Tonights tastings are bound to be slanted by two factors: the lack of sleep caused by last night's supernap, and the fact that I'm coming down with the Kentuckiana Death Flu or something.

Anyway, I went into Rich O's and actually followed my own advice by not making Cone Smoker my first beer of the night.

My first beer was, in fact, a Rogue Hazelnut Brown Nectar. It wasn't the worst beer I've ever tasted (that would be skunked Beck's Dark) and it wasn't the best (Alaskan Amber Ale) either but it was quite drinkable. It also solved a little mini-mystery of mine when I realized that the undefinable taste and smell could be attributed to hazelnuts, of all things.

My second experiment of the night was Spezial Rauchbeir Lager. Though this is supposedly a rauchbier, I could detect no smoke whatsoever. Perhaps someone working at the brewery is a chain-smoker, and that's how they feel justified in calling this a rauchbier.

Anyway, it was pretty good, for a lager. If I had to pick a single word to describe it, that word would be "thick" and that description would help no one.

Lastly, I had a Cone Smoker, and it was the best thing I had tonight. Its ever-changing flavor had landed back on style #1, which is really quite good. Smoke, malt, a slight hop background. Yummy.