and drive.

Puffinmuffin had a sandwich that goes by the name the Village, which is fitting, since it contains enough corned beef to feed one.  This was washed down with a sampler of his own. However, owing to because of prior commitments (i.e. eating a week's worth of food in a single sitting) he was unable to be as detailed in his reviews as the good Professor. Still, here is a run down as best as he can remember;

1) Certified Gold Ale: This one seemed to be their approximation of a Kolsch, a nice traditional German light beer. While this is generally the kind of thing Puffinmuffin looks for in a session beer, there wasn't anything particularly inspiring about this one. It wasn't bad, just none too memorable.
2) Junk Mail IPA:  Definately the highlight of the bunch. Very hoppy, but not to excess. It was very bright without tasting anasceptic, bitter but clean. All in all, a very drinkable beer.
3) Dyvil Hopyard Double IPA:  At 8.4% this would seem to be outside Puffinmuffin's comfort zone. But it was surprisingly drinkable for such a strong beer. With a nice hoppy character, not overly malty, and a pleasant finish.  He might not call it a session beer, but definitely one of the more pleasant plus-6% beers he's run across.
4) Harvest Ale Cask: This was essentially the same as the Harvest Ale, only in a cask. What does that mean? Room temperature and no extra carbonation primarily. This tends to work against most beers in our opinions, however with this beer it seemed to add a little something. I can't really say what that was, but we liked it.
5) 3 Cents Pale Ale: This was another hoppy, malty entry. To be honest it was a toss-up between this and the Junk Mail for the favorite spot. However this one just didn't have the depth of flavor of the Junk Mail. It was a little less bitter, but also a little less flavorful overall. All the same, a very drinkable brew. A body could do worse.

You dim sum you lose sum...

Even though it was several days too late, the powers that be thought it fitting to celebrate Dr. Woodchuck's birthday yet again. This time with dim sum in lovely Flushing Queens (which I hear is also the name of internet group hosted by Larry Craig - I love out of date humor). Our venue was the Ocean Jewel Seafood restaurant on 39th and Pine St, if that means anything. We were meant to arrive at one o'clock, however, thanks to a minor error in judgement on my part we took the bus and so arrived several minutes late. Thankfully it was getting past prime dim sum hours so our hosts didn't seem to mind. The room they prepared for us was pretty stylish - a private room with its own karaoke machine. Thankfully, it was too early in the day for anyone to be - ahem - inspired enough to use this feature, but it was nice to know it was there.

As for the food, all I can really say is that it was good. Dim sum is not something I have a great deal of experience with, so I tend to operate on an if-it-looks-good-eat-it philosophy. This works perfectly well if you're eating the food, but not so much when you're writing about it. Hopefully, the good Professor will have more to say on that subject. Suffice to say that if you're in the mood for some dim and perhaps a little sum, you could do worse than to make the trek to Flushing.

TTFN,

Puffin-Muffin

Dr. Woodchucks Burthday Awesomeness

One of the fine gifts recieved from her oh so awesome partner. It
shall be used well.

Memory Lane: The Woodchucks Visit the Raffles Hotel in a Time Machine

This is the Raffles Hotel, Singapore. Built in 1887, it is one of the premier luxury hotels in Asia, as well as a historic site. Famous guests throughout history have included...well, you'll see.

Here I am with my father, the late Dr. Woodchuck. By day, he was a lovably absent-minded Anthropology professor. By night, he was a mad scientist who experimented with time travel (or, at least, approximating time travel with photoshop).

We were greeted in the lobby of the Raffles by King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra.

I shared Singapore slings and discussed literature with W. Somerset Maugham...

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..and strolled in the gardens with Rajah Charles Brooke of Sarawak, who was quite charming, despite the fact that he wore a glass eye intended for a stuffed albatross.

Meanwhile, Dr. Woodchuck learned about colonial administration from William Howard Taft...














...and joined famous beauty Lily Langtry for snacks served by Sun Yat Sen.


















The Woodchucks moved in very aristocratic circles, in our imaginations.

NYC Craft Beer Week, 2009

When L.P. Muffin first moved to New York and we started dating, we quickly formed the conclusion that, as a beer town, it was nowhere near the caliber of Philadelphia. We didn't seek out much craft beer on our New York weekends after that. All of that changed, however, when we read about NY Craft Beer Week 2009. To briefly recap the process: $35 bought us each a passport, which we were able to use at each of the 83 participating bars. Each bar had three beers on special for the duration of the week, and each passport entitled the holder to purchase either a $2 pint or two $1 half pints of the featured beers at each bar. The half-pint option came in handy as we were joined in our adventures by a series of friends. Each passport could only be used once at each bar, which encouraged us to try a variety of venues. I hadn't been on a proper bar-hop in a long time, but over the course of a long weekend Mr. Muffin and I made a respectable effort.

We began on the inauspicious evening of Friday, September 11th at participating bars in Carroll Gardens and Park Slope, Brooklyn. The best of the lot was a friendly little place on Court street called the Court & Spark, where the owner/bartender gave us samples of his homemade dragonfruit caipirinhas as well as the Checker Cab ale and spinach and artichoke dip we ordered. Mr. Muffin's roomates and a good friend of mine joined us for a klezmer concert and post-concert bar hopping as well.

Saturday was our most ambitious day of participation. I took notes as we made our rounds:
"No hangover, but started slowly. We strategized a bit to try to get the most from our day of beer, hopefully trying to aviod undue suffering. Started with a hearty plate of steak and eggs, then on to Bar Matchless (in Williamsburg, Brooklyn). Blue Point Blueberry for me and a sample of the festival beer. Then on to The Gutter, a combination bar and bowling alley, at which we learned of the existence of Trog Ivan, a Belgian-Croatian conspiracy theorist and exposer of the evil Cobourg and his world domination. Ivan's Facebook contains descriptions of mind control techniques and instructions on how to avoid them through facial exercises. L. P. friended him. We moved on to The Gibson, as Brooklyn Brewery was closed. Met friends and went to a wonderful performance by Fall on Your Sword, then on to a bar in Greenpoint called the Black Rabbit."

Sunday was our day to visit bars in Manhattan, after a breakfast of dim sum and a play called The Tenement. It was a lovely day and we crisscrossed Lower Manhattan, ultimately meeting up with friend and fellow blogger R.C. for half price burgers. My favorite beer of the day was probably Two Brothers Cane and Ebel Rye Ale, served at a completely empty bar in the East Village.

The only real disappointment of my weekend, beer-wise, was that none of the bars we visited featured Coney Island Craft Lagers, my favorite New York beers. The featured beers were not always memorable or worth the $6 and up they usually cost, but part of the fun of an event like craft beer week is visiting venues that might (or might not!) be worth a return trip. The weekend gave us a much-delayed opportunity to explore the New York beer scene, and it was well worth the investment.

Stay Tuned!

For our Halloween special: Porkslap and Moodus Noises.

Don't know what that means? Well, you'll just have to read and find out! In the meantime, we'll be posting some pictures and accounts of past adventures.

Staten Island, the Bastard-child Borough

Staten Island; that red-headed step child of the five boroughs.  Living in New York, one sometimes can get the idea that it’s not really part of the city.  And in a lot of ways its not. Staten Islanders do tend to go their own way.  They’re the only borough that’s majority Republican, if that tells you anything. They also have the highest percentage of Italian-Americans of any other borough, which shouldn’t tell you a thing, really. Nevertheless, me and my fruitful side-kick, Dr. Manassas T. Woodchuck, decided to venture to the bastard-child borough for a closer inspection.

The first thing one should realize about the island is that it seems to be closed on Mondays. You can get there easily enough, but just about everything interesting  seems to operate on a Wednesday to Sunday schedule.  There's a colonial era "living museum"  (think Colonial Williamsburg), a Tibetan Museum, a botanical garden ; a whole menagerie of the kind of nerderific cultural attractions me and the good Doctor simply adore. We were actually quite excited by the prospect. After all, who assumes there's anything on Staten Island except a garbage mountain and bitter Republicans?  Yet they were all closed. Every last one of them. Thankfully we found this out well before we left so our expectations were suitably humbled. So, with that in mind, we decided on a three pronged attack; Fort Wadsworth, food, and Snug Harbor.

FORT WADSWORTH

Fort Wadsworth is one of a handful of forts built in anticipation of the War of 1812. It's a pretty imposing brick and mortar structure looking out over the straights now straddled by the Verrazano Bridge. We figured it would afford us a descent view of both the straits and the bridge so would be worth the trip. Also, as a historical site that isn't being used for anything practical (and thus should have minimal staff) we assumed there shouldn't be any reason for it to be closed to the public on a Monday. Oops! I guess we should have remembered what happens when we assume. 

We made the trip by bus - the S51 if you're interested (and by the way, don't let Google tell you different. It tried to get us onto the S81 and we was all sorts of confused).  The ride wasn't a particularly nice one. I don't want it to speak for the rest of the Island, so let's just say it's best to avoid Bay St. It didn't look dangerous or anything, but if I want to see a crappy neighborhood I'll look out my window. I don't need to take a ferry to see one of those. That being said, the bus is the only real way to get down there. The S51 will literally take you into the heart of the park and drop you a block from the fort. And if trip down didn't offer anything to look at, Fort Wadsworth most certainly did. You look down on it from the top of a substantial hill and as you can see, the view is worth the trip.

In fact, the view was so nice we almost overlooked a tiny geographical problem. The fort is situated in the south-east of the Island, a good clip from the terminal. It's not an insurmountable distance, but we were under a modest time constraint so hoofing it back wasn't an option. We could have walked to the train, or to Richmond Town - the little colonial village that was closed - but everything else we wanted to see was back up by the ferry. Not particularly good planning on our part. So we skipped Richmond Town and headed back through the not-so pretty parts of Bay St.

ADOBE BLUES

Our next stop was a little beer joint in Snug Harbor called Adobe Blues. This time we ambled our way there and again, the neighborhood was less than idyllic. The road we followed traced the line of the water.  The view was probably beautiful, but we would never know. That’s because the water was hidden from us by dead smoke stacks and old warehouses that harkened to a time when the port was more lively and jobs more plentiful. In fact, everywhere we went seemed to have the feel of a mini-rust belt. Lots of mechanics and seemingly shuttered warehouses, but not a whole lot else. Little wonder then, that locals were casting snide glances at us, like angry hermits who would rather keep visitors away then try in vain to organize the mess their world had become. Certainly some of SI was and still is beautiful, but this side of the island at least seems one the residents would rather have kept hidden.

After a little bit of a hike (in which we vowed to make better use of Google Street View in future) we finally came upon our destination: Adobe Blues. The place turned out to be a nice little diversion from all that worn out industry. Outside, it looks a little like an old El Torito. Yellow stucco, Spanish arches, painted cactus – that sort of thing. Inside, the decor seemed like it couldn't decide if it was old west or New Mexico. But despite that, it has descent food at a descent price and a bottle list that’s enough to make you do a Tex Avery.

The highlight of the lunch was definitely the Black Dog Ale. It was a very dark red that looks like it wants to wallop you upside the head with mail-fisted flavor. But in reality it’s a nicely balanced beer with the taste of a slightly nutty bread. Manasass had the Abita Purple Haze - a raspberry beer that tasted so eerily like the fruit in question that it caused her to blurt out an excited "ooh!" when it passed her lips. Definitely not her usual reaction. For me? I’ve never been a fan of fruit beers and in this one, the raspberry taste is so accurate that I found it almost undrinkable.  Still, to each his own, as I always say -Ultimately we decided that Adobe Blues would be best for its reasonably priced bottled beers (the draft list was a yawner) and frequent local music nights. Thumbs up, but not way up.

SNUG HARBOR

This was the last thing we visited on SI and it was also the only thing we saw that was worth coming back for. It seems the Cultural Center at Snug Harbor was founded in the 1830's as a retirement home for aged sailors. The trustees who established the endowment must have been very well endowed. The entrance to the grounds looks like a college campus or a museum or the estate of a egomaniac. However, it seems everything on the grounds was used well into the twentieth century in it's original capacity; as an 18th century assisted living community. This is defiantly not your granny's nursing home. The grounds were a simply stunning display of eighteenth century architectural largess. We only got to see a fraction of the total village, owing to a combination of waning hours and that inexplicable Monday's policy SI seems to have adopted. However, it certainly was an enticement to return and gave us new hope that there were other gems hidden somewhere in NYC's least appreciated borough.

TTFN

The Strenuous Life

Theodore Roosevelt, President of the US from 1901-1909, was a man of enormous and sometimes peculiar energy. His biographer Edmund Morris described his habit of forcing White House lunch guests to hike or play tennis with him after lunch and his periodic disappearances into the wilderness of the national park system created during his presidency. Therefore, it is perhaps fitting that the introductory post for Walking Brews should be our trip to Sagamore Hill, TR's family home near Oyster Bay, Long Island. Though the theme of the blog is sightseeing on foot and beer drinking, there are frequent occasions when the former best precedes the latter. We got to Sagamore Hill a bit early in the day anyway. The train ride from L.P. Muffin's home in Brooklyn clocks in at a bit under two hours, with a short taxi ride at the end.

As you can see, the house is set back from the road. TR used the place as a summer White House, often entertaining guests there (including the negotiators of the treaty ending the Russo-Japanese War). However, it was primarily a family home. TR had six kids by two wives, all of them apparently as outdoorsy and boisterous as he was. The National Park Service goes to great lengths to explain how fun and informal the atmosphere was, but the interior of the house is preserved with "authentic" - read, "dim" - lighting, and of course no photography is allowed, let alone a nostalgic slide down the banister. Nevertheless, there are recognizable signs of TR's personality in the decor, with animal skins and heads everywhere.

My favorite part of the house was probably the attic, where taxidermy and gun storage took place. I got the very strong impression that when it was occupied, Sagamore Hill was crammed with books and interesting objects, similar to the house I grew up in. Unfortunately, the National Park service can only do so much and still conform to fire codes. It was a worthwhile trip, but the atmosphere was probably a bit too museum-like to really give the full sense of TR's daily life. I should also mention that the grounds are very pretty, and that a nearby house formerly belonging to TR's son has been converted into a museum where you can see exciting stuff like Rough Rider uniforms and a photo of TR kicking ass and taking names on the Lower East Side with Jacob Riis.

Afterwards, I had a burrito and a Rogue Chipotle Ale and L.P. Muffin had a Fisherman's Ale, both of which were very good, though not related to TR. All in all, it was a bully day.