Beer – Epic, Sparks, Stouts and Steely Dan

It’s Sunday, I washed the car, and I went for some exercise with MrsDubyah at the beach, and the name back to settle into to Camembert and some Vinyl Music and rehydrate with a beer of course. These things are important and the order is interchangeable.

These things are important and the order is interchangeable.

The music is a Steely Dan album – Aja. Aja is the sixth album by the jazz rock band Steely Dan. Originally released in 1977 on ABC Records, it became the group’s best-selling album.

Of course I have the 1977 vinyl, who doesn’t 🙂 You can listen on Spotify if you want to Aja by Steely Dan

You might recall that I think the Donald Fagen Nightfly album was being one of my top 10. It is and will always be, this album is similar in it’s timbre and tone but I don’t think it carries as much by way of accessible melodies. It still is a delightful album with some brilliant production quality and notes are crips and clear where they need to be and on vinyl the odd hiss and pop does nothing to detract from the smoothness. Heck even that police whistle on track two, you can pick that out

Imperial Stout describes the beer not the holder

The beer is a 500ml bottle of a 9% Imperial Stout, which his about 5.6 standard drinks worth.

Epic have not made a stout for something like 4 or 5 years since, and oddity, but there it is. I go every time to the shelf that has the Epicurean Coffee and Fig stout space for the new one, and there’s never a new one.

This one however a new one!. Now Sparks, they make some outstanding beer, and a particularly outstanding stout, and so it was hard to go past on the shelf really.

A few people I follow on apps and pages have had this and I don’t think I’ve seen a harsh word. I’m quite excited really.

It has a large chocolate nose that settles into a lovely mellow note sitting on something that has a fruit about, it is quite nice. The head is dark atop that pitch black pour.

This is a nice smooth beer to drink with a hint of alcohol warmth at the end, it’s there it wants to ensure you know. It is the only thing that hints that this is a stronger than average beer that you’re enjoying.

As this warms it gathers pace and fills out a bit, bringing more warmth as the alcohol begins to assert.

It’s a fine line between listening to the album and picking notes and enjoyments and sipping this and doing the same, both are quite engaging.

But both are not quite the top of their game, and whilst the Aja album is widely applauded and enjoyed it really isn’t memorable as a whole, and memorable for the impressive way that it’s put together, style over substance.

The beer, starts with full noise and settles back into a comfortable rhythm. If the pdubyah-o-meter was woking it’s be at around that 8 mark a big 8.