Yes I’ve been slacking this week.  Only on the blog front though, I’ve actually been very busy.  I won’t bore you with the details for once;  You’ll just have to trust me.  So, lacking a summary of my past weekend, I’ll opt instead to sneak in a beer review.  Going through my copious notes, one of the more interesting entries I came across was Odell’s 90 Shilling.  “What? That’s a rather generic beer,” you may be saying to yourself.  (Or, more likely, you may not be saying that.)  Indeed, it is a rather everyday brew, albeit one of my favorites.  It’s a very nice representation of the Scottish Ale style.  I think it’s probably a bit lighter in body than most of the well-known examples, but as such I find it more drinkable for a go-to everyday brew.  On this particular evening though, it was also the subject (victim?) of the weekly “randalling” project at Bier Station.  In short, they select a beer every week and basically infuse it with whatever flavors they happen to think sound good.  Sometimes they do this inline with the tap, and sometimes using a French Press.  As it happened, the flavor of the day that evening was “90 Shilling Randalled with Smoked Black Tea and Wild Cherries.”  Wow, how can you go wrong with a name like that?  Well, for one thing, you could not like smoked beers.  I am going to estimate I’ve tried at least six smoked ales in my life, and I can without reservation say I’ve despised every one.  I tasted no cherries, no tea… Just smoke.  And, for whatever reason, I do not like it.  As best I can describe, they all have a rather “oily” taste to me, which is as unpleasant as it sounds.  While it certainly looked like my familiar pour of 90 Shilling, the flavors I usually enjoy were completely lost.  No nicely toasted malt, no nicely balanced sweet/bitter flavors;  Just oily smoke.  I don’t guess I need to carry on all day. Suffice to say I didn’t exactly care for it.  I haven’t given up on the Randall project:  I tried one a few weeks later that was very enjoyable.  I’ll save that one for another day.