Blog & White

Very sweet ginger beer, quite nice if you don't mind the sweetness.

Produced for Accolate Wines Ltd, Guildford, London, England. 4.0% alcohol.

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Published in 2010.

Miles is in to Kibou-daini to investigate the hidden motives of a cryocorp (a company specialized in freezing people before their death and storing the bodies) who wants to expand its business on Komarr. A failed attempt at kidnapping him (and other foreigners attending a conference organized by the cryocorp) leads him to meet a small community running an unofficial cryocorp in abandonned faclities, allowing poor people to benefit from cryopreservation. Thanks to Jin, a homeless orphan whose mother Lisa was frozen in suspicions circumstances eighteen months earlier, Miles manages to contact the Barrayaran consulate and continue his investigation. Jin, arrested by the police while carrying a message from the consulate to Miles and returned to his aunt's, escapes with his sister Mina and find refuge at the consulate. Miles then wants to find Lisa's body to find out what she had discovered before being forcibly frozen. He eventually finds her in the basement of an employee of another cryocorp; the latter had told Lisa about a fraud that the cryocorp had tried to hush up by silencing Lisa and her associates. During his invetigation, Miles also discovers that the cryocorps receive a mandate from their patrons for voting in their place during the elections; this gives enormous power to the cryocorp on Kibou-daini, and because of Komarr's peculiar laws, would have given them the same power there. Thanks to Lisa's revival, the fraud becomes finally public, the guilty executives of the cryocorp are arrested, and Jin and Mina have their mother back.

“A toasted malt flavour… pronounced hop”

Quite flowery, otherwise just another ale. Contains barley malt and oats.

Wychwood Brewery Co. Witney, Oxfordshire, England. 4.7% alcohol.

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Sixième et dernier volume des aventures d'Oksa Pollock.

Orthon a assassiné le président des États-Unis et a fait du nouveau président sa marionnette. Il a proposé aux dirigents de plusieurs pays de se joindre à son projet d'éliminer tous les humains qui ne satisfont pas ses critères et de batir un monde nouveau. Ceux qui ont refusé ont vu leur population attaquée par des Chiroptères, forçant des millions de personnes au suicide. Oksa et les siens ont traqué Orthon jusqu'à Washington, puis à sa base secrète à Detroit, où il construit une fusée chargée d'uranium ; ils apprennent qu'Orthon veut détruire l'étoile qui permet à Édéfia de rester invisible, tuant Oksa la Gracieuse du même coup. Les Sauve-Qui-Peut parviennent à s'échapper, et contactent les dirigeant des pays qui avaient refusé la proposition d'Orthon. Grâce à eux, ils découvrent qu'Orthon bâtit une cité au coeur de la forêt amazonienne, sur le modèle d'Édéfia. Un bombardement, organisé par le Brésil détruit la cité. Oksa et les siens retournent alors dans la base de Detroit et parviennent juste à temps à empêcher la destruction de l'étoile. Oksa affronte Orthon et parvient à se résoudre à le tuer. Tous partent finalement pour Édéfia, sauf Abakoum, Tugdual, Zoé et Mortimer qui décident de rester sur Terre. On apprend qu'alors que les trois enfants étaient brièvement prisonniers d'Orthon dans sa base de Detroit, on leur a inoculé un virus qui leur a donné la capacité des Diaphans pour absorber les sentiments amoureux d'autrui jusqu'à tuer, ainsi que le besoin de se «  nourrir  » ainsi. Abakoum reste avec eux pour les protéger.

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Hulk se marie. J'ai bien rigolé.

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Published in 2012.

Ivan Vorpatril, while stationed on Komarr, accepts to help his cousin Byerly Vorrutyer protecting Tej, an exiled Jacksonian woman, a possible witness related to Byerly's current investigation. To save her from the local authorities set on her by the bounty hunters who are tracking her, she accepts Ivan's hurried plan to temporarily marry him and fall under Barrayaran protection. They then travel back to Barrayar and fail getting the quick divorce promised by Ivan (probably due to Ivan's mother who likes Tej and talked to the judge). Tej's parent, who were believed to have been killed in the takeover of their House in Jackson's Whole, actually reappear on Barrayar, after having learned that Tej was there. They then plan to secretely raid an underground bunker dating from the time of the Cetagandan invasion where Tej's grandmother (still alive) had worked and where she knows that a huge treasure had been piled up and never reclaimed by the Cetagandans who had fled Barrayar. Ivan manages to participate in the raid, but Tej's family's attempt fails and they are trapped underground: the bunker is located under ImpSec's HQ, and an old bomb, lost underneath it after a failed attempt to blowup the building over twenty years ago, collapses the tunnels. They are however quickly rescued, and Emperor Gregor is willing to make a deal with the Jacksonians to get an ally in the Whole. Tej and Ivan decide de remain married, Tej finally managing to get out of the grip of her family.