By Iron Chef Leftovers
It is a good thing Jamie Oliver can cook and knows how to run a restaurant empire because he would be starving in the streets if he relied on his “mastery” of the Cantonese language.
Author: AJ
Beer of the Week: Populuxe Blond IPA
By Iron Chef Leftovers
The concept of a blond IPA is a bit of an American invention, combining a pretty traditional Belgian style of beer with one that has become very uniquely American. The results of the odd union can be great but at the same time I have had a few that were complete disasters. Populuxe through their hat into the ring with their Blond IPA, clocking in at 6.0% ABV.
The beer pours light orange in color with significant amounts of citrus and hints of grain and yeast on the nose. It starts out slightly sweet coupled with a nice crispness before moving into bitter citrus peel with a nice bite. The beer finishes dry with a great combination of mild resin, citrus and citrus peel with just a touch of bitterness and hints of yeast that fade in and out, depending on the sip. The bitter finish is long and lingering in a very pleasant way and the beer shows great IPA character without overwhelming the Belgian notes that subtly appear.
Populuxe Blond IPA shows its natural color with a pretty 3 Marilyn Monroes out of 5.
Growing and Bolting
by A.J. Coltrane
We planted winter-hardy vegetables in late October. Mache was direct seeded on January 5. Cherry Belle Radishes were direct seeded on February 10. Super Sugar Snap Peas were transplanted outside on February 16. Romaine “Winter Density” seedlings followed them on February 24.
But nothing really did a whole lot, until this week. This week we’d go into the backyard and the vegetables would be perceptibly bigger than they were the day before. About half of the Bok Choi bolted a few days ago, so it got harvested before it could get bitter. More bolted today — it got cut out too. Altogether it came out to around two pounds of Bok Choi. Pictured below is today’s 3/4 lb – about 3 decent-sized heads:
That’ll be a stir-fry with garlic, sesame seeds, and Sriracha.
I *think* I read that cabbages planted in the fall will bolt more quickly in the spring. That may be what is going on here. I’m not sure though — that’s something that needs additional reading.
The peas are doing well. Here’s February 14:
And today:
No output from the peas yet, I’m guessing that’ll happen soon(?)
Finally, the romaine lettuce:
At least so far the front yard seems to be the better location for cool-season vegetables. It faces east, and doesn’t get sun during the hottest part of the day. We’ll see how it goes when it gets hot outside — it may require shade cloth to slow the bolting… Though the early results are encouraging.
Beer of the Week: Brooklyn Brewing Sorachi Ace
By Iron Chef Leftovers
Somehow, despite both its size and profile in the craft brew community, Brooklyn Breweries beers are not available in Seattle (You can’t find their beers in Oregon, Washington or California, but you can find them in BC, go figure). That is disappointing since they make some pretty special beers. Because of that, I made it a point when I was back in NJ over Christmas to seek out a few of their beers for transport back to the Pacific Northwest. One of the ones I was able to come by is their Sorachi Ace – a saison hopped with, wait for it…Sorachi Ace hops. I had it once a while back and I really liked it (this was really before I was familiar with Sorachi) so I thought it was time to try it again. The beer came in a 750 ml bottle and ran about $10.
A rather long read from the Brooklyn website:
Most Brooklyn beers are made with a blend of hop varietals. As a chef does with spices, we look to get the best qualities of each hop and create a harmony of flavors and aromas. However, a few years ago, our brewmaster ran into a hop unique enough to deserve its own moment in the sun. A large Japanese brewery first developed the hop variety “Sorachi Ace” in 1988. A cross between the British “Brewer’s Gold” and the Czech “Saaz” varieties, it exhibited a quality that was unexpected – it smelled really lemony.
The unique flavor of Sorachi Ace was bypassed by the big brewers, but we thought it was pretty cool. So we made a special beer with it, and added the beer to our Brewmaster’s Reserve special draft beer program last year. Most Brewmaster’s Reserve beers are only available for a short time, and then they’re gone. But we liked this one so much, we decided to bring it back and give it the star treatment. Brooklyn Sorachi Ace is a classic saison, a cracklingly dry, hoppy unfiltered golden farmhouse ale, but made entirely with now-rare Sorachi Ace hops grown by a single farm in Washington. We ferment it with our special Belgian ale strain, and then add more Sorachi Ace hops post-fermentation. After the dry-hopping, the beer emerges with a bright spicy lemongrass / lemon zest aroma backed by a wonderfully clean malt flavor
It tastes like sunshine in a glass, and that suits us just fine, especially with seafood dishes and fresh cheeses. It’s just the thing on nice summer days and beyond.
Style: Single-hop Farmhouse Saison
Malts: German two-row Pilsner Malt
Additions: Brewer’s white sugar
Hops: Washington-grown Sorachi Ace
Yeast: Our special Belgian strain (primary); Champagne yeast (secondary)
Alcohol by Volume: 7.6%
IBUs: 34
Original Gravity: 15.7° Plato
Calories: 208 (per 12oz)
Food Pairings: Pork buns, fish tacos, shrimp, smoked salmon, sushi, prosciutto, curries, salads, grilled meats and fresh goat cheese (such as Westfield Bulk Chevre.)
The beer pours hazy pale yellow in color with a foamy white head and shows significant notes of yeast and passion fruit coupled with some grassy/dill funk and hints of lemon peel on the nose. The beer starts out dry with a mild grain component and just a touch of hop character before moving on to notes of sugar and Belgian yeast and finally finishing long with hints of grass, lemon, yeast and dill and just a tinge of bitterness before lingering with a pleasant, tannic dryness. The hops and Belgian notes become a bit more pronounced as the beer warms but the grass and dill and the farmhouse notes also become significantly more pronounced, making this beer a pretty deep and complex item. Despite all of the interesting flavors, the beer is well balanced and you really don’t notice the alcohol until you try to stand up after putting back the entire bottle. A great beer showcasing Sorachi Ace with the added benefit of Belgian flavors,
Brooklyn Brewing’s Sorachi Ace shows its hand with 4 of a kind out of 5.
2014 Bracket of Peril – The Results Show
By Blaidd Drwg
Well, this year’s “Bracket of Peril” was definitely perilous for all of the participants. Not only did no one pick the eventual champion UConn, no one in the pool had more than one final 4 team, and that was a just about everyone and we all had Florida. Most of our fates were sealed during the elite 8 when everyone’s final 4 teams except for Florida were knocked out.
As a result of that, there were 2 players left standing, with the bracket hinging on the Florida-UConn game. The way it played out JD (sorry, we will only use initials, but you know who you are) had Florida losing the title game and TJ had Florida winning it. Basically, if Florida won the National Championship, TJ would have claimed the CSE title, otherwise we had a tie (I hate total points as the tiebreaker; it is like using rock-paper-scissors or penalty kicks to break a tie). As you know, Florida was upset by UConn, leaving us with the kiss your sister moment of having to crown co-champions in the 2014 Bracket of Peril.
There was much rejoicing.
Congratulations to JD and TJ for surviving, ending the reign of Annie S., and we look forward to you defending your title in 2015 when we introduce even more peril.
Until then, enjoy the accolades that come with winning and this picture of a grail-shaped beacon since we can’t actually afford a real trophy.
2014 Bracket Of Peril Winners!
by A.J. Coltrane
For the first time ever (out of two events), the Bracket Of Peril has ended with Co-Champions! (Which sorta figures, given that none of us got any points in the Final Four or Championship game.)
The entries and jdomanic and email4tj will share a whole bunch of nothing!
Congratulations to our winners!
Beer of the Week: Reuben’s American Rye Grapefruit and Amarillo Randall
By Iron Chef Leftovers
I have mentioned it before in this space; grapefruit in beer is a dicey proposition. If you are too heavy handed, the beer tastes like grapefruit and nothing else. If you are too light handed, the beer just completely overwhelms any grapefruit character. Generally you will find the grapefruit infused in a pale or an IPA. Reuben’s decided to take a different approach and infuse their American Rye with grapefruit and Amarillo hops. Will it work? We shall see.
The beer pours hazy yellow in color with notes of sweet grapefruit and hints of rind and rye on the nose. The beer starts off with a distinctive grapefruit note with touches of sweetness from the malt before moving into light pine and grapefruit peel with a pleasant dry mouth feel and just a slight bit of tartness. The finish is a nice combination of rye and mildly tart grapefruit with just a hint of bitterness that lingers on the tongue. The grapefruit is there without being overpowering and balances nicely with the stronger flavors of the rye.
Reuben’s American Rye Grapefruit and Amarillo Randall squeezes in with 4 juicers out of 5.
‘Round The Table Pub
by A.J. Coltrane
The Bad News: Gary’s Games and Hobbies is no more. Gary finally decided to retire.
The Good news: Gary’s longtime store manager (Tim) has opened Round The Table Pub in Lynnwood, right on the border with Edmonds — It’s next to Edmonds Community College.
From their website:
‘Round the Table is all about bringing people together … ‘Round the Table.
Sure we serve beer, cider and other drinks. And yes, we sell games and puzzles. But what we’re really about is getting people away from their computers, sitting together around a table doing something: talking, playing, laughing, discussing, bonding … in other words, having fun.
Here’s the extensive beer list.
We stopped in one night and learned to play Amerigo. While we played we enjoyed a couple of beverages.
A bit about Amerigo — The theme is discovering/colonizing islands in South America during the era of sail. Well, here (boardgamegeek description):
In Amerigo, the players help Amerigo Vespucci on his journey to discover new land. The players explore the islands of South America, secure trading routes, and build settlements.
The actions available to players are determined through the use of a specialized cube tower, which has appeared in the Queen titles Im Zeichen des Kreuzes andWallenstein. At the start of the game, this tower is seeded with action cubes, which come in seven colors, with each color matching a particular type of action. During the game players will drop additional action cubes into the tower – but some of these cubes might get stuck in the floors of the tower while other cubes already in the tower are knocked free. Thus, players need to play both tactically – taking advantage of the actions currently available in the best way possible – and strategically – using their knowledge of which actions do what to play well over the course of the game.
The game board is composed of nine, twelve or sixteen tiles, depending on the number of players. Players sail their ships through the landscape created for this game, landing on islands to plan and build settlements, which then supply resources and allow the player to earn victory points. Players might want to invest in cannons to protect themselves from pirates roaming the waters or acquire progress tokens to gain special advantages.
The islands are actually colonized by fitting tetris style pieces into the randomly odd-shaped islands. We had a lot of fun with it. The “cube” tower is an interesting mechanic. Right after we sat down and ordered a beverage I made the faux pas of thinking that my sailing ship meeple was actually a horse or something — I placed it on the table upside down. Fortunately the crowd is not the judging type…
—
Back to ‘Round The Table Pub: It’s clean and well lit. There’s plenty of space to stretch out. There are around eight tables for gaming — you can either select a game from the wall or bring your own. Tonight they’re having a Euro game night *and* a Belgian beer tasting. Check the calendar, they run a lot of beer and/or game events.
Also: Tim’s a super nice guy.
Highly recommended place to spend an evening.
Beer of the Week: Smuttynose Old Brown Dog
By Iron Chef Leftovers
Way back in my college days, we were in the early years of the craft beer revolution. I was living in Boston and that generally meant that craft beer was either Sam Adams, Harpoon, Rogue or Red Hook, all beers that were generally from sizeable enough breweries they had at least regional distribution. I remember going into the package store in the mid ’90’s (what is a package store? That is for another post) and seeing a beer from some new brewery in New Hampshire (a whopping 40 miles from Boston) with a harbor seal as its logo. I remember looking in the case and seeing they had 2 beers – Shoals Pale Ale and Old Brown Dog. Since I was on a limited budget, I went with the 6 pack of Old Brown Dog (hey, what can I say, I am a sucker for a good dog picture), thus beginning my long love affair with the beers of Smuttynose Brewing. They have since expanded their brewery and are regionally distributing to most states east of the Mississippi (sadly, not out on the West Coast). When I was back in NJ over the winter, it afforded me an opportunity to pick up a 6 pack of this old friend and bring it back to Seattle with me.
From the Smuttynose website:
Old Brown Dog has been cited as a classic example of the “American Brown Ale” style of beer. Compared to a typical English Brown Ale, Old Brown Dog is fuller-bodied and more strongly hopped.
Old Brown Dog has been around for many years. It was first brewed in 1988 at the Northampton Brewery. In 1989 it won a silver medal in its category (American Brown Ale) at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver.
Color: deep reddish brown
Malt Bill
North American 2-Row, Munich 10L, C-120, ChocolateHops
Bittering: Cascade and Galena
Flavoring: WillametteStarting Extract 15° Plato
Terminal Extract 3.26° PlatoABV 6.7%
IBU 18
Recommended Food Pairings
Griiled meats, especially sausages, ribs and steakSilver Medal 1989 Great American Beer Festival
The beer pours medium amber in color with a cream colored head. It shows significant notes of grain and yeast with hints of toffee and caramel supporting. The beer starts out with a light sweetness coupled with hints of toffee followed by pleasant grain middle with just a hint of roast flavor and malt before finishing dry with an ever so slight pleasant bitterness that lingers happily in a semi-long finish. As the beer warms, the deeper roasted and toffee flavors become more prevalent, particularly on the finish where it lingers pleasantly with the light bitterness. Deep and complex, I had no idea this beer was as high on the alcohol content as it is, since it is well balanced without any hints of the alcohol. If you ever get a chance, give Smuttynose Old Brown Dog a shot.
Smuttynose Old Brown Dog comes in from the yard and gnaws on 3 bones out of 5.
On a side note, a few years back, Smuttynose did a one-off, imperial version of this beer called Older Brown Dog. I wanted to try it and I was able to find a single bottle of it on a trip back to Boston. I shipped it back to Seattle, but it, alas, did not survive the trip, and I never got a chance to try the beer.
GNOIF: Head West Young GNOIF! — The Recap
by A.J. Coltrane
GNOIF #12 Recap — Head West Young GNOIF! (Territorial/Expansion/Western Theme)
Games That Got Played: Bang!, Cards Against Humanity, Citadels, Star Fluxx, Forbidden Island, Gardens of Alhambra, Lost Cities, Small World, Ticket To Ride Europe.
Games That Didn’t Get Played: Black Rock City, Carcassonne, Settlers of Catan, Dominion, Fjords, Power Grid, the other Ticket to Rides.
Record attendance! It was a very full, and at times, very loud house. It’s a good thing that we weren’t playing golf or tennis or chess or something.
I’m guessing it was noisy at times due to the games that were played:
Loud games: Bang!, Cards Against Humanity, Star Fluxx
Medium volume games: Forbidden Island, Citadels
Relatively Quiet games: Gardens of Alhambra, Small World, Ticket to Ride Europe
Quiet Games: Lost Cities
So it was the loud games making it loud. And the Jello shots.
It’s really getting to the point now that people are able to get their games going without involvement from the hosts. That was the original intent, and it’s nice to see it happening. Also, more eyes on the rulebooks means that we’re gradually eliminating incorrect play.
Fun times! Expect a Recommended Games post on Small World soon.
FlatbreadGarden 