Isn’t It Ironic?

By Blaidd Drwg

February 7^th was Babe Ruth’s birthday and on that date Dave Schoenfield posted a quick hit about it. He included this wonderfully ironic bit in the piece:

This is also the 100th anniversary of the start of his career. Ruth made his debut with the Red Sox on July 11, starting against the Indians. He allowed eight hits in seven innings and — get this — was removed for a pinch hitter in the bottom of the inning, picking up the win when the Red Sox scored to take the lead.

I just love the irony of that.

Beer of the Week: Populuxe Cask Citra Pale Ale

By Iron Chef Leftovers

One of the best things about Thursday nights is cask night at Populuxe Brewing. They have had a nice variety of cask options from the strange (Smoked tea bitter) to the nice and approachable (Pale Ales and IPA). Pale ales make for really fun casks – they allow you to really give a base for what individual hop varieties taste like and you get a real appreciation for what it is about certain hop varieties that you might like. A recent cask of the Populuxe Pale with Citra really illustrated what I like about citra hops. This beer clocked in at just 4.8% ABV.

The beer pours hazy yellow-orange in color with light notes of citrus and grain on the nose with very mild notes of sugar. The beer starts off slowly with a nice grain beginning accompanied by a mild sweetness, followed by a touch of very pleasant bitterness before moving to a slightly dry finish that smacks you with a burst of citrus. Very easy drinking and well balanced – there are no dominant flavors but the beer is layered and distinct and you can really appreciate the subtle flavors of both the beer and the hops. With well integrated flavors and low alcohol, this is easily a 3-4 pint beer and a good beer to introduce someone to the wonderful experience that is craft beer.

Populuxe Cask Citra Pale Ale rolls out 4 barrels out of 5.

Beer of the Week: Heavy Seas The Great’er Pumpkin

By Iron Chef Leftovers

My love of pumpkin beers is unabashed and I have a particular soft spot for ones that are of a darker style. I feel that pumpkin marries well with the roasted notes in dark beers and there is less of a need to overly spice the beer, so you get more pumpkin flavor out of them. I also like imperial pumpkin beers since they tend to fall into the same category and you can really appreciate the subtleties of flavor in the beer. During a recent bottle swap, a bottle of the Heavy Seas The Great’er Pumpkin was thrown in because my trading partner knew of my love of pumpkin beers. I thought this was a nice gesture (and has since been reciprocated with a couple of stellar IPA’s back to him) so I was excited to try this beer in an impromptu beer tasting with the rest of the CSE gang (i.e. Blaidd Drwg, Coltrane, Annie S. and Seattle Author). The beer came in 22oz. bottles and runs about $10, but alas, is not available in Seattle, but is available from plenty of places on the East Coast that will ship.

From the Heavy Seas website:

In the most worthy of pumpkin patches and during the silence of the midnight hour, the Greater Pumpkin raises up and pours a rich deep and burnished orange color. Heady aromas of bourbon, cinnamon, ginger, allspice and clove linger seductively over the thick white head of this tremendous brew. Its love at first sip as the full malt body, dominated by British crystal malt, brown sugar and pumpkin, slowly washes over your tongue. Bourbon barrel aging rounds out the flavors with notes of oak, vanilla, and bourbon. Pairs well with crisp autumn weather, crunchy fallen leaves, and the knowledge that your kids will be asleep soon so you can raid their Halloween candy bags.

The beer pours deep orange in color with a creamy head and shows strong notes of bourbon with backing notes of roasted pumpkin and spice – it smells like a pumpkin pie with bourbon added. The beer starts out on the palate with strong notes of roasted pumpkin with mild backing notes of pumpkin pie spices and roasted pumpkin seeds. These flavors linger and are joined at the end by a slightly sweet caramel note and a touch of vanilla from the bourbon barrel without imparting any really heavy bourbon notes. The finish is extremely long and pleasant, making you want to take your time and savor between sips, but without any really harsh notes from the barrel or alcohol, making this a smooth, balanced and easy to drink beverage for such a high alcohol beer, with incredible depth of pumpkin and just a pleasant backing note of spice.

I may have found my new favorite pumpkin beer; I will definitely be shipping some to Seattle in the fall.

Heavy Seas The Great’er Pumpkin raises a massive 5 storm warnings out of 5.

Taking a Chance on Wild Game

By Iron Chef Leftovers

I have to give some props to the Quebecois government. The French speaking part of Canada has the right mindset when it comes to food – they allow the production of unpasteurized milk cheese and allow the import of it (making it the only place that I know that you can legally get it in North America, although you still can’t transport it back across the border), it is about the only place in North America where you can find horse and seal on the menu and now they are allowing a trial period to let chefs serve wild game (critters actually hunted in the forest, not their farm raised cousins) in their restaurants.

From the Montreal Gazette:

…the plan will evolve gradually and under strict supervision by the wildlife and agriculture departments to ensure that no animal species is endangered and that food safety is assured. For now, only white-tailed deer from Anticosti Island in the Gulf of the St. Lawrence, home to more than 160,000 of the animals, will be allowed for sale. The squirrel, hare, muskrat and beaver, will come from all over the province, but will be available only for a short period during the fall hunting season. Blanchet said only species whose numbers were not endangered and which are known to be free of bacteria or illnesses harmful to humans were chosen for the pilot project.

There are a small number of restaurants that are participating in the trial period, most notably Toque, Au Pied de Cochon and Joe Beef. For those of you who are not familiar with the Montreal restaurant scene, those are arguably the 3 best restaurants in the city and the chef/owners of all 3 of those places are avid hunters/raging alcoholics/complete nut jobs. They have also long been on the leading edge of localvorism, nose to tail eating and sustainable food raising practices, so why not be on the bleeding edge when it comes to wild game?

You want a good reason for this:

Laprise (ed. Note: chef/owner of Toque) said allowing restaurants, and eventually specialty grocers and butchers, to sell wild game will also reduce waste. He cited figures indicating that only as little as 40 per cent of all meat from the 26,000 to 28,000 wild deer killed during the annual hunt is butchered and cooked. The rest is left in the woods or by the roadside and goes to waste.

Of course, Martin Picard of the absolutely amazing Au Pied de Cochon and head psychopath of the Montreal food scene was already ahead of the game game when he published a recipe for squirrel sushi in his Sugar Shack cookbook:

The sushi dish, he wrote in the introduction to the squirrel recipe, was his way of getting even with the little rodents for all the damage they inflicted at his sugar shack.

It looks something like this:

Beer of the Week: Reuben’s Brews Blimey That’s Bitter

By Iron Chef Leftovers

A bunch of Seattle breweries got together this winter and decided to go one the road with something they are calling the Hop Mob Road Show (coming to Naked City on March 13^th). Each brewery decided to produce a Triple or Imperial IPA. What makes it a Triple you might ask? Well, basically it is a high alcohol (9.5% +), highly hopped IPA, probably made most famous by Pliny the Younger. If I remember correctly (I really need to write these things down), the beer was dry hopped 4 times during the process of making it and clocks in at 10.5% ABV and 80+ IBU. The beer was available (very limited) in 22 oz. bottles, on tap and on cask. This review is for the tap version.

Now that I think about it, I wonder if the name Blimey That’s Bitter might be a play on the name of that Russian River beer…

The beer pours golden orange in color with significant citrus and hop resin on the nose combined with slightly floral hints and subtle grain. A hop monster on the palate, the beer quickly shows tons of citrus and citrus peel up front with just a touch of sweetness before the bitterness sets in. There are big bitter notes, but in a balanced, not palate blowing way, with touches of resin. The beer finishes incredibly long with juicy citrus and major citrus peel with a lingering bitterness and an ever so slight alcohol burn at the very end, not surprising for a beer this big – it is there but barely noticeable and not unpleasant and brings just a touch of heat to the party, cutting the tremendous hop character of this beer. This beer was amazing, making me joke that maybe this should be renamed “Blimey, That’s Fantastic.”

Hopefully you will still have a chance to try Blimey before it goes away until next year.

Reuben’s Blimey That’s Bitter drives on the wrong side of the street and picks you up with 5 black cabs out of 5.

Mee First Wine Revue

Bye Larry LeCroc

Me has touble weeth wine bottel.

From Pearls Before Swine on 2/7/14.

I Saw It In The Window And I Couldn’t Resist It

by A.J. Coltrane

From ESPN:

Seattle Seahawks jerseys with “FAN” on the name plate and the No. 12 are now the 10th best-selling jersey this season, according to sales on NFLShop.com from April 1, 2013, through Feb. 28, 2014.

Thanks in part to a Super Bowl victory, only two jerseys sold better in February on the league’s official online store than the 12th Fan jerseys — those of Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson and Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning. The strong month of sales brought the No. 12 jersey into the No. 10 spot…

(The 3:32 mark for those in a hurry.)

Beer of the Week: Laughing Dog De Achtste Hond

By Iron Chef Leftovers

It is easy to be an underrated brewery in the Northwest, since there are just so many great breweries. It is even easier to fly under the radar when you are located outside of the Seattle/Portland corridor, since that is where most of the beer drinkers tend to reside. Laughing Dog falls into the underrated category being located way out in Ponderay, Idaho. Fortunately for us, they do bottle and are readily available. I follow them on FB and I was bummed when they announced they were brewing a special sour beer for their 8^th anniversary, which was only going to be in kegs. Unfortunately for us, kegs from Laughing Dog generally means we don’t get the beer in Seattle. Fortunately, Chuck’s Hop Shop came to the rescue and managed to get their hands on De Achtste Hond – the 8^th dog.

From the Laughing Dog Website:

…our anniversary beer De Achtste Hond” ( the eighth Dog) Belgian Sour Ale

Our first ever sour ale 7.2% abv aged for 1 month in new oak Crisp and Dry with a tartness to it.

The beer pours very orange in color with light floral notes and hints of citrus with just a hint of funk and Belgian yeast. The beer starts off more tangy than sour, almost like a tangerine chard candy, with just a hint of funkiness before moving into dry, crisp apples and just a note of sweetness and Belgian character. The finish is long and clean, mild tart sour flavors linger forever with hints of citrus, banana and apple. Very well balanced and sour enough to remind you that this is definitely a sour beer, but not so sour that it will make your lips pucker. Definitely not one to try if you don’t enjoy sour beers, but if you do, you might find yourself going back for a second without feeling like you won’t be able to drink it.

Laughing Dog De Achtste Hond grabs its leash and goes out for 5 long walks out of 5.

The Least Exciting Play in Football

By Blaidd Drwg

The extra point try is probably the most useless scoring play in professional football. Heck, as a stat, it ranks up there with the save in baseball as the least useful measure of a player’s ability. Kickers have gotten so good at it that there were exactly 5 misses in 1267 attempts last year (seriously, those are the numbers). That translates into a 99.61% success rate. Nobody watches the PAT thinking, “I think we are gonna block this one.” Heck, most teams don’t even put in an effort to block it, which is why you have a whopping 5 unsuccessful attempts last season. How much better have kickers gotten on the PAT? In 1993, the success rate was 96.8%. In 1983 it was 95.2%. In 1973, it was 96.8%. In 1963, it was 95%. You get the idea. It has never exactly been a tough kick, but at least historically there was about a 5% chance of missing it; not so much anymore.

The NFL is toying with the idea of changing how the PAT works. The latest proposal is to move the attempt from the 2 yard line back to the 25, which would make it essentially a 42-43 yard FG attempt. I looked at the success rate for FGs over 40 yards last season and that was only about 83%, so moving the kick back 20 yards will make a difference and probably make the play more exciting.

Kickers however, aren’t so convinced. From espn.com:

Adam Vinatieri: “I don’t understand the logic: Will it make the game safer for people by moving the extra point back to a 43-yarder?” Vinatieri said. “If anything, players are going to rush harder because they’re thinking, ‘That far of a field goal-type try, we have to go after blocking it more.’

Justin Tucker: “People are trying to phase kickers out of the game. That’s as blunt as I can be about it,”

Jay Feely: “You don’t penalize a baseball closer for being great, you celebrate that,” Feely, 37, told USA Today. “You should do the same thing with kickers. If you’re going to change the extra point rule, I’d rather see you change it and still have it as part of the game than eliminate it.”

I don’t see this as tying to phase kickers out of the game, it is more like the NBA changing the 3 point line and lane rules. I personally would love to see them just eliminate the PAT kick and only allow a conversion try if a team wants to go for 2. It would probably chop several minutes off the unbearably long snooze fest that I most NFL games. It might make me more likely to pay a bit more attention to the game if they weren’t mostly just guys standing around doing nothing for long stretches between plays.

The Lighting Rig

by A.J. Coltrane

Approximate dimensions are 26″ long by 22″ high:

The photo was taken with the window closed and the lights off — otherwise it would have been a big glare of light. The frame is probably a little taller than it needs to be, but that’s a simple fix if desired. The red power switches on the sides are easy to access, and the clamps make it super painless to slide the lamps up and down independently.

It’s two of this clamp lamp, which were ~$12 each at Home Depot.

and

A 1/2 pack of a 4 bulb “daylight” (5k) package. The four-pack was about $9.

So maybe $30 in total. Looking around the internet at T5 packages, there seemed to be a lot of “proprietary bulbs” and “cheap construction”, such as this. Most were in the $50+ range.

Anyhow, I’m pretty happy with it. The price was right, and it’s very well built. Gratuitous boy cat pic/closeup of the lighting rig: