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The Great Pumpkin Ale Tasting

Max Elman — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 00:49:06 +0000

A few of the pumpkin beers that Kristan and I tasted this year. Yum!

It’s been a tough month. After going through a few various Oktoberfest six-packs, we moved on Pumpkin Ales. For science! And the betterment of pumpkin-lovers worldwide.

Our rating scale relates to the pumpkin beer as a whole. We rated the beer itself on a 1-10 scale and then added or subtracted based on the overall “pumpkin-ness” of the beer.

Oak Jacked Imperial Pumpkin Ale – Uinta Brewing (0/10 – too strong (10.31% ABV), yet light and tasteless)
La Parcela – Jolly Pumpkin Brewing (3/10 – very sour, no pumpkin taste, great head)
Smashed Pumpkin (Pugsley’s Signature Series) – Shipyard (3/10 – very strong at 9% ABV, medium pumpkin taste, very thin)
Harvest Pumpkin Ale – Samuel Adams Brewery (2/10 – tastes suspiciously like their Oktoberfest blend- is this pumpkin ale?)
Spicy Pumpkin Ale – Indian Wells Brewing Company (6/10- just the right amount of spice to make it interesting, yet still very drinkable.
Pumpkin Ale – Wasatch Brewery (7/10 – smooth, not spicy, a bit of a pie-like creaminess)
Harvest Moon Pumpkin Ale – Blue Moon (3/10 – like Sam Adams, tastes like a Fall blend but nothing like pumpkins)
Punk’n Ale – Uinta Brewing Company (5/10 – smells of cinnamon & nutmeg, not pumpkin, light body)

Tasted & not pictured:

Pumpkin Ale – Buffalo Bill’s Brewery (2/10 – slight pumpkin taste, terrible and undrinkable beer)
UFO Pumpkin – Harpoon Brewery (6/10 – slight spiciness, good pumpkin taste, very drinkable)
Punkin Ale – Dogfish Head Craft Brewery (2/10 – too bitter to enjoy. Not a great taste.)
Pumpkinhead Ale – Shipyard (6/10 – our winner last year, a great balance of spice and smoothness)
Hipp-O-Lantern – River Horse Brewing Co. (6/10 – not spicy, not much pumpin flavor)
Pumpkin Wheat – Shock Top (4/10 – good light beer, but barely any pumpkin taste whatsoever)

The Great Pumpkin Ale Tasting is a post from: maxelman.com

Mixed Technology

Max Elman — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 02:44:04 +0000

I’ve had a package of Polaroid type 59 instant 4×5 film in my fridge for five years now and decided to use it today. After picking up a set of Photojojo iPhone lenses from Doc Pop (courtesy of a Postagram contest), Kristan and I headed to Glen Canyon to have a picnic and shoot some photos. We found some great boulders to camp out on and took the first two of these:

We then packed up and drove over to Sutro Tower and shot a few more:

It was a great afternoon filled with a bizarre mixture of technology. The pinhole camera was made out of wood, the Polaroid back is 20 years old, the film is at least 8 years old, and my iPhone and lenses are brand new. Overall, I think it was a pretty fantastic mixture. Now I’m off to find more discontinued sheet film. Stay tuned for more!

View more photos from today on Google+

Mixed Technology is a post from: maxelman.com

200 days of 2011

Max Elman — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 21:05:20 +0000

This is the last major milestone in my photo-a-day project as I’m taking a break for the foreseeable future. Shooting a picture every day is tough work, and forcing myself to do it is no longer as productive and helpful as it once was. 665 days in the past two years isn’t too shabby though, if I do say so myself.

These 200 photos tell a fun story of my year so far: Visiting Sundance; buying a new motorcycle; spending lots of time with my family; taking trips to Vegas, Cancun, Europe; and some experiments with light-writing at night.

Thanks for looking, and comments are appreciated on Flickr.

View the full set on Flickr

200 days of 2011 is a post from: maxelman.com

Go The Fuck To Sleep

Max Elman — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 11:51:32 +0000

Narrated by Samuel L. Jackson Go The Fuck To Sleep is a post from: maxelman.com

Go The Fuck To Sleep is a post from: maxelman.com

Garden Photoshoot

Max Elman — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 04:00:44 +0000

Sometimes you just have to set up a tripod and go jump in the backyard for a while. Today was one of those days. After it stopped raining (and the mud had a bit of time to dry out), I went out back and took a few hundred pictures. Here’s a few of those:

Yep. I can actually hover.

Here’s the final result. Click through to comment on Flickr.

Garden Photoshoot is a post from: maxelman.com

75 days of 2011

Max Elman — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 06:46:34 +0000

We’re off to a good start, 2011. A trip to Sundance, a new motorcycle, time with my family, steady work, and a quick getaway to Las Vegas all have made for a pretty crazy two and a half months. I’ve managed to (mostly) keep up with my photo-a-day project (no thanks to Canon and Apple for technology/repair issues) and would love for you to take a look and leave some feedback, dear reader.

View the full set on Flickr

75 days of 2011 is a post from: maxelman.com

Star Wars & Clam Chowder

Max Elman — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 07:35:25 +0000

Highlight of the day: The Dunsmuir Brewery Works booth at the 30th annual Santa Cruz Clam Chowder Cookoff, and this fine gentleman on the accordion:

Star Wars & Clam Chowder is a post from: maxelman.com

2010 in Pictures

Max Elman — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 23:06:35 +0000

2010 was a pretty awesome year for photography. I took more pictures than I ever have before (17,482 exposures) and completed my first project 365 (a photo every day). Here’s a few links and galleries:

2010 in Pictures is a post from: maxelman.com

Gnomes / Robots / Pizza

Max Elman — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 17:26:15 +0000

It’s taken a few years (this was shot in Fall 2006), but I finally got my non-linear film project from UCSC’s Film 170A (Fundamentals of Digital Media Production) up on YouTube. It had only existed on a DVD until now, using the remote to navigate between clips. Using YouTube’s Annotations feature, I was able to link it all together so it makes (some) sense. Have a look and try to get through the whole story (16 clips).

Thanks to Christopher Hermelin, Roy the Gnome, and KZSC.

Oh, and be sure to click the buttons on the screen at the end of the clip – it’s a lot more than these initial 11 seconds.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Gnomes / Robots / Pizza is a post from: maxelman.com

Huffington Post Image Theft

Max Elman — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 00:05:51 +0000

Well this is odd. The Huffington Post is using a photo of mine from Flickr under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic Creative Common licence and there’s absolutely no attribution. While other images have Flickr names, mine gets a note that says “Google: Listen” (Listen being the title of the image). Are they trying to say that they found it via Google Image search, and therefore they don’t need to give attribution? That’s shady.

Hopefully they’ll notice and fix this shortly. And while they’re at it, maybe they can fix the text that says KZSC is “funded by the FCC”. Come on HuffPo, seriously? A radio station funded by the FCC? That doesn’t even make sense!

Here’s a grab of the article and photo on 10/26/10:

My image on Flickr, taken in 2007 at KZSC:

Update: I got in touch of the College Editor and she cleared things up. Apparently their new image scraper has some issues they’re working out.

Huffington Post Image Theft is a post from: maxelman.com