NorthGeek

Phillips Brewing – Surly Blonde (NorthGeek Beer Review Series)

We drink beer. Mostly BC beer for now. We tell you what we like.

Name: Surly Blonde Big Belgian Triple
Style: Tripel (aka triple) strong pale ale
Brewery: Phillips Brewing Company
Brewery Location: Victoria, BC

Color: Golden orange
Apparent Flavours (according to DW & NB): Bananas, sweet, fruity, spicy, yeast

NB Summary: This Belgian style ale is very drinkable, probably because it is sweet and relatively neutral on secondary flavors. So I will definitely drink this again, but it’s not close to being my favorite Belgian style trappist/strong ale — those, like Orval and Leffe, have lots of rich, secondary, adventure-seeking flavors. Pros: cool (maybe generic) label, nice rich color, crisp taste, sweet, high alcohol content (9.1%) that is still easily drinkable. Cons: fleeting white head, simple flavors. Phillips is going to get some mixed reviews on this one!

DW Summary: A very “pretty-colored” beer, I really liked this one. Belgian ales are among my favorite brews, and this Surly Blonde did not disappoint – other than maybe the smell. I would have really liked it with a wedge (or piece? What’s it called when it’s round, has the rind on it, and a little slit to rest on the rim of your glass?) of orange, and probably would have REALLY enjoyed sipping it outside on a hot day with the sun burning my face. Either way, I’ll be drinking this beer again!

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NB’s NorthGeek Beer Taster Ratings:

This beer is a: Casual drinking beer / Meal companion beer / Dessert beer

Taste 16/20
Smell 9/10
Goes down easy 9/10
Head consistency 4/10
Aftertaste 11/15
Bottle/Packaging 4/5
I would recommend this beer 8/10

TOTAL: 61/80

DW’s NorthGeek Beer Taster Ratings:

This beer is a: Casual drinking beer / Meal companion beer / Dessert beer

Taste 17/20
Smell 5/10
Goes down easy 8/10
Head consistency 7/10
Aftertaste 13/15
Bottle/Packaging 3/5
I would recommend this beer 9/10

TOTAL: 62/80

NORTHGEEK TOTAL: 61.5/80

What are your thoughts on this beer? Are we being too harsh in our reviews? Don’t get us wrong, we’re proud of our local BC brewers! Share in the comments below.

Russell Brewing – Honey Blonde Ale (NorthGeek Beer Review Series)

Sorry, Russell, as much as we love your cream ale, this Honey Blonde Ale just didn’t cut it. Our review below.

Name: Honey Blonde Ale
Style: Blonde Ale
Brewery: Russell Brewing Company
Brewery Location: Surrey, BC

Color: Medium yellow
Apparent Flavours (according to DW & NB): Stale, chemical, cheese, lemon, carbonated water

DW Summary: I hate to say it, but I REALLY did not enjoy this beer. I find it tasted more like carbonated water than beer. To be fair, though, I did have it just an hour after drinking a VERY hoppy Devil’s Elbow IPA – but still, this beer just didn’t do it for me. I don’t have much to say – just that unfortunately, I wouldn’t drink it again (we have 4/6 bottles left in the fridge if anyone wants ’em), and I wouldn’t recommend it to friends. Sorry, folks.

NB Summary: I find this beer too light in taste, too lemony, too carbonated, and not robust enough. The aftertaste is cheese and slight honey, and very short. Overall, the palate is pretty thin and this beer isn’t very exciting to me. Sorry Russell.

DW’s NorthGeek Beer Taster Ratings:

This beer is a: Casual drinking beer / Meal companion beer / Dessert beer ( / Never drink it beer)

Taste 5/20
Smell 6/10
Goes down easy 4/10
Head consistency 5/10
Aftertaste 8/15
Bottle/Packaging 3/5
I would recommend this beer 2/10

TOTAL: 33/80

NB’s NorthGeek Beer Taster Ratings:

This beer is a: Casual drinking beer / Meal companion beer / Dessert beer

Taste 6/20
Smell 3/10
Goes down easy 6/10
Head consistency 7/10
Aftertaste 2/15
Bottle/Packaging 3/5
I would recommend this beer 4/10

TOTAL: 31/80

NORTHGEEK TOTAL: 32/80

What are your thoughts on this beer? Share in the comments below.

Howe Sound Brewing – Devil’s Elbow India Pale Ale (NorthGeek Beer Review Series)

Here were are kicking off our love of beers through some pre-Vancouver Craft Beer Week reviews. Stay tuned for more!

Name: Devil’s Elbow India Pale Ale
Style: IPA
Brewery: Howe Sound Brewing
Brewery Location: Squamish, BC

Color: Mid-dark golden brown
Apparent Flavours (according to DW & NB): Nutmeg, dry hops, bitterness, orange rind, grapefruit, grass, copper

DW Summary: This strong IPA sticks to its BC roots (or Western North American roots, really) by having a large amount of hops, and offering a very bitter beer that I find difficult to categorize as a “pale” anything. A great meal companion, this beer goes down easier with spiciness or saltiness, otherwise it is a bit of a harsh (yet very tasty) beer. The light but dense foamy head makes for a nice preview as you take your first sip!

NB Summary: Here’s a big bitter West Coast IPA from Squamish, in a big 1L “resealable” bottle. Actually, it’s made with English and North American barley and hops, so the IPA is a bit of a misnomer. It’s got a unique sweet aroma, not hoppy at all, but the taste is anything but. Good things: citrus, more than average hoppy, frothy head, local. Not as good things: a little too carbonated. I will drink this again.

DW’s NorthGeek Beer Taster Ratings:

This beer is a: Casual drinking beer / Meal companion beer / Dessert beer

Taste 16/20
Smell 8/10
Goes down easy 6/10
Head consistency 9/10
Aftertaste 13/15
Bottle/Packaging 5/5
I would recommend this beer 7/10

TOTAL: 64/80

NB’s NorthGeek Beer Taster Ratings:

This beer is a: Casual drinking beer / Meal companion beer / Dessert beer

Taste 15/20
Smell 9/10
Goes down easy 8/10
Head consistency 9/10
Aftertaste 13/15
Bottle/Packaging 2/5
I would recommend this beer 8/10

TOTAL: 64/80

NORTHGEEK TOTAL: 64/80

What are your thoughts on this beer? On bitter West Coast IPAs? Share in the comments below.

NorthGeek Review: Sony Ericsson Xperia X10

By now you all know that we have been in possession of a brand spankin’ new, white Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 courtesy of Sony Ericsson Canada (@SonyEricssonCA on Twitter). This cool new Android handset, running Google’s OS in version 1.6, comes in a sexy casing with a solid 8 megapixel Sony camera built-in, LED flash, a truly impressive 4″ touchscreen (at a resolution of 480 x 854 pixels), and boasts Qualcomm’s blazing fast 1GHz Snapdragon processor. To enjoy your various media in Sony Ericsson’s proprietary Mediascape media browser, they even throw in an 8GB microSD card. If you’re an online social maven, then you’ll enjoy Sony Ericsson’s own Timescape – an aggregated timeline of you and your friends’ Twitter, Facebook, and email updates.

We played with the device for nearly a week and put together this video review for your enjoyment and education. Let us know (in the comments or by tweeting us at @NorthGeek) if you have any questions! Enjoy:

NorthGeek Unboxing: Sony Ericsson Xperia X10

Thanks to Sony Ericsson Canada, we have our paws on this slick little device. Stay tuned for some hands-on impressions in the coming days. In the meantime, here’s a quick unboxing video to whet your appetites:

Please be patient, the video may still be processing so its FULL HD delight might not be there yet…

Sneak peak at Sony Ericsson Xperia X10

Yesterday in Vancouver, NorthGeek met with Peter Farmer and Neil Dutton from Sony Ericsson Canada about the upcoming Xperia X10 launch. Canada is highly anticipating the release of this new Android device, and, well, so are we. The news is that we should know in mid April exactly what it will cost and when it will be here, which will likely be sometime in Q2.

THE SPECS
You probably already know that it comes with the blazing fast 1Ghz Snapdragon processor, a mega four inch WVGA display, and a sharp 8.1 megapixel camera… also 13mm thick, white or black, microSD up to 32GB (16GB included). If you want more specs, check them here.

SIGNATURE APPLICATIONS
“Signature Applications” is Sony Ericsson’s label for their Android skin — the front look and dominant applications on the Android platform. On the X10, this is dominated by Timescape, Mediascape, Infinite Button, and face recognition. Learn more about these in their online demo. Basically, the device is focused on aggregating your social media streams. It’s not just SMS, MMS, emails, and photos, etc, but also connecting with Facebook, Twitter, and something called MySpace, so you can visualize a person’s presence and correspondence in one place. Sony Ericsson is not the first to do this, but it’s certainly useful and centrally located on the X10.

However, the links within the apps go to the individual services’ mobile sites, not embedded apps like Hootsuite, Seesmic, or Facebook for Android. Also, there’s no Flickr yet — what other integration will you want? We will have to wait and see how Sony Ericsson continues to innovate and add functionality here. Will these features (a mix of the Signature Apps mentioned above) eliminate the need for standalone apps? I doubt they will — apps like Hootsuite or Facebook are so impressive and complete — so we will see how we might use both options or if they will coordinate well.

WHY MORE THAN A VANILLA ANDROID DEVICE?
Rogers has been recently tweeting about the Google Nexus One becoming available in Canada, so it’s hard to ignore the face-off between these two devices. The Nexus One also has the Snapdragon processor (yes, it does have a smaller 5MP camera and 3.7″ screen), but a bare-bones Android likely offering quicker performance and speed. And the most recent version of Android, always.

The X10 comes with Android 1.6, because the Signature Apps need to adapt to new Android OSs, and won’t have the same battery management, task management, etc. It would be difficult for any Android device manufacturer to keep pace with Google’s quickly iterating OS if there is a skin built on top which always needs revisions.

The X10 is trying to do something different here. With a background in media, hardware, and taking chances with their phones (eg. their attempt to embrace Symbian a few years ago), as well as recognizable brands like Cybershot and Walkman, Sony Ericsson is trying to create a unique device experience here. Their skin is impressive and slick, but it will take some time to determine if it is better and who will embrace it. Is a skin really better for Android?

THE BUSY CANADIAN ANDROID LANDSCAPE
Rogers now has lots of Android devices. They are likely a world leader on this front, and were even the first mobile operator to offer both an iPhone and Android. Sony Ericsson believes that there is room here for multiple Android phones. All this competition is going to be very, very, very good for consumers. Watch out Apple.

OVERALL
This piece of X10 hardware is phenomenal. It feels great in the hand, is good looking, has a class-leading screen, and sports a camera verging on real. We’re still wondering if a skin is a good thing. They are competing with the Nexus One now, which sells without support from Rogers — does this matter? Ultimately, we need to spend more time with the device, but this certainly looks promising for Sony Ericsson in the future of smartphones. Coming soon is NorthGeek’s Nexus One review (the Canadian version with 3G frequency support).

NorthGeek Product Review: Sony Ericsson Naite eco-friendly GSM mobile phone

Sony Ericsson recently launched their GreenHeart™ initiative, with the aim of offering an environmentally friendly option to mobile phone users. As the company puts it, GreenHeart™ “introduces green innovations that reduce the overall environmental impact of the phone without compromising on style or features.”

We think they did a great job with the Naite. The Naite is a $25 (with plan) compact phone, now available from Fido in Canada, that does pretty much what you’d expect from any compact candybar phone in 2010 – it has a solid 2.0 megapixel camera, and another mini cam on the front of the phone for video calling; is 3G compatible; has a solid TFT screen with excellent clarity, brightness, and color; and is email ready, with a WAP browser as well.

For more details and a closer look, check out our video [sorry, we lent our HD video camera to a friend at SXSW, so please enjoy this standard def review]:

To keep the video under 10 minutes for YouTube, we had to cut out some parts… Here’s what you missed:

Available colours:
– Vapour Silver
– Ginger Red

Dimensions: 108.0 x 47.0 x 12.6 mm

A first look at Panasonic’s new Full HD 3D experience!

NorthGeek was lucky enough to have been invited to the media-only opening of the Panasonic Pavilion at LiveCity Yaletown in Vancouver today for a sneak peak at Panasonic’s new Full HD 3D technology. The awesome new technology is both for large-format theater and home theaters.

The best part of all was that we got to be among an elite group of reporters who enjoyed, first-hand, this new 3D entertainment experience. We started in a theater, similar to a movie theater, only a bit smaller – then we got to see it in “real-life” in a typical home theater set-up. Both were equally as impressive.

We had a chance to interview Panasonic North America Chief Technology Officer Eisuke Tsuyuzaki – here’s what he had to say about their exciting new 3D technology (the video will soon become available in HD if it hasn’t yet – YouTube needs to finish processing):

The first demo (which happened before the above interview) was on an extremely impressive, 103″ Plasma 3D television. I tried to take it home, they didn’t let. It was, as Borat would say, VERY NIIICE!!

Next up, we witnessed what our homes could look like as soon as April 2010 and for (apparently, still not clear) as little as $3,000 – equipped with a 3D-ready Panasonic TV, Blu-Ray player, 3D Blu-Ray media, and spiffy (battery-powered) 3D glasses.

The demos of 3D content included a bunch of winter Olympic sports, summer Olympic sports, clips from the movie Avatar, and a recently released music video featuring Soprano sensation Sarah Brightman. The sports (especially basketball, track, gymnastics, skiing, and cycling) were, in my opinion, the most impressive in 3D. The music video and movie just don’t look “real” enough for me to truly appreciate, whereas seeing a basketball net in the foreground and fans in the background looked really, really cool.

I should note, that what impressed me as much as anything else, was the lineup of (what I assume were) Viera Neo Plasma TVs, all color and temperature synched with each other, it was true perfection. I’d love to have that guy come to my home and calibrate my TV!

Leaving the venue, we had a chance to appreciate what LiveCity Yaletown actually looks like, without the zillions of international Olympic fans that are soon to cover each and every recently installed fake brick:

Noah’s best albums of the decade

Very few things are as powerful as music to evoke feelings and bring people together. On that lofty note, here are my ten favourite albums from 2000-2009. The album as a cohesive entity might be dying in favour of single tunes and groupings of tunes into a single product. I’m hoping bands like these hang on to the concept of an album. (Do consider owning the whole thing instead of picking only a few tunes.)

1. Arcade Fire – Funeral (2004). This Montreal made it big this decade. Still, this album only grows on you, and it’s even more powerful after seeing their unique live performance. The production of this album is also tremendous.

2. Beck – Guero (2005). I originally thought Beck was going to be a one hit wonder with Loser. I couldn’t have been more wrong. He is without a doubt one of the most innovative composers of the decade.

3. Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes (2008). I’m thrilled there are albums like this that you can listen to straight through. It’s full of frighteningly sweet vocal harmonies.

4. Eddie Vedder – Music for the Motion Picture Into the Wild (2007). I do love to see when soundtracks are more than licensed singles. Eddie Vedder wrote these tunes specifically for this movie, which happens to be a terrifying and majestic flick.

5. Try! John Mayer Trio Live in Concert (2005). I believe John Mayer is the most talented guitarist on tour right now. It’s a shame he continues to be pulled in the direction of pop, but this album is pure legendary blues chops and tonal exploration.

6. Radiohead – In Rainbows (2007). I’m not sure what draws me more to put this album on the list: its revolutionary “pay whatever you want” sales model, or the fact that it’s just so damn good and a completely musical escape.

7. The Strokes – Room on Fire (2003). This is my favourite album from the The Strokes. It didn’t do as well commercially as their debut Is This It. Still, their simple guitar ditties somehow make a big rock sound.

8. Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend (2008). This album sounds like a change of pace: some East Coast preppy rock. Dig it.

9. The White Stripes – Elephant (2003). This was their major label debut, but still it was recorded over 2 weeks using a four-track covered in duct tape. Keep it simple stupid.

10. Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002). Somehow Wilco is still off the beaten track, despite Jeff Tweedy’s solid songwriting. Check out their free concert at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics.

11. Bonus album is my very own. From my erstwhile Montreal rock band, here’s Far From Shore’s Wazo. There are still a few copies available online, or always from iTunes.

Some other (not huge) best discoveries of the decade: Bloc Party, Bon Iver, Cat Power, Danny Michel (Canadian), John Mayer (I still claim I discovered him as an opening act in a small bar in Cambridge, Mass), My Morning Jacket, Patrick Watson (I knew he was destined for musical greatness 15 years ago), Regina Spektor, The National, The Raveonettes, The Stills (another Montreal band), etc.

What are your favourite albums? Share them below.

NorthGeek Product Review: 6′ HDMI 1.3b cable from Optimized Cable Co.

Sorry for the delay, folks – but here it is!! Our first review of a product from http://www.optimization-world.com – here is the product page for the HDMI cable they sent me – a 6′ gold-plated HDMI cable, for just $12.99! And they ship to Canada!

Please don’t mind the lack of editing – I had to use iMovie and I haven’t used it in a while… Am waiting for the new FCP to come out!