Doritos Jacked Smoky Chipotle BBQ.

First, it's hard to resist a Doritos sale. Second, it's hard to resist a new flavor. Doritos Jacked are supposed to be "BIGGER, BOLDER, THICKER". Not the greatest tagline. I was pumped about the BBQ flavor because I still think the Smokin' Cheddar BBQ was one of the best flavors of all time. What a letdown. The flavor is only barely BBQ and there's a slight smokiness that's supposed to be chipotle. Meh. The chips are slightly bigger but not by much. And they are only slightly thicker. I remember there were those Tostitos Gold chips a number of years ago. I think they were Tostitos. Anyway, they were super thick and crunchy. The serving size was only like 5 or 6 chips because the original cut was so thick. Those were pretty solid. These are not so solid despite having the serving sized halved in comparison to regular Doritos. Granted, Doritos go for more crisp than crunch, but it's still disappointing.

Zapp's.

I wouldn't normally cram all these together, but I ate them all so here we are. Some Zapp's brand kettle chips were on sale a few weeks ago so I decided to pick some up. I saw the Salt & Vinegar and said, "FUCK YEAH," and then I saw a bag of Hotter 'n Hot Jalapeno and I was like "AW SHIT". I grabbed both and started to walk away. But then I was like >_>. I looked again and saw something flavor called. Crawnator. Ok, I'll trade the S&V for the Craws because I love my shrimp chips. But then I saw this other bag called VOODOO, and I was like 0_0. So I traded the jap chips for that. I took three steps, and then I turned around and grabbed the jap chips anyway because I love jalapeno chips. And then I found five dollars.

The Crawnators were pretty disappointing. Mildly shrimpy but not really. The base chip was pretty good and crunchy though but a little greasier than other brands. Still doesn't hold a thing against Asian shrimp chips. The Voodoo was a similar story. I couldn't figure out what flavor it was supposed to be from the ingredients list but even tasting them, I still couldn't really figure it out. It tasted vaguely like the Crawnators with some mild BBQ. The Jalapeno chips were good, but I've had better. They were hot and only mildly peppery. The balance between heat and pepper was pretty good, but again, relatively mild.

For the price, it was good deal for kettle chips, but overall, I've had better kettle chips.

Sam Adams Griffin's Bow Oaked Blonde Barleywine.

Hooray for beers with unnecessarily long names. Another unique Sam Adams drop to try while I wait for a fresh pint of Dead Ringer to settle down. I haven't had hardly any barley wines this season and the weather has been unseasonably warm recently with today finally cooling by about 20F. It's almost fitting that this barley wine be so much lighter in color that its typical kin, a light, crystal clear caramel. While the head is quite thin, it manages to leave a lot of lacing. The aroma is spot on: sweet, malty, slightly woody without being bourbon-y, slightly boozy. The taste follows the aroma pretty closely, with the heat being a little over the top. There are plenty of good b-wines out there that pack 10%ABV without letting on. I suppose that's the advantage of getting to use darker malts.

This is a pretty interesting beer. I can tell that it's a barley wine, but it's distinctive as well