Author: AJ

Beer of the Week: Big Al’s Brewing Fresh Hop Harvest Ale

By Iron Chef Leftovers

When it comes to fresh hop beers, most of the local Washington breweries tend to go with an IPA or a Pale Ale style to showcase the hops. On occasion, you get a brewery that tries to do something different. Seattle based Big Al’s Brewing did that with the release of their Fresh Hopped Harvest Ale. I couldn’t find a description of the beer online so all I can tell you is that I had it in a 22 oz. bottle which was purchased at a local bottle shop for about $5.

The beer is a reddish-amber color. The nose is dominated by lots of malt and grain, with hints of citrus and hops in the background. The initial taste brings roasted malt on the front of the palate, so roasted that it is almost chocolate like, followed by a slightly grassy hop flavor. As the beer warms, it becomes slightly more bitter, the malt becomes more restrained, and the green hops become more citrus like, but are still a secondary player to the malt in this beer.

Personally I felt like this beer lacked balance between the malt and hops. The hops flavor, which is what I am really looking for in a fresh hop beer, seemed to be lost at times and just overpowered with what is a really malty beer. I appreciated the effort that Big Al’s put into this beer to make something different, but I think it needs some additional work. I would probably buy this beer again next year to see if it has gotten any better, but I don’t think I would run out and buy more than one either.

A disappointed Big Al’s reaps 2 combines out of 5 for their Harvest Ale.

What Does That Mean, Really?

by A.J. Coltrane

From left to right:  Team Name, Kenpom Rank (minimum, top 50), 3-point percentage and rank, free throw percentage and rank, 3-point attempted quantity and rank. The ranks are relative to all 347 Division I teams.

Then it’s me screwing around with numbers. The “Vol” is the Volatility of the team. It’s 3P% x 3PA%. These are the teams that rely upon 3-pointers for a lot of their offense. If they get hot they can beat anybody, and if they get cold they could lose to anybody. Conversely, a team with a low “Vol” doesn’t take many 3’s and isn’t good at shooting them. A team with a low “Vol” isn’t likely to shoot itself out of, or back into, a game.

The “VR” is that team’s “Vol” rank among the top 150 teams according to Kenpom. (I didn’t care about the Weak Sisters Of The Poor.) “Vol” wound up ranging from 1658 to something like 800. The lowest team on the “top 50 Kenpom list” is NC State at 920. I think it’s telling that the top 50 teams can all shoot at least a little, and with some volume.

The teams are sorted by Q-E, explained below.

Team Rank 3P% FT% 3PA% Vol VR Q-E
Cincinnati  37 31.8 266 64.6 305 36.7 75 1167.1 75 -191
Illinois  36 32.8 211 71 116 40.9 28 1341.5 37 -183
Wisconsin  5 34.7 121 62.4 328 39.3 44 1363.7 30 -77
Iowa  34 30.4 304 72.1 77 31 230 942.4 122 -74
Akron  46 34.5 134 66 268 37.3 65 1286.9 45 -69
Wichita St.  35 34 164 68.6 197 35.8 101 1217.2 59 -63
Virginia Commonwealth  22 34.5 129 68.6 199 37.1 69 1280.0 48 -60
Nevada Las Vegas  30 32.7 214 70.4 137 33.8 156 1105.3 89 -58
Denver  42 36.7 53 74.2 34 45.2 3 1658.8 1 -50
Baylor  49 33.8 173 68.5 203 34.6 134 1169.5 73 -39
Iowa St.  38 37.3 42 72.9 61 43 12 1603.9 5 -30
Marquette  24 29.7 317 73.8 41 27.2 298 807.8 140 -19
Arizona  19 36 73 74.1 35 37.7 59 1357.2 33 -14
Oklahoma St.  15 32.4 229 74 38 31.3 219 1014.1 106 -10
Syracuse  9 32.2 240 68.4 205 30.9 235 995.0 110 -5
Mississippi  41 34 163 69.4 168 33.5 161 1139.0 83 -2
Florida  1 38.4 22 68 217 41.4 25 1589.8 6 3
San Diego St.  26 33.5 183 68 218 32.5 190 1088.8 91 7
Louisville  3 32 251 71.1 114 29.9 259 956.8 116 8
Oregon  39 31.3 283 71.8 91 27.8 292 870.1 138 9
New Mexico  28 34.7 120 72.7 66 34.5 136 1197.2 66 16
Belmont  32 38.6 15 72.7 65 40.2 32 1551.7 8 17
Missouri  27 33.5 185 75 23 31.8 205 1065.3 98 20
St. Mary’s  18 38.6 15 72.9 59 38.4 51 1482.2 16 36
Creighton  20 41.8 2 74.8 25 39.4 41 1646.9 3 39
Miami FL  13 35.5 90 65.9 270 34.1 147 1210.6 63 57
Minnesota  17 32.6 219 68.9 186 29 278 945.4 121 59
St. Louis  25 35.7 81 70.1 145 34 150 1213.8 61 69
Connecticut  47 35.9 77 75.1 21 34.2 146 1227.8 56 69
Michigan  10 38.5 20 70.8 122 35.3 106 1359.1 32 86
Georgetown  14 35.7 83 68.1 215 31.8 204 1135.3 84 121
Kansas St.  33 35.8 80 69.2 176 31.9 201 1142.0 81 121
Colorado St.  23 34.1 158 71.7 94 27.8 293 948.0 120 135
Colorado  43 34.5 136 67.3 240 28.4 286 979.8 113 150
Ohio St.  11 36.1 71 70.1 150 30.7 242 1108.3 88 171
Indiana  2 42.6 1 74.8 27 32.9 173 1401.5 25 172
Notre Dame  45 37.4 40 70.1 149 31.2 223 1166.9 76 183
Michigan St.  12 35 110 70.3 139 27.1 300 948.5 119 190
Kansas  8 35.9 75 72.4 68 29.4 271 1055.5 101 196
Duke  6 41.6 3 72.2 76 32 200 1331.2 39 197
North Carolina  31 36.3 66 65.8 276 29.5 269 1070.9 95 203
UCLA  48 34.5 130 71.6 97 23.3 335 803.9 141 205
Pittsburgh  7 35 108 66.3 260 25.6 317 896.0 131 209
Gonzaga  4 37.9 33 71.9 87 30.5 246 1156.0 77 213
Virginia  16 40.4 6 71.5 100 31.1 227 1256.4 53 221
Kentucky  29 36.6 58 64.8 301 28.9 282 1057.7 99 224
Memphis  40 36.5 59 67.7 230 27.6 296 1007.4 109 237
Middle Tennessee  21 38.5 19 69.1 181 26.8 303 1031.8 102 284
North Carolina St.  44 40.2 7 68.2 210 22.9 339 920.6 126 332

Q-E is pretty self-explanatory:  It’s 3PA% rank minus 3P% rank. (The Excel columns were “Q” and “E”. Yeah, I’m a big thinker.) As an example, Cincinnati is the first team listed with a -191. They’re 75th in 3-pointers attempted, and 266th in accuracy. 75 – 266 = -191. My suspicion is that the teams with large negative numbers are going to shoot themselves out of the tournament at some point. Offhand, I’d also guess that those teams lack a guy who can create his own shot, or slash and kick, leading to some desperation heaves late in the shot clock. I’ve seen Cincinnati. It doesn’t feel like an unrealistic set of assumptions. Watching them the other night I kept saying “They look really disjointed…”

On the other hand, the strongly positive teams may benefit from shooting more 3’s. That might bode well if they happen to fall behind and are forced to try to catch up quickly.

It’s interesting to me that there are only two “top-50” teams at worse than -100 “Vol”, but twenty-two teams at better than +100. A large percentage of the top teams are relatively judicious with their 3-point attempts. My guess is that the unwashed masses are shooting a lot of 3’s that they shouldn’t be, but they’ve got to create offense somehow, so that’s how it goes.

If I was smarter I’d be able to do a regression of 3P% vs FT%, I’d expect that there’s some positive correlation to it. At the very least, it illustrates that Cincinnati can’t shoot free throws, either. Poor free throw shooting may do them in, too.

Final note. I like Florida, but their 6th-ranked “Vol” score kinda gives me the heebies.

Burn After Reading mini-spoiler below.

What Year Is It?

By Blaidd Drwg

You have probably already seen this State Farm commercial featuring Kerry Wood and Andre Dawson…

But have you seen the blooper reel?

I guess it proves you should never work with baseball players or insurance agents when shooting commercials.

The New NBA CBA

by A.J. Coltrane

Zack Lowe of Grantland/ESPN on the impact on the trade deadline of the new NBA Collective Bargaining Agreement.

I don’t think he has a high opinion of Dwight Howard:

People seem to forget this, but we also had three massive deals between August and late January, two of which — for Rudy Gay and James Harden, respectively — were motivated at least in part by the new CBA. (The third was the Dwight Howard deal, motivated by candy and whatever else motivates Howard’s “camp.”)

Dessert Island Cookbooks

By Iron Chef Lefotvers

I recently saw a list of the top 10 selling cookbooks for 2012 and it is a rather disappointing list, led by the Barefoot Contessa’s new tome. It got me thinking, if I were stranded on a dessert island (no that is not a typo, I really would love to be stranded on a dessert island; a desert island just doesn’t seem like it would be all that much fun) and could only have 10 cookbooks/food related books with me, what would they be? Let’s just assume that I, for some reason, have a fully stocked kitchen and pantry (just don’t ask me how).

Here is my list, in reverse order:

If you were to own just one book on cooking, this should be it.
If you were to own just one book on cooking, this should be it.

10 – Silver Spoon – it is generally considered to be the most complete Italian cookbook ever created and didn’t exist in an English translation until about 10 years ago. If you are serious about Italian cooking, you should own this monster.

9 – Charcuterie by Michael Ruhlman. If you watch No Reservations, you know who Ruhlman is. This is a survival guide to curing meats which would come in handy in a stranded situation. It is also an in depth read about the how and why of charcuterie.

8 & 7 – I’m Just Here for the Food / I’m Just Here for More Food by Alton Brown. More useful for why and how things work with cooking than for recipes, I can pretty much assure you that if you ever had a recipe fail, you can find out exactly why here. Be careful, these books are a gateway drug into the world of molecular gastronomy.

6 – On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee. The book is incredibly long (800+ pages), very technical in parts and is not a quick read (it took me over a year to read it cover to cover), but it is probably the single most important book on food ever written. It covers pretty much every aspect of food and food science and you should have it on your bookshelf as reference even if you never read it cover to cover. I doubt there has been a food book written in the last 20 years that has not cited this one as a reference in its bibliography.

5 – Modernist Cuisine at Home. Another book that is more science than recipes, it is another one that you should own, even if you aren’t into the molecular gastronomy thing. Reading this book will make you a better cook even if you never try anything from the book.

However, if you were to own just two books on food, this should be the other one.
However, if you were to own just two books on food, this should be the other one.

4 & 3 & 2 – Bones / Fat / Odd Bits – by Jennifer McLagan. These books are really essential for understanding and cooking the rest of the animal and should really be looked at as 3 parts of a single book; the ultimate in utility – you realize after reading them, everything is useable. They really fill in the gap for all of the stuff that most other cook books don’t address. It doesn’t hurt the descriptions are well written and the anecdotes are funny.

1 – Joy of Cooking – there should be a law that every home cook should have this book on their shelves since it pretty much has a recipe for everything in it. It has been updated about 14 times over its 75+ years in existence, but have some fun and get an edition that is printed before the 1960’s just to see how cooking has changed.

Beer of the Week: Elysian Brewing Split Shot Espresso Milk Stout

By Iron Chef Leftovers

Living in Seattle, which does have a slight (and justified) reputation for being an over-caffinated city, you would expect that you would see more coffee based beers, but you don’t. For the 2012 Seattle Beer Week, Elysian Brewing was selected to come up with the beer for the event and they produced Split Shot Stout – marrying the city’s love of coffee with its love of beer. I generally will try anything new that Elysian puts out and I really think that their dark beers tend to be their best work. I have tried Split Shot both on tap and in 22 oz. bottles, and the review is for the bottle release. The beer runs around $6 at your local bottle shop (although it is often on sale at mega marts with a better beer selection).

From the Elysian Press Release on the beer:

In Seattle, beer and coffee grew up together. They’re like siblings, jealously balancing the day between go-go and go-slow, dividing the hip and tattoo’d into brewers and roasters, barkeeps and baristas. Split Shot Coffee Milk Stout combines the talents of Elysian Brewing and Lighthouse Roasters, and commemorates not only Seattle Beer Week as its official beer for 2012, but the fact that it took a lot of talk and lot of Lighthouse coffee to get Elysian off the ground back in 1996. Split Shot has a radically complicated malt bill, with C-15 and C-45 dextrine malts, Franco-Belges kiln coffee malt, Black, Roasted and Chocolate malts and flaked oats. It’s bittered with Magnum and slightly sweetened with milk sugar. OG 16 (1.065); alcohol 7.25% by volume., Split Shot is the official beer for 2012 Seattle Beer Week. Available in select Seattle area restaurants, bars and stores, on draft and in 22-oz. bottles.

Split Shot pours with a tan head and a pitch black body. There is absolutely no question what this beer is from the smell – coffee and lots of roasted malt dominate and that is from a foot away from the beer. Up close, this beer smells like a coffee shop roasting its beans – heavy espresso with hints of smoke and grains, taking me back to my bachelor days when I lived near Lighthouse coffee and would smell them roasting beans in the afternoon. The beer has a creamy mouth feel, like taking a sip of espresso with a good crema. Lingering coffee dominates the palate, with a slight bitterness and just a hint of malt and milk sweetness on the back end – this beer could easily be confused for an iced espresso. The coffee is strong but not completely overpowering, but I would still not recommend this beer unless you really liked coffee. As the beer warms, the coffee becomes more restrained and notes of chocolate, sugar, barley and grain start to appear. I would recommend serving this beer between 40 and 45 degrees if you like slightly bitter coffee and 45 to 50 degrees if you want to taste the full range of flavors that this beer has to offer.

If you like coffee and beer, get your over-caffeinated self to a bottle shop and pick this one up, you won’t regret it.

Elysian Split Shot Stout shakes itself down to the local coffee shop with a delicious 4 grande, non-fat mocha with whips out of 5.

A Different Take on Hall of Fame Voting

By Blaidd Drwg

To become eligible to vote in the annual Baseball Hall of Fame election, you need to be a member of the Baseball Writers Association. To become a member of the BBWAA, you need to cover baseball and be voted in by a committee (which is why some of the more brilliant baseball writers out there, like Rob Neyer, are not part of the BBWAA). Once you are a member of the BBWAA, you are a member for life, even if you stop covering baseball.

This causes a ton of issues during the Hall of Fame election process since there are a large number of the 575 ballots that are in the hands of “writers” who either no longer cover baseball or no longer follow baseball. Most of the articles that you will read about the Hall of Fame voting process are about why someone is or is not voting for a particular player. Espn.com recently posted an article by T.J. Quinn about the election process. This one was slightly different – Quinn is no longer turning in his ballot for what I think is a very good reason. It is a bit of a long read, but I recommend it.

Quinn questions whether he is qualified to vote, and it isn’t just about steroids:

Even before the issue of performance-enhancing drugs overwhelmed the annual conversation, I questioned my capacity to evaluate a player’s fitness for immortality. My only qualification, like all voters, was 10 years’ service as a BBWAA member. But nothing in my years as a beat writer covering the Chicago White Sox and New York Mets, and nothing in my years covering doping as an investigative reporter since has prepared me to evaluate the effect PED use should have on a player’s legacy.

He also makes a point that I think few who argue that the steroid players should not be in the hall consider:

The argument hits a serious roadblock, however, when it is applied retroactively. Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron and countless others have admitted they used amphetamines during their careers. If they used today and were caught, they would be suspended under baseball’s rules. I don’t know anyone who wants to think about pulling those beloved players out of the Hall, even though one of the few studies ever done on PED use showed that amphetamines clearly enhance athletic performance.

I have asked this question before, where do you draw the line? Do you take out the guys who admitted to cheating if you make the argument that you won’t vote for Barry Bonds because he cheated? Can you prove that Cal Ripken never took anything, despite him claiming he did?

Quinn also sums this up nicely:

I’ve heard other writers say they couldn’t wait for certain players to make the ballot so they could leave their names unchecked. Eddie Murray’s name came up that way more than once. I voted for Albert Belle because I thought he was one of the most dominant players of his era. He didn’t get enough votes to stay on the ballot, in large part because of the way he treated reporters. He cursed me out a handful of times, but he also asked me how my grandmother was years after she had a stroke. I tried hard not to let either element influence the way I evaluated his career; and to me, he belonged. Robin Ventura might have been my favorite player to cover, both with the White Sox and the Mets, but that wasn’t reason enough to vote for him.

But at the end of the day, the game, the Hall and journalism would be better served if voting was limited to a select group of veterans, historians and even journalists — if they’re the right journalists. Columnists and national writers who have devoted their careers to the game, not dabblers. That wouldn’t solve the problem of how to evaluate players in the age of modern chemistry, but at least the right group would be making the call.

I have to agree with him. The process has too much bias in it, which has led to a good number of substandard guys getting elected to the Hall because of poor evaluation of their careers and they were “liked” by the media.

I don’t know if there is a better system, but the one we have isn’t very good. Heck, I would be happy if the BBWAA changed its procedures so that if you have not been covering the game for 5 years, you don’t get to vote for the Hall of Fame. I will be honest, that is about as likely to happen as pigs flying.