Beer of the Week: Reuben’s Brews Kenya Cream Ale

By Iron Chef Leftovers

Coffee beers can sometimes suffer from being too much coffee and not enough beer, even when the brewers are doing everything right and using really high quality coffee. It takes an even hand to get a balance where you can taste the subtle flavors of the coffee and still get the subtle flavors of the beer. It gets much harder when you try to make a coffee beer that is not a stout or a porter – the coffee can easily overwhelm the non-roasted flavors in lighter beers. I was intrigued when Reuben’s released their Kenya Cream, combining their Cream Ale with Kuma coffee. The beer clocked in at just 5% ABV and 17 IBU.

The beer pours hazy golden in color with light notes of stone fruit and chocolate and hints of milk and grain on the nose. The beer starts off on the palate with a creamy feel to it with notes of yeast and bread before moving into berry and stone fruit flavors with a touch of roasty chocolate – definitely complex flavors coming from the coffee. The beer finishes with a touch of bitter black coffee and plenty of fruit notes and hints of chocolate, coupled with notes of steamed milk. The beer finishes like a nice café au lait. The coffee is definitely complex with a light fruit profile that compliments the milk like qualities of the cream ale without completely dominating it. The beer is increasingly complex as it warms and the balance is superb showing dramatic flavor from both the beer and the coffee. Kenya Cream surprises with being able to pull off a light coffee beer without feeling like you are just drinking a cup of coffee.

Reuben’s Brews Kenya Cream comes out of the savanna with 4 Masai out of 5.

Too Much Tulle And Too Much Time To Think

by A.J. Coltrane

In an effort to keep cabbage moths off of the Brussels Sprouts:

Tulle, Ultomato Cages, an EarthBox, shortened hoop house pvc, and clothespins. It’s a Frankenstein mash-up.

Even with all of that, something is still getting at the ends of the leaves that are touching the tulle — or the tulle is abrading the leaves when the wind blows. Dunno yet, but it bears watching.

Beer of the Week: Midnight Sun XXX Black Double IPA

By Iron Chef Leftovers

If you want to consider Alaska as part of the Northwest, then Midnight Sun Brewing in Anchorage is definitely a brewery that should be considered one of the best in the Northwest. If you are like me and think that a brewery 1800 miles from Seattle is not really part of the Northwest, then you can call Midnight Sun possibly the best brewery in Alaska, a state that has a surprising amount of great breweries. My only knock on Midnight Sun is that their beer is spendy. Take the recently consumed XXX Black Double IPA, which ran about $12 for a 22 oz. bottle. Of course I had to try this beer since I don’t think I ever had a double black IPA, so price be damned, I bought it. The beer clocked in at 8.5% ABV and 87 IBU.

From the Midnight Sun website:

Originally brewed in 2009 to celebrate Specialty Imports’ 30th Anniversary, XXX Black Double IPA is now produced each winter as one of MSBC’s four “seasonal double IPAs”. XXX offers bold, American hop character — comfortably cloaked in dark, luxurious malt. This exciting “winter warmer” will take the chill right out of your bones. Curl up with this session-beer-meets-nightcap.

Although XXX pairs really well with roasted meats and vegetables, it also complements creamy desserts and cheeses, especially those that feature burnt sugar and nutty flavors.

Sometimes XXX just means 30.

The beer pours jet black with a creamy brown head. Significant roasted notes with hints of citrus and coffee in the background and a touch of boozy vanilla show on the nose. The beer starts out on the palate with a slight sweetness from the malt before quickly moving into a strong hop character with distinct notes of mango and passion fruit up front, then moving to dried citrus with just a hint of citrus peel. The finish is slightly boozy with strong notes of roasted coffee and hints of vanilla with touches of orange blossom and peel interspersed in a very long finish. Despite the boozy quality, the alcohol is balanced and there is no alcohol burn and the flavors are deep and layered, bringing this CDA to the next level. I would definitely drink this one again as a rare treat to be enjoyed in the fall and winter months in the Northwest.

Midnight Sun XXX Black Double IPA rolls down the lane with 4 turkeys out of 5.

The 2014 MLB Schedule

By Blaidd Drwg

In the ass-backwards world of the void that is the MLB schedule, you the Red Sox vs Braves games played on Monday and Tuesday at Turner Field in Atlanta. Then, for no explainable reason, the Braves and Red Sox play again Wednesday and Thursday at Fenway Park in Boston.

The schedule maker should be taken out back and shot along with Bud Seilg for that scheduling stupidity.

Beer of the Week: NW Peaks Magic Brown

By Iron Chef Leftovers

I have come to realize that one of my guilty pleasures in beer drinking is brown ales. For years, one of my favorite beers was Sam Smith’s Nut Brown Ale, and then, for some reason, I took a very long break from drinking them. In the last couple of years, there has been resurgence in browns, and with that, they have become my dirty little secret – a beer that I wouldn’t generally order, but when I am in the mood, there is nothing quite like a brown. NW Peaks does a couple of browns – the Pecan one they do in November and the Magic, which makes an appearance in March.

From the NW Peaks Website:

The name. The mountain. Magic is situated right off of Cacade pass (near Sahale), but it is just S and E from the pass rising above Trapper Lake. I climbed Magic Mtn on the front end of a week long trip, on the famous Ptarmigan Traverse – one of the most traveled alpine climbing traverses. The day trip to Cascade Pass is certainly one of the “must go to” areas of the N Cascades, with several options for continuing the trip, including over to Magic and it’s environs.

The beer. Magic Brown fits the schizophrenic March Seattle weather perfectly. It is dark and malty for the cold/wet, but it’s body is light enough that it will be great on a warmer day as well. Unlike the typical “brown,” we built this brown up to have some more residual malt character by adding some extra munich, caramunich, and other specialty malts, but keeping the overall alcohol content and roast character down.

Malt: ESB, Special B, Crystal, muncih, caramunich, carafa 2, flaked. Hops: Apollo, golding. British ale yeast.

The beer pours deep brown with hints of amber. There are strong notes of malt on the nose with mild hints of chocolate, coffee and hops. The beer starts off on the palate with a pleasant grain note and a touch of sweetness before moving off into very light notes of milk chocolate with just a hint of coffee hiding in the background. Those flavors are joins by a malty sweetness that embraces the roast and the finish displays just a touch of hop character, playing hide and seek on a long fade. Not as deep as some browns, but easy to drink and well layered.

NW Peaks Magic Brown takes the stage and pulls 3 rabbits out of a hat out of 5.

Beer of the Week: Hoppin’ Frog Mean Manalishi Double IPA

By Iron Chef Leftovers

If you subscribe to the national IPA championship results, generally the best IPA’s are from the Midwest, particularly the Cleveland area. Of course those results are skewed since they are basically a popularity contest held at a bar within driving distance from Cleveland and it is not a blind study, so I believe there to be a great deal of bias in the results. Fortunately for me, I do have a friend who lives in the Cleveland area and he has sent me many of these “great” IPA. One of the breweries that a recent shipment contained was Hoppin’ Frog. I had some high hopes for their beers since they have won a ton of medals at the GABF as well as other competitions. First up was the Double IPA. It arrived in a 22 oz. bottle and carried a price tag of $11. According to the label, this beer was 8.2% ABV and 168(!!) IBU.

From the Hoppin’ Frog Website:

Explore the extremes of hops, and experience all of their bitterness, flavor and aroma with this Double I.P.A. An extreme, super-assertive and satisfying amount of American hop character is balanced with a toasty, caramelized, intense malt presence.

The beer pours deep orange in color with high amounts of hops and hints of grain and caramel on the nose with just a touch of floral character. The beer starts off on the palate with significant amounts of fruit and citrus peel before mellowing out a bit into a significantly bitter grain character. The finish is long with a huge amount of citrus and peel with slightly floral characteristics and a very light caramel note. There is a touch of resin and alcohol burn at the end but overall the finish is pleasant and enjoyable. The balance is good, but I expected a bit better given the pedigree – the alcohol was not off putting, but probably should have been a little better balanced and I would have liked the beer to show a little more malt and a little less bitter as the bitter was occasionally overwhelming the malt at times (this is why you don’t just keep ramping up the IBU in a beer). Overall it was a great drinking experience (although the bottle may have been just a touch past its prime) and definitely worth trying if you get the opportunity.

Hoppin’ Frog Mean Manalishi Double IPA takes a flying leap onto 3 lily pads out of 5.

A Culinary Challenge

By Iron Chef Leftovers

Here’s the challenge: cook an omelet. Sounds easy, right?

How about having to prepare a French omelet the same way Jacques Pepin does in a video which you get to screen? Still not too bad.

How about doing it in 7 ½ minutes? Ok, getting a little tougher.

With a culinary scholarship and the opportunity to stage at the best restaurants in the world, Noma, for one month? Pressure…mounting….

On a demonstration stage at the largest food gathering in Latin America, Mesamerica? Starting…to…crack…

With some of the best chefs in the world – Alice Waters, Danny Bowien, Enrique Olvera and Rene Redzepi, and a huge crowd watching you? Mommy….

That is exactly what happened recently at Mesamerica in Mexico City. Redzepi announced that the 2 winners out of 6 culinary student contestants would win a scholarship and get to stage at Noma in Copenhagen for a month. Only three of the students completed the dish in the allotted time and it was the first time that all 6 of them had ever made an omelet.

Then the amazing part of this whole thing happened:

When Redzepi re-took the stage, he had another announcement: As planned, two students would come stage at Noma. But Waters had offered to take on two more at Chez Panisse. Bowien would bring one to Mission Cantina. And Olvera would bring the last of the six students to his soon-to-open Cosme in New York City. It was a move that surprised even Mesamérica director Sasha Correa, who told Eater that this was not part of the plan.

I applaud the chefs for all dropping a surprise on these poor students who were so stressed out by the entire event that 3 of them were in tears. Celebrity chefs sometimes get a bad reputation for being self-centered asses, but there are times when they remember where they came from and give someone else the chance of a lifetime.

You can read the full recap here on eater.com.

GNOIF: Sticks And Stones And GNOIF — The Recap

by A.J. Coltrane

GNOIF #13 Recap — Sticks And Stones And GNOIF (Building Themes)

Games That Got Played: Castle Panic, Catan – Starship, Citadels, Dominion, Galaxy Trucker, Gardens of Alhambra, Magic the Gathering, Rampage, Seven Wonders.

Games That Didn’t Get Played: Agricola, Carcassonne, Catan – Settlers, Infernal Contraption, Power Grid, Stone Age, Ticket to Ride – Europe.

Three of the games that got “big play” were brought by guests. I especially liked the idea of Castle Panic — it’s a fairly simple board game implementation of a cooperative tower defense-style game. We narrowly won once, and narrowly lost once. I’m of the suspicion that repeated plays may show that luck is too much of a factor, but we had fun with it.

I think that Galaxy Trucker could be addictive. We’ve played it on non-GNOIF nights and I really enjoy the ship-building element to the game. Last night I was otherwise occupied with Castle Panic. Ideally I could have played both at the same time.

For a night of building themes it wound up featuring plenty of chaos and destruction. Good times!

Beer of the Week: Populuxe IPA

By Iron Chef Leftovers

The great thing about the Populuxe IPA is that they brew it so often that you are usually drinking it really fresh and at its peak. The bad part about the Populuxe IPA is that they brew it in such small batches and it is very popular that the rarely have it on tap for long stretches of time. The guys at Populuxe are also constantly tweaking the recipe slightly between each batch, trying to get the perfect recipe dialed in, so I figured it was time to review this one again considering it was a new batch that was put on tap.

The beer pours hazy orange in color with a huge amount of citrus and citrus peel on the nose with just a hint of floral orange blossom. The beer starts out with a light sweetness before moving into a great amount of orange and tangerine before mingling in nice fresh orange peel with just a touch of bitterness, pleasantly cutting through the light sweetness on the beer. The finish is extremely long and pleasant with the citrus and hops that just don’t dissipate and a tinge of burnt orange at the end of the tongue. This is the most citrus-forward version of the IPA that I have tasted from Populuxe and the bitterness becomes more pronounced as the beer warms, adding a great deal of balance to the citrus notes. If you like a citrus-forward IPA with great balance and moderate bitterness (which I do love), you should be drinking this beer.

Populuxe IPA scores well on the retest with 5 redux out of 5.

The 1987 NFL Rushing Leaders

By Blaidd Drwg

One of the cool things about being a sports card collector is that the cards remind you of things that you have long forgotten. I recently came across a 1988 Topps Rushing Leaders card, highlighting the 1987 season. Did you know that there were only 2 running backs that ran for 1000 yards that year (it was only a 15 game season due to a strike and most players only appeared in 12 games since 3 of them were played with mostly replacement players – about 15 % of the league did cross the picket lines)?

The card that inspired the post - the great Eric Dickerson and the forgotten Charles White. — The card that inspired the post – the great Eric Dickerson and the forgotten Charles White.

The 2 running backs? Eric Dickerson and Charles White. Charles White led the NFL with just under 1400 yards and Dickerson was second with just under 1300.

The story gets a bit more bizarre – White was actually Dickerson’s backup. Here is how that happened. Dickerson started the season as the Rams #1 RB, with White as his backup. After the 2^nd week of the season, most of the players went on strike, but some crossed the picket lines to keep playing. Dickerson stayed away, White crossed the picket line. White became the starter. After an inauspicious debut of 9 carries for 18 yards, White busted out in week 4 with 166 yards vs. the Steelers. Charles White had, up until that point, managed 1 – 100 yard game and just 1400 yards in his 6+ year NFL career. He tore off another 100 yard game in Week 5 and then the strike ended. Dickerson was back for week 6, had about half as many carries as White in the game and then was summarily traded to the Colts. In case you don’t remember 1987, Eric Dickerson was the best RB on the planet, having just run for 1800 yards in 1986 and he was just 27 years old. With Dickerson gone, White retained the starting role and reeled off 5 more 100 yard games. Dickerson in the meantime, got off to a slow start with the Colts, but then managed to average 122 yards a game for the rest of the season to not only finish second in the league in total rushing yards, but to lead the AFC in rushing yards despite having played 3 games less than Curt Warner.

Dickerson would have just 2 more great seasons before turning into a pumpkin at age 30. Charles White would manage just 323 more yards in the NFL, getting hurt early in 1988 and losing his starting job to Greg Bell before retiring.