I think the best value is Matt Ryan. Atlanta has two outstanding wide receivers and they’re going to have to throw to win. It’s an interesting look at who’s considered “hot” right now.
A very productive week. I’d have to guess at least 15 pounds of stuff. The cucumbers, tomatoes, and basil are all in full swing. The midweek “harvest”:
The lemon cucumbers are going nuts. In a related note, the leaves are starting to look funky. My suspicion is that all of the plants are using their energy to produce fruit and they’re letting their leaves go south. I’m also going to guess that the leaves are going to look awful by the time the first frost rolls around. Here’s the “harvest” from Saturday — four days later. ((L-R) Lemon cucumber, bunch onion, Glacier, Sun Gold, Stupice):
I love stouts, especially when the weather is cold. To me, they are the beer equivalent of hot chocolate – hearty and flavorful, warming the belly and feeding the soul. Needless to say, I was excited when NW Peaks released 2 stouts as part of their mountain beer collection, Sloan and Stuart. It was a fun experience drinking them side by side to compare them (Stuart was previously reviewed here).
From the NW Peaks Website:
The mountain. Sloan Peak is a prominent-looking mountain situated all by itself just off the mountain loop “highway”. It’s a great, distinctive mountain that appears to be falling over, depending on your vantage… The Beer. We used the same yeast used to make Guinness and tried to mimic the water profile of Dublin, Ireland to create our own interpretation of a dry stout, a style that Guinness has made ever so popular…
The beer pours predictably dark. Notes of coffee, toffee and chocolate permeate the nose with the coffee leading the assault. The beer starts off on your palate pretty light, giving way to a pleasantly mild astringency (think black coffee) before hitting you with a tidal wave of flavor. Coffee and chocolate dominate before leading into a long, sweet and slightly smoky finish. Sloan was much more robust than I was expecting and it becomes more so as it warms. It was like drinking a Guinness on steroids.
I case you are wondering, here is what I am referring to in the rating.
Sloan Stout was a wonderful interpretation of a dry stout and best of all, is still available in growler according to the NW Peaks website (you may want to call ahead and confirm). If it is, treat yourself to one of the better stouts available in the Northwest.
NW Peaks Sloan Stout stumbles into the brewery with an ethereal 4 St. James’s Gates out of 5.
It occurred to me as I was sitting at Reuben’s the other day drinking a Cream Ale, that I have a horrible backlog of beer reviews. It is so bad that I realize by the time I get around to posting my Cream Ale review, the beer is going to be long gone. It an attempt to post some more seasonally appropriate reviews, I decided that there are going to be 3 “Beer of the Week” posts instead of the normal 2, just until I can catch up on my backlog. You will still get the same witty banter about sports, games and food from our award winning writers Blaidd Drwg and AJ Coltrane, but with more Iron Chef Leftovers thrown into the mix. So, sit back, relax and enjoy the show, just with more beer. In the immortal words of Monty Python:
From the LA – CIN game on July 25th. This play almost never works, but it worked well enough to fool Shin Shoo Coo. Added bonus: you get to hear it called by the great Vin Scully.
I do like Raul Ibanez, he has had a decent career and seems like a genuinely nice guy. He is, however, a horrible fielder. Teams have been taking extra bases on him all season because of his terrible arm and he really should be playing DH at this point. The August 6th game against the Blue Jays may have been a new low for his defense. In case you have not seen it, this is just embarrassing:
I saw this in the transactions on espn.com this morning:
Twins: Placed 1B Justin Morneau on revocable waivers.
Generally, once you get past the trading deadline, teams do not announce when they have put a player on revocable waivers (and will usually put their entire team on waivers just to see who gets claimed). Basically, the way it works is that you put a player on revocable waivers for 48 hours. If anyone claims him, you have 3 options:
1) Work out a trade with that team
2) Let him go to that team for nothing in return. (The other team assumes the entire remaining contract for that player)
3) Pull him back off waivers. (You then can’t trade him until the season is over)
If there is more than one team that makes a claim, the only team you get to negotiate with is the one with the worst record at the time of the claim. If no one claims the player during the waiver period, you can then trade him to any team you would like, just like you could before the trade deadline.
Seeing this makes me think there is a deal in place for Morneau and he might be on the move. We shall see.
It is the Northwest, so it is almost suicide for a brewery to not have an IPA on their tap list. The list at Populuxe, the Ballard nano-brewery, is no different. At any given point, you will find some combination of their IPA, Double IPA or CDA on tap. Since I have already reviewed the CDA (here) and the Double IPA (here), I should complete the trifecta and finally write my review of the Populuxe IPA.
The beer is orange in color with a white head. There is lots of citrus on the nose with some grain and green hop notes. When you first take a sip, you first notice the grain, which a bit of a surprise since most northwest IPA’s tend to be very hop forward., before getting to the major burst of hoppy citrus and then finally settling into a slightly sweet, slightly bitter finale. The beer is hoppy enough to keep a hop-head like me happy if I am looking for an IPA, but not so hoppy as it is a one and done hop monster that will blow out your palate for the rest of the evening and kill your ability to taste anything. The beer is really pleasant to drink and goes down easily – a smooth and consistent brew with lots of distinct character and no alcohol burn, and could easily make for a 2-3 beer night. The beer is 6.4% abv.
On a side note – Populuxe recently released a cask version of the IPA, dry hopped with Crystal and Sterling. I didn’t take notes, but it was a something that I would have had no problem spending all day drinking. They are doing a cask on most Thursdays, so check out their Facebook Page for details.
The Populuxe IPA pays off on the trifecta with a strong 3 betting slips out of 5.
FlatbreadGarden 