Abe Lincoln vs. Zombies and New Belgium's Belgio IPA

So it’s been a good week for me and zombie movies.  Yes my friends I’m back and more motivated than ever.  I’ve seen glory and the promise of a bright future.  It’s called Abraham Lincoln Vs. Zombies!!!!  How could one movie meld history (sort of),  humor, horror, and romance all in one movie?  I’ll tell you how….Abe F*ing Lincoln that’s how!  And I paired this movie with a New Belgium beer that my wife surprised me with the other day, Belgo IPA.  It’s supposed to be a perfect blend of Belgian Trippel and American IPA.  You had me at Belgian…….you had me at Belgian.

The movie starts off big with a young Abe Lincoln rushing into his parents cabin after hearing a gunshot.  He found his father sitting in a chair with a self inflicted and fatal gunshot wound.  His mother had turned and was tied up to the wall.  Abe does what needs to be done and beheads his own mother.  Talk about convictions.  Even as a young man they paint the picture of a man with strong character and resolve.  Fast forward to the middle of the American Civil War.  Abe gets a report of a failed covert union attack.  The sole survivor was a Major who was undoubtedly turning into a zombie.  Lincoln decides he will lead a team of twelve men to the sight of the attack to find out what happened.

As Abe formulates his plan of attack I formulate my own plan.  It includes opening the bottle, carefully pouring into my Sam Adams glass and repeating as needed over the next one hour thirty eight minutes.  The beer pours a bright gold with dark hues where the glass widens.  The two and a half finger head foams up in a lively belian fashion.  The aroma is intense and assertive.  Classic American IPA.  Citrus and fruit like a tangerine and orange peel being smashed in your face.  But it doesn’t end there.  No there’s a small child mashing banana in your hair and sprinkling ground cloves into the yellow mushy mess.  Just when you think it’s over and old lady who reeks of flowers comes in and smashes you about the head and face with a warm and toasty loaf of French baguette.  And you’ve only smelled it.  The taste is more intense.  So imagine the same thing but instead of a little scary (but sort of funny) it’s now the most horrifying experience of your life.  It hitting a fruit truck going 110 mph the wrong way on the highway.  After which time your dead body is beaten by a roving gang of flower smelling old lady armed with more French bread than you’ve ever seen.  Only you’re dead because it’s that awesome.  It’s 7% abv 60 IBU bliss.

New Belgium does something very interesting with this beer.  Instead of using a fair amount of a less colorful (less roasted malt) they used a small amount of a much more intense malt.  They achieve virtually the same color but instead of a soft bready sweetness give the beer a more robust and slightly more stringent bite.  It really helps to balance all those hops.  I also appreciate the hop choice on this beer; Simcoe, Cascade, Armarillo, and Centennial.  It’s very American and very Pacific Northwest…..which I guess is synonymous with American as most of our hops are grown here.  Below I’ve taken the flavor wheel from the New Belgium website.  It’s a great tool to capture the many complexities of beer.  Part of me appreciates the simplicity of Flying Dog’s 2 bar, hoppy matly meter.  But the other part of me dares for a more descriptive measure.  Those with a particular craving or especially refined palates will appreciate the flavor wheel.

I’m not going to give away the whole movie but I was comment on some of the hilarious references and interesting parts of this film.  There is a young man from New York whose parents are killed and he fights alongside Abe.  Teddy, none other than Theodore Roosevelt, is not given a gun or sword.  But Abe instead hands him a big stick and tells him to walk softly……awesome!  General Stonewall Jackson appears as the non compliant turned hero confederate general.  And the generally unlikable Thomas Wilkinson is perfect for the part of Tom Wilkes Booth.  There are several other references which escape me at the moment.  I am pretty sure that this is one of those movies where the more times you watch it the more you get out of it.

Several things really surprised me about this movie.  First was the high quality of the CGI.  Normally I really poo poo digital gore but in this film they really make it work.  No there’s not as much close up gut munching but the beheadings look pretty real for a straight to DVD movie.  I’m constantly amazed at what technology can do.  Big movies get bigger and smaller movies get bigger too!  The film quality itself is amazing.  It’s got this professional grey-ish feel that a lot of low budget films just can’t capture.  Aside from the horrible and obviously fake (I really hope) mustaches the props and the everything was first rate!  Especially the opening battle scene!  Cannons boomed and earth exploded.  It was WAY better than I expected.  Also to note is that all the sets were awesome!  Seriously!  The filmed one part at a real fort and then old buildings and even a white house look alike.  I’m amazed at the quality of this movie and I will be purchasing it.

Here's one more picture for good measure!

The Beer:

Aroma – 10/12

Appearance – 3/3

Taste – 18/20

Palate – 4/5 

   Overall – 8/10

Total = 43/50

The Movie:

Production – 4/5

Plot – 4/5

Gore – 2/5

 Zombies – 3/5

  Overall – 3.5/5

The 50,000 hit mark!

I just wanted to send a big "thank you" out to all my loyal readers (and those who were redirected here by accident) for helping Zombiebrew hit the big 50,000 page view mark.  When i started this blog i was getting less than 10 hits a day.  Now depending on the frequency of my posts i get anywhere from 150-500 a day.  That's a lot of people who are passionate about beer and zombie movies.  Thanks again and i will continue on until there are no more zombie movies to watch and no more beer to drink.  I think we'll be safe for a long while.

Versus and Pikop Andropov's Rushin'

This movie was one of those ones that calls to you.  I knew the basics, there were zombies and there was karate.  That was enough for me to cough up the $7 bucks for this DVD.  What can I say... I’m only a man......a weak man with a zombie fetish.  Actually don't like the word fetish.  I associate fetish with something negative and freakish but if that's what I’ve got........then it's not......it's awesome.  I will say I was a little bit nervous about a zombie karate movie.  I was fifty fifty on such movies (Tokyo Zombie = terrible, Ninjas vs. Zombies = awesome).  I decided to pair this movie with the incredibly UN-karate beer, Pikop Andropov's Rushin' Imperial Stout.  The beer is the result of my wife’s insatiable craving for thick, full bodied dark beers.  Thanks wife!

The movie starts out with some awesome samurai action!  I didn’t realize I would be in for a full hour and a half of Tarantino type gore and splatter.  Then the movie shifts to two escaped prisoners running through the woods.  One guy used to be chained to another but all that remains is his severed hand…..cool.  They get to this clearing where they’re met by a couple cars full of crazy….almost silly…Japanese mobsters?  The one prisoner gets angry at the mistreatment of a woman who the mobsters have kidnapped and brought there (it will all come together don’t worry).  Our prisoner hero rescues the girl and runs into the forest.  In the process prisoner #2 gets killed, but he comes back as a zombie!!!!  The mobsters are more intrigued than scared or concerned.  Because that makes sense.  They are in the Forest of Resurrection!

The mobsters take chase with the orders to keep them alive.  It’s only once they’re deep in the forest that they realize that all the bodies of the people those mobsters have killed are buried there in the Forest of Resurrection!  This means hundreds of zombies, some with guns, all of them awesome.  This whole middle section of the film mixes zombie horror flic (in the same vein as a Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead films) with full action shootout and gory slapstick comedy.  The main mobster minion eventually tries to kill off his boss and step up as the number one guy in charge.  The guy is a total goofball throughout the movie and at points is just plain exhausting to watch.  Needless to say the little coup did not work

As if things weren’t weird enough we add two new characters to the mix.  These are a couple of cops or correctional officers from the prison that our inmates escaped.  They’re extremely violent and bursting with this silly arrogance.  Lead cop makes the wildest claims like claiming to be trained by the FBI and able to dodge bullets with his reflexes, or being a world class tracker after being trained at Yellowstone National Park in Canada (it’s not actually in Canada).  At one point they run into some zombies and they eat the one guy’s hand.  He’s really annoyed.  Later in a fight he uses the jagged bone that’s sticking out to repeatedly stab a guy he’s fighting.  That’s hard core.

Now that I’ve got you all pumped up about a karate zombie movie let me move on to the beer for tonight.  It took me a little searching to figure out that the beer is made by Hale’s Ales, a famous Pacific Northwest Brewery.  This Russian Imperial Stout clocks in at 8% abv so it’s going to be big but not “knock you on your ass” big.  It pours black and pretty viscous.  There’s a decent finger and a half tan head that gently floats above the shallow sea of black chewy goodness.  The aroma is full of chocolate and dark roasted coffee with hints of smoky malt and caramel.  Lots of sharp roasted grain and a bready yeast round out the aroma.  I swirl and sniff again to make sure I have the full effect….i do.  The first sip is calming.  Despite the action on the screen in front of me, I’m at peace.  No amount of exploding heads or jumping bicycle kicks could break my trance.  I’m in the zone.  It’s full bodied, much more than I would have expected, and full of that same roasted flavor that I just smelled.  The medium carbonation tickles the tongue and allows the flavors to release and spread.  It’s complex with grainy malty backbone highlighted by a slight late hop bitterness sting.  It’s a really wonderful beer and well crafted.  It’s not too overpowering but plenty thick.  You almost have to chew it

This is a wildly entertaining film despite all of its silliness.  The “hero” character reminds me of a quieter more womanizing “El Wray” from Planet Terror.  It’s that “don’t give a shit” macho man that’s done way over the top.  It’s actually really cool.  And the villain is stone cold.  His lazy but focused stare is reminiscent of an Asian “Ice Man”.  The karate in this movie is well done.  Lots of fast packed action that makes you wonder if you’re watching a Jackie Chan movie……okay maybe a Jet Li movie.  They use 50 cal sniper rifles to liquefy people and there’s a fair amount of beheadings.  This movie is a must have for both Samurai movie fans and zombie movie fans.  It’s the chocolate vanilla twist of zombie movies.  Own it….before it owns you!

The Beer:

Aroma – 10/12

Appearance – 2/3

Taste – 17/20

Palate – 4/5 

   Overall – 7/10

Total = 40/50

The Movie:

Production – 4/5

Plot – 4/5

Gore – 5/5

 Zombies – 4/5

  Overall – 4/5

Shadow: Dead Riot and Full Sail Boardhead Barleywine

So how do I start with this movie?  This movie is one of those experiences that can’t be explained it has to be lived through.  Honestly.  I saw this movie had Tony Todd in it so I said to myself “How bad can it be?”.  Who cares if it only costs 1 penny (plus shipping) on Amazon.  There’s probably a reasonable explanation for that right?  There is……the movie is HORRIBLE.  Nobody wants to own or admit that they’ve owned this movie.  Those that have it are willing to put a valuable price of 1 penny on their time to list the DVD on Amazon, then drive to the post office and mail it.  That’s not logical!.....unless of course you’ve seen the move.  Then you understand.  And to pair this movie with a beer is a task of its own.  What beer clearly relates to the feeling of disappointment and self deprecation associated with this film?  Why I have the perfect beer!  It’s Full Sail’s Boardhead Barleywine Ale.  I’ve got the perfect duo for a night of making myself slightly ill with the overabundance of bad taste, poor execution, and a general lack of commitment.  Damn you.  Damn you for making me do this.

I’ll start off with the beer because I have to just muscle through it.  Why do I have a beer I don’t like?  Well good reader I’ll tell you why.  I respect Full Sail Brewery.  They’re employee owned (according to the bottle) and they make some decent beers.  Nothing amazing but decent beers.  Well when I saw bombers of their Boardhead Barleywine for something like $3.50 a bottle I bought five!  Yes you heard me…five bottles of this shit.  I think this might have been the batch where they found the dead cat in the fermentor.   It’s a clear dark orange/copper color with a small white head that dissipates quickly leaving some okay lacing.   Not a lot happening in the nose.  Some earthy hops, a little burnt sugar and some husky grains.  There’s some heat from the high alcohol content for sure.  But at the first sip there’s no real hops to speak of.  But instead of being English style where the malt steps out in front, there’s just nothing.  A slight candy fruit flavor and some toffee and toasted notes.  But there’s also a large amount of sulfur and an  almost medicinal aftertaste.  It’s very husky and rough.  Lots of tannins or something.  This beer is actually hard to choke down.  Perhaps it was the high alcohol (9%) or maybe it just wasn’t aged enough?  Whatever it was I’m stuck with another four bottles of this thin terrible excuse for a barleywine.    This beer is one of the biggest disappointments I’ve ever tasted.  More shocking than the horrible taste of this beer is the fact that “The Bros” at Beeradvocate.com gave this thing a rating of 95!!!!  Making it a world class beer!!!  World Class?  Probably not.

I’m not going to drag this out if I don’t have to.  The movie is pretty bad.  It’s so bad Tony Todd couldn’t save it.  He’s been in the Final Destination Movies, The Rock, The Crow, the Night of the Living Dead remake, Transformers, and of course the Candyman  series.  But I just can’t look past the horrible fake braids and pointy filed teeth that the makeup crew thought would be a nice touch for the villain.  Terrible…just terrible.  Now the premise is that this prison executes this cold hearted Satanist serial killer.  But instead of just dying….he explodes!  His blood goes everywhere (it moves at its own will) and infects prisoners who become zombies.  The zombies are all killed and buried in a mass grave out in the prison yard (this is common practice I’m sure).  Fast forward twenty years later and it’s an experimental woman’s correctional facility.  Do I have your interest yet?  Okay so now’s the part of the movie with all the trashy topless scenes (gross enough to fast forward though).  I think they used actual women in prison instead of attractive actresses for these scenes.  Good call if the point was to add to the horror.

I’m not going to give away all the twists and turns but this movie tries to push the boundaries of what’s acceptable with things like an angry lesbian cop with who likes to seduce the inmates (swing and a miss), a zombie baby (inappropriate), and lots of wires to throw people 20 or 30 feet across rooms (that was kind of cool).  When Tony Todd is resurrected from the dead (some blood leached down into the ground where he was buried) he gets up and rips the skin off his arms, spraying blood across the ground, and resurrecting all his buried zombie companions.

It wasn't ALL bad.  There were a few good parts.  Like when the lesbian cop gets her tognue bitten off, or when this one jacked girl puts a guards night stick right through the back of his head.  And there was a lot of karate...so that's good.  But not good karate.  The type of karate that you and your friends used to do in middle school when you though you were power rangers.....that type of karate.  Everybody did that......right?

Last thing I want to talk about is wardrobe.  Wardrobe?  YES! Tony Todd is wearing some big blue trench coat/cape thing?  And as he’s walking he grabs the sides and waves them back and forth dramatically.  Almost like he’s trying to be some sort of goth magician.  It’s so corny and really sad.  Tony what happened?  It’s been a sad fall from grace.  I saw you on a CSI Miami a few years ago.  I’m begging you.  Retire.  Go out on top without any more shitty 1 penny straight to DVD movies.  I’m sorry if this seems cold but you need to hear it.  Consider this an intervention.  Your poor choice in movies and bad acting is beginning to effect people around you.  Please stop.

The Beer:

Aroma – 6/12

Appearance – 2/3

Taste – 8/20

Palate – 2/5

Overall – 4/10

Total = 22/50

The Movie:

Production – 2/5

Plot – 2/5

Gore – 3/5

Zombies – 3/5

Total – 2.5/5

Zombie Diaries 2 and Pyramid Dischord Black IPA

I’ve broken into a bright patch of movie watching.  I’m excited beyond all belief because I’ve got a series of movies I’ve never seen to review.  There are five new ones that I got from my wonderful wife for my birthday!  Today’s review is of the movie Zombie Diaries 2.  My faithful readers will remember my review of the first Zombie Diaries movie where I handed out 2 ½ dead hands for the movie and 2 ½ beers for Victory’s Baltic Thunder.  I’m hoping tonight will be different than that dull and exhausting evening months ago.  To ensure things get off on the right foot I’m pairing the movie with a surprising good beer from a brewery I had formerly written off as sub par.  Discord, a black IPA from Pyramid’s spring sampler is that beer!  I needed a case of beer to hold me over until the IIPA I brewed (Infectious Bite Imperial IPA) was ready to drink and this was the best thing I could find for cheap.  Let me get off my pedestal for a second to tell you all that despite my judging and poo poo-ing Costco actually has great deals on great beers.  Oh man I feel dirty.  Okay to the movie!

Immediately some of my skepticism is washed away.  I was lulled into a false sense of security by the original Zombie Diaries cover and have since learned never to build up a movie based on cover art alone.  But Zombie Diaries 2 has very good camera and sound quality while maintaining that raw feel of a first person point of view.  They are able to capture the realism without making you seasick and nauseous.  The film follows a group of army reservists who are documenting the situation in the months following the outbreak.  This movie is still a low budget movie and there are a few holes in the plot but off the bat I’m pretty impressed.

The beer is Pyramid’s Discord.  I love black IPAs as they are one of my favorite styles of beer.  They can have a great range of alcohol content, IBUs, hoppiness (not the same as IBUs or bitterness), and body.  I’ll take this opportunity to go on my hop rant!  For those that don’t know, IBUs are International Bitterness Units and while they are a good measure of bitterness of the beer they don’t tell the whole story.  When during the brewing process the hops are added to the beer plays a huge role in the way they flavor the beer.  For example just a half ounce of high alpha acid hops at the beginning of a 90 min boil will give over 3 times the IBUs as if there added in the last 10 minutes of the boil.  However, bitterness is not the whole story.  A beer could be very bitter without being very hoppy.  The essential oils of the hops are very volatile and boil off when cooked for long periods of time.  This means much of the flavor and especially aroma are lost during the boil.  Here’s a good example.

A 5 gallon batch of 1.055 OG beer (approximately 5% abv) with 2 ounces of Chinook hops in the first 90 minutes of the boil and then not hopped for the rest of the brewing process will be INCREDIBLY bitter but without noticeable hop flavor or aroma.  IBUs would be about 126.75 (it’s said 100 is the most IBUs that can go into a beer).

That same beer with 3 ounces of hops throughout the last 15 minutes of the boil and dry hopped on a massive 4 ounces of hops will be full of that sticky resiny hop goodness without being overly bitter.  Bitterness will clock in at about 58.24 IBUs.

Why do I go on about this now?  Because, I find the above facts to especially important for black IPAs.  American IPA’s have been pushing the boundaries on how much hops you can put into a beer even to the point of making high power, super bitter beers that are way out of balance but wonderful for what they are.  A Black IPA is trying to do something different.  The best Black IPAs are trying hard to be Russian Imperial Stouts and Double IPAs without being too much of either.  There’s a fine line where the hop portion of the Double IPA overshadows the roasted matliness of the beer.  And there’s a line where the malt is too much and doesn’t let the hops stand out.  For the best example of this style of beer try to find Midnight Sun’s XXX or Oak Aged XXX.

Before I dive deep into my review of the beer let me tell you a little more about the movie.  Special effects are miles away from the first film.  It’s not Dawn of the Dead 2004 but its good!  There’s plenty of headshot splatter and the makeup is pretty good for low budget.  To keep with the “hand held” camera theme they splice in the occasional footage of people in bio suites and Army personnel rounding people up, separating them, executing them, and burning them.  It’s a creepy little trick that really worked.  I even liked the characters.  The film has no name actors that could have been people you went to high school with.  But that’s the beauty of it.  It’s very real.  It makes the good guys more relatable and the bad guys more frightening.  This movie does a lot with a little and I’m really impressed.

I’m also impressed by this beer.  It’s not the best Black IPA I’ve had but it’s certainly not something I expected from a giant like Pyramid.  Yes I just called Pyramid a giant.  That makes Dogfish Head look like Philip Morris!  You know how I know they’re big?  Because when you put the word “Pyramid” into google and hit “I’m feeling lucky” instead of getting a websites about ACTUAL PYRAMIDS…….you get the brewery!!!  Oh those amazing things that Egyptian slaves built thousands of years ago…no no no I meant the beer.  But I digress.  According to the website this beer is only available between February and March and is brewed with 2-Row Pale, Munich, Black Malt, Carafa II and Crystal malts, and hopped with tons of Nugget, Zythos, Mt. Hood, Falconer’s Flight and Cascade hops, bringing our stats to 6.5% ABV and 69IBUs!!!

It pours a deep dark brown with a light tan head that fizzled away after a few minutes.  The aroma was forcefully hoppy but not a “punch you in the face” hoppiness like some IPAs.  There is a nice layer of citrus and pine above noticeable toasted malt background.  The taste is where this beer really kicks me.  It’s got tons of grapefruit, and nectarine but also a dry biscuit like flavor.  The roasted malts mesh perfectly with the hops like ballroom dancers on my tongue.  It’s got medium body and enough alcohol kick to things up and make your cheeks rosy after a couple of beers.  The beer is well crafted and well rounded.  It’s not quite as intense as I normally like my black IPAs but it’s incredibly drinkable and very satisfying.  I would put in the same category as New Belgium’s 1554.

The things that made the first Zombie Diaries movie good made the second one even better.  Yes a few scenes were trotting down and already beaten path.  Despite the a few “wait a minute they did that in the first movie” moments this movie really makes its mark as original and disturbing.  In the first Zombie Diaries film I was shaken and physically sickened by the way surviving humans are portrayed as the biggest danger.  For days I walked around with a false sense of security in the moral fortitude of my fellow man.  But the more I thought about it (and I thought about it for weeks) the movie was right.  Tragedy and disaster can in some cases give birth to heroes.  But, it can also turn normal people into monsters.  The movie has a really twisted evil “Lord of the Flies” type feel.  But it was realistic.  I loved the ending.  It really tied everything in and hit me with that last devastating blow to faith in people.  This is a movie for people who are tired of zombie movies like the “Day of the Dead” remake where a couple of kids and a little ingenuity can control a zombie outbreak.  This movie is real and raw!  Not for the faint of heart!

The Beer:

Aroma – 8/12

Appearance – 2/3

Taste – 16/20

Palate – 3/5

Overall – 7/10

Total = 36/50

The Movie:

Production – 4/5

Plot – 4/5

Gore – 3/5

Zombies – 3/5

Overall – 3.5/5