Beer Review - Palmetto Amber Ale

B-Daddy here. I was on travel this week to Charleston, SC. We had an after work social at California Dreaming and I asked about the local beer. The barkeep only had one suggestion, the amber ale pictured at right. I was surprised, and he added he add one more, a Pale Ale from Palmetto Brewing, but the delivery hadn't come in. To be honest, I thought a restaurant with pretensions to be Californian out to have more than Miller, Bud Light, Blue Moon, and Widmer Hefeweizen on draft. In fact, other than the one local beer, even the bottled line up was rather ordinary, as Mrs. Daddy's Aussie cousins would say (translation, pretty poor.) The only thing the restaurant really had going for it was a great view of Charleston harbor.

Regardless, I always try to sample the local beer, and this was going to be my one shot. Palmetto Amber Ale pour a dark copper with not much head. The barley is roasted a little darker than a standard amber. took my frist sip and was a little surprised. Fred one of our local hosts had warned me the beer would be bitter; but while it was definitely more hoppy than your average amber, it was not near as hoppy as expected. The beer also had a nice rich malty taste to it, that went down well. Alcohol content seemed about average. This beer was tasty enough to order a second one to go with the overcooked wings and soggy nachos. (The croissants, however, were delicious.)

My final gripe was that they kept the ale ice cold and served it in ice cold pint glasses. I had to let the beer set a while so I could taste it.

Overall, considering that I sampled Palmetto Amber Ale from the bottle, I was very pleased with this local beer. I give it a solid B. Given the richness, they could have easily balanced with more hops.


FTC Disclaimer: I may or may not have received valuable consideration in the form of swag, jack and/or coin to endorse these products. I am not saying and have the right not to do so.

Product Review - Samsung Epic Smartphone

B-Daddy here. Tigerlily's phone has been eligible for an upgrade since 2006 (she had a Motorola i90c), so today we went shopping at the Sprint store today and picked up a handsome Samsung Epic. No points for guessing which phone pictured is newer.

This is a great phone that costs only $150 with a two year contract. You can read other reviews of the technology whiz bang, I wanted to focus a little on the operational aspects of having this phone linked with Google.

This is our first try at linking a smart phone to calendar, email, facebook, etc. We went with Google's Android OS rather than the iPhone because it seemed to make the integration with Gmail and Google calendar easier. My wife had been using our Roadrunner account for her main email and Entourage as her software client, but I was having a difficult time figuring out how we were going to synch that with the new phone. It was easier just to start over with a new Google account. We also linked Apple's mail program and iCal to the Google account. This will make keeping the synchronization much easier. This is what is meant by the cloud.

Of course, Mrs. Daddy isn't all that interested in that mundane stuff, she is busy using the camera, downloading "Angry Birds" and testing out the GPS enabled navigation. Which begs the question, why did my GPS device cost as much as this Samsung phone, but does only one application? But it points out the larger issue, that these smart phones are a replacement for multiple devices, maybe even a computer. Except for screen size, most of what we really want to do on our computer we can do on the phone.

Exit question: When will someone build a monitor that connects to a smart phone to overcome its only disadvantage?

The only drawback this phone is that the battery drains quickly when your having fun.


FTC Disclaimer: I may or may not have received valuable consideration in the form of swag, jack and/or coin to endorse these products. I am not saying and have the right not to do so.