I thought I had Bunnahabhain 12 Years Old, but turns out, it was their Toiteach A Dha, which is peated. While regular Bunnahabhain 12 is just down my lane. It’s very sweet, Aberlour levels if not more, and leaves a nice numbness on the tongue, although no warmth.
This is all thanks to the fact that they release it in 50ml bottles. After great success with Tamdhu tasters and now this, I wish more distilleries would do the same.
Another beer I brought from Zurich, this one brewed in Latvia, not a country you associate with beer usually, but then some of the best beers I had were from Norway.
It’s a “German dobblebock”, but at 15%, it’s more of a “qudruperbock” (term that I just invented). Deep amber and opaque, it reminds of classic Gulden Draak. But I’m not sure that extra 5% alcohol adds anything in terms of taste.
After the trip to Texas, where AeroPress proved very useful, I decided that I want to try using a metal filter instead of disposable paper filters, despite the fact that those were widely available. Metal filter works, but the coffee drips even worse than with the paper filters. So the next step was to replace the default filter cap with a pressurized one.
Coffee machines use pressurized baskets to mitigate effect from coffee that was ground long time ago. Here, the idea is that a rubber gasket in the centre prevents coffee from dripping, until you start pressing it.
I’m yet to see the promised crema even with freshly ground coffee, byt at least I don’t end up with hands soaked in hot coffee, which is still a good thing.
I never thought I’d write it about a German beer, but this is a mindblowing beer. It doesn’t look like a beer, and doesn’t taste like a beer, though. Completely opaque, like a coffee with a bit of milk in it, and with a heavy sediment. I rarely “taste” anything in beere, unless it’s something like a literal chocolate stout, but here, I can taste chocolate, coffee, and raisins. It’s closer to Madeira at that point than to a beer.
Also the bottle is something else, with the swing-top cap and wax. Theoretically, it could mean you could trink this beer in two seatings, and at 16% it even makes some sense.
I did buy Kolinsky Sable brush from Winsor & Newton, Series 7 size 000. It turned out to be a disappointment. No different from synthetic brushes, and it cost ten times more. Some say they have quality issues, others say there are counterfeits sold on Amazon:
Brand new Windsor & Newton series 7, anything to do to fix it?
byu/beardmire inminipainting
Then I got Raphael 8404 size 0. This is what I was promised from Kolinsky Sable brushes. It didn’t make me an amazing painter, but now I’m able to paint warts on my rats.
Seven rats done, 13 rats to go.
Final of the three Tamdhu tasters, and obviously most expensive, at 138GBP per bottle.
It’s very smooth, sweet, adds alot of numbness in the mouth, but no warmth in the throat. Warmth in the belly comes long after.
Is it worth extra 40GBP on top of Tamdhu 15? I’d say it depends. If you already have Tamdhu 15, probably not. But if it’s the only Tamdhu you plan to get for a while, then I’d say yes, although it is a stretch for sure.
I thought that what I’m missing is a better brush. Turns out, what I was missing is a better magnifying glass.
There are magnifying glasses for 10-15GBP, with names like NZQXJXZ. I went for a 30GBP magnifying glass instead. It worked, but I didn’t like the shadows.
Now I got myself a magnifying glass from Brightech. Twice as expensive, 70GBP, but what a difference it makes. There are no reflections, and no shadows whatsoever. I immediatelly noticed mistakes I made with the previous glass just a couple of days ago, and fixed them using exactly the same brushes.
Both the handbook and the official video paint Skaven half-assedly. I of course do no have the talent to paint them to the level of someone who did that for 10-20 years. But those are rats, rats should have pink tails, and both of the official guides don’t care to paint them any differently at all.
Stormcasts are pain to paint mainly because of their shields and pauldrons. Skaven require a lot of colors.
There’s metal.
There’s wood.
There’s leather.
There are their teeth and nails.
There’s the tail and tongue.
They also have two layers of fabric instead of just one.
And I also decided not to paint fur. In the official art, they are mostly fur-less, with exposed skin and just some patches of fur. But I wanted the pinkish tail to be the contrast, so my skaven have short white fur, I guess.
Now I’ve tried the Black, the Red and the Gold Dragon Milk beers. All three are fantastic. The only reason I wouldn’t buy the Golden Ale is there are plenty of belgian beers available at this level: Gulden Drak is what they were aiming for, I think.
I already wrote about Tamdhu 12, as I got it from Advent Calendar last year, and I think it was great for its price. Now I got myself a taster of Tamdhu 12, 15 and 18. I still stand that Tamdhu 12 is great. But Tamdhu 15 is even better. Which is not always the case, mind you.
It is sweet, smooth, and leaves nice warmth not only in the throat, but also in the belly. With some liteheadiness on top.
Is it worth twice the price of Tamdhu 12? For the moment I think yes.
I have been fascinated by Warhammer since I discovered it as a teenager. But before I moved to Europe, it was never an option. Nowadays, though, it has become much more available and accessible. I think they even sold introductory sets in newspaper kiosks at one point. So I finally decided to give it a try.
What I wanted to paint were T’au from Warhammer 40K, but I decided to practice on a starter set first. Since I didn’t want to paint Space Marines vs. Tyranids, I went with Age of Sigmar’s Stormcast vs. Skaven.
What can I say… the miniatures are small. I’m glad I had my laser surgery last year, and I’m not even joking.
I haven’t held a paintbrush since I was 9, so that’s another challenge. And the paintbrush that comes with them is indeed shitty. So I ended up buying a set of artistic brushes as well. Not sable, as a single sable brush costs an entire set.
I’m glad I bought a painting handle. Very useful for finishing touches. And I’m sorry that I laughted at the water pot initially. Now I can’t find it anywhere.
The release of Eureka Mignon Libra 65 is a very interesting decision, and not because of the 65mm burrs.
The original Eureka Mignon Libra with 55mm burrs was one of two options for grind-by-weight at home (price range less than 1000GBP). It did a lot of things right: it’s very accurate, and compact.
But it’s ergonomics are terrible. Shitty bean hopper. Dial that doesn’t track the global position of the burrs. The nozzle is to far away, so the grounds fly all over. And there’s no tray to collect them.
As Eureka Mignon in general are quite popular grinders, though, enthusiast 3D-printed solutions for most of those problems. I bought a premium glass hopper from one of Eureka resellers, there’s a dial kit and a nozzle, and also a tray, which I have.
What Eureka did, it seems, is integrated most of those solutions into their new model. Now there’s a better hopper, better dial and a nozzle. They’re only missing the tray now.
Since I was already ordering some US imperial stouts from Dragon Milk, I decided to give another American Imperial Stout a try.
This one is good, but not that good, with a bitter aftertaste. Not terrible by any means, but I can find better Imperials closer to home.
I think American food and beer has a lot of bad rep. But once they set on something, they make it the best in the world.
I was very impressed by Dragon’s Milk Stout. But I must say that their Red Ale might be even better. Same richness, and more fruitiness. Looking forward to try the Golden Ale now.
24th and last bottle of my 2024 calendar. Took me exactly a year to finish it.
This one is interesting, as I completely missed the mark. It’s nice, a bit sweet, a bit smoky, not too warm. I placed it in 50GBP cathegory.
Turns out, this is the most expensive taster I think in the entire calendar: 114GBP at minimum, up to 150GBP:
https://www.masterofmalt.com/whiskies/eden-mill/eden-mill-single-malt-scotch-whisky-2022-release-art-of-st-andrews-collection-whisky/
All I can say, this isn’t the first 150GBP+ bottle that didn’t impress me.
22nd whiskey from the calendar was Glasgow 1770. It is a bit sweet, a bit warm, but nothing spectacular, and honestly, for 40GBP it goes for, I wouldn’t expect anything spectacular either.
Deanston 12 was a nice surprise, though. Sweet, warm, and for 43GBP, hits well above its weight. This is interesting, as I found Deanston Virgin Oak to be absolutely the worst.
This year I decided to go with World Whisky Advent Calendar from Drinks by the Dram:
https://www.masterofmalt.com/whiskies/drinks-by-the-dram/world-whisky-classic-advent-calendar/
From the outlook, it has some interesting whiskeys to try, such as Israeli and Japanese ones:
I praised the Vault City Barley Wine highly, but was a bit apprehensive of this beer. I like my beers strong and sweet, but is there such a thing as too strong and too sweet?
Turns out, there isn’t. If beer is a liquid bread, this beer is a liquid brioche with some dolce de leche on top. Very smooth, very sweet, with notes of vanilla and brioche.
Today I received new motherboard. Spent 1.5 hours to installing it. And the symptoms are still there.
Also, this is a reminder why you should never buy Asus Prime boards, and only Asus ROG. The quality is atrocious, from the almost non existing heat sinks to the fact that you need to install back panel yourself.
If not motherboard, then what? I read some more. Seems some 5900X CPUs are faulty.
The problem? For RMA you need S/N, which is on the box, but I don’t keep boxes for CPUs, only for motherboard. So I had to remove cooler again to get S/N. And since I already started doing it, I replaced ROG motherboard back. Now it only took me 45 minutes. Improvement.
I disabled C-State. It helped, for now.
I was eyeing Vault City beers for some time now, because their Imperial Stouts sounded like something right down my alley. I wasn’t mistaken. I went with the safer choice of Barleywine, without the additions. It’s fantastic: smooth, sweet, full-bodied, and with very little gas. Yes, it will make you sleepy, but in a good way.