Beer of the Week: Populuxe Bitter with Goldings Cask

By Iron Chef Leftovers

I do have a love for cask beer, and, while I have a soft spot in my heart for the ‘hoppy’ casks like IPA, CDA and Pale, I do really love the more traditional casks of Mild and Bitters. I was excited then when a few weeks ago, Populuxe went very traditionally British with their cask and rolled out a Bitter with Goldings hops. I am a big fan of the Bitter and with its sub 5% ABV, it is a great beer if you are planning on bellying up to the bar for a long evening.

The beer pours hazy orange in color with hints of grain and lemon on the nose. The beer starts out with a nice light grain component with hints of caramel on the palate before moving into light lemon with hints of mild malt sweetness. The beer finishes pleasantly with just a hint of bitterness and light tannins, coupled with notes of toffee and just a touch of chocolate. The finish is surprisingly long for a cask and the beer is complex without being too deep and drinks easily and goes down smoothly. If you want a nice change of pace from the big hoppy stuff you normally find in the Northwest, this is the beer you want to be drinking.

Populuxe Bitter with Goldings brings you all the way back to the station with 5 double deckers out of 5.

Beer of the Week: Silver City Whoop Pass Double IPA

By Iron Chef Leftovers

It has been interesting to see what I have been drinking and it seems to come in runs. Lately it has been IPA’s. Silver City out on the Kitsap Peninsula has produced some great beers over the years and have really cemented themselves as one of the better breweries in Washington, including a strong reputation among IPA’s. Fortunately for us, they bottle and are pretty readily available so I can enjoy their beers almost any time. Whoop Pass, their Double IPA, is one of my favorites, available in 22 oz. bottles.

From the Silver City website:

Without a doubt, the boldest and hoppiest mother of a brew Silver City has ever created. More than 50lbs of Washington State Cascade and Columbus hops are infused, injected or otherwise inflicted upon a single 15 barrel batch. Welcome to hop country!

Food Pairings: Strong Cheeses, Smoked Meats and Seafoods,

Perfect with a Big Daddy Burger!

Alcohol By Volume: 8.5%

Hops: Columbus, Cascade

Malts: NW Pale, Caramel, British Pale, Munich

The beer pours deep orange in color with a creamy white head. Strong notes of orange peel and citrus show on the nose with hints of grain and floral notes. The beer starts off on the palate slightly sweet before quickly building into a significant amount of citrus and citrus peel with a mild bitterness. Those notes continue to build and reach a pleasant plateau before fading and lingering for a significant amount of time with just a bit of warming alcohol. As he beer warms, the citrus is much more pronounced and it really enhances the beer. The balance between the hops and bitterness is pleasant and enjoyable and this is a surprisingly drinkable beer for its size.

Silver City Whoop Ass comes in and takes names with 4 Ass-Kickings out of 5.

The Trellis

by A.J. Coltrane

This year we thought we might try a vining zucchini, with the idea that a vining type may do better in the EarthBoxes, and that it may represent a more efficient use of patio space. The variety we’re targeting is “Tromboncino”. It’s supposed to be relatively resistant to powdery mildew and many other things that tend to plague squash. The vines grow to about 6-8 feet, so today I finished the trellis:

It’s big. Like, really big — it’s 4′ wide by almost 8′ high. I think it’s going to need to live in the back corner of the patio so that it doesn’t shade everything else out.

A picture of “Tromboncino” from the Territorial Seed Co. website:

(“Tromboncino” Wikipedia page here. Territorial Seed Co. page here.)

I basically copied this design from the EarthBox forums. This EarthBox forums – “Trellis Design Gallery” link has some interesting ideas as well.

Beer of the Week: Reuben’s American Brown Randall with Cocoa Nibs and Raspberries

By Iron Chef Leftovers

I really have become a fan of the brown style of beer over the last year or so. Actually, that is not accurate, I have rediscovered my love of browns over the last year or so. They were a staple for me back in the late 90’s/early 2000’s before I discovered my love of hops. That, coupled with a decline in breweries making browns, I sort of forgot about them until the last year when the Ballard breweries started making them regularly. Reuben’s produces a great one and they took a shot at putting it on randall with cocoa nibs and raspberry. Couple those flavors with a nicely roasty, malty beer and we have potential for greatness.

The beer pours deep brown in color with a just a tinge of ruby color. Significant notes of malt and berries appear on the nose, with just hints of chocolate in the background. The beer is surprisingly chocolate forward with nice cocoa nib flavors coupled with hints of sweet chocolate from the malt, coupled with a light raspberry flavor, bringing a mild tartness to the picture. The beer then moves into the malt with touches of hop bitterness before finishing off slightly sweet and chocolaty with a pleasant dark chocolate bitterness and a very long chocolate finish. The chocolate and raspberry start to show more prominently as the beer warms, making this beer nice and deep with great balance and complexity, reminding me of a chocolate truffle.

Reuben’s American Brown Randall with Cocoa Nibs and Raspberries fills you days 4 worlds of pure imagination out of 5.

Beer of the Week: Flying Fish Exit 16

By Iron Chef Leftovers

Another beer that I really was excited to find on my last NJ excursion was the Flying Fish Brewing Exit 16 Wild Rice Double IPA. I read a review of it a couple of years ago and had really wanted to try it since it was different – an IPA brewed by a craft brewery, with rice as one of the ingredients – not something that you see every day. The added plus is that the beer is actually named Exit 16 – playing off the joke that folks from NJ are familiar with – when you meet someone from NJ for the first time, you ask them what exit rather than what town. I had this beer in a 12 oz. bottle.

From the Flying Fish website:

Although usually identified with landfills and pipelines, the Hackensack Meadowlands is an amazingly diverse ecosystem providing vital animal and plant habitat. In a nod to a once common food plant here, we’ve brewed this beer with wild rice. We also added organic brown and white rice, as well as pils and pale malts.

Rice helps the beer ferment dry to better showcase the five different hops we added. Lots and lots of them. We then dry-hopped this Double IPA with even more–generous additions of Chinook and Citra hops to create a nose that hints at tangerine, mango, papaya and pine. This beer pairs extremely well with spicy foods and all kinds of seafood. And of course, it’s quite enjoyable all by itself.

Malt: MFB pilsner malt
Other: Wild Rice, Brown rice
Hops: Citra, Columbus, Centennial, Simcoe, and Chinook
Original Gravity: 6.6 Plato
Alcohol by volume: 8%
IBU’s: 62
Formats: 12 oz. bottles, 1/2 kegs, 1/6 kegs
Availability: Year round

The beer pours light golden in color with a creamy white head. There are moderate notes of citrus and hos with backing notes of grain, yeast and rice – it vaguely smelled like a domestic American lager. The beer starts out mild on the palate with a very light sweetness and a touch of grain and rice before slowly delving into a deeper IPA profile. First a mild bitterness appears, then it is coupled with a dry mouth feel before finishing with a pleasant medium citrus note with hints of floral orange blossom – I was expecting a slightly bigger hop profile from the beer considering it is a double IPA. There is a very mild touch of alcohol at the back end of the throat after a short finish; nothing terrible or off-putting, but definitely noticeable. The beer is layered and fun with some interesting characteristics that you don’t find usually in a craft beer, but I was expecting something with a bigger IPA profile, and got something that was approachable and restrained. It was enjoyable and worth seeking out just for the novelty of the ingredients.

Flying Fish Exit 16 turns on its blinker and heads to the ramp with 3 New Jersey Turnpikes out of 5.

EarthBox – Shade Cloth Hoop Houses

by A.J. Coltrane

It’s supposed to get warm the next few days, possibly into the high 70’s at our house. Today seemed like a good day to put the shade cloth over the cool-weather vegetables.

I’d previously purchased the shade cloth. The bag said it was 6′ x 50′. I unfolded the cloth into what looked like a 6′ x 25′ length and cut. The intention was to get two 6′ pieces off of one end. What I got was two 9′ pieces. No idea why. 9 doesn’t divide evenly into 50..

As it turns out, I only had enough dowels to do two boxes, so I did this:

The shade cloth is held in place by large binder clips.

(L-R)

Half-barrel Container: Shallots, Arugula, Fernleaf Dill

Left EarthBoxes: Little Gem Romaine Lettuce, Spinach

Center EarthBoxes: Parsley and Cilantro (both mostly hidden) and more Spinach.

Right EarthBox: Tulle covered, formerly home of the Pak Choi before it bolted.

I was feeling pretty clever! We’ll see if it actually helps.

Creamy Nettle Soup

By Iron Chef Leftovers

Soups are a great meal since they don’t generally require a ton of ingredients, are easy to make in a large quantity, are easy to make from a technical standpoint and don’t require a ton of attention. One of the simplest and most delicious soups I have ever come across is the creamy nettle soup at the old Le Gourmand space in Ballard. This soup was so good that I think it might actually be the best thing that I ever had there. Unfortunately the restaurant is long gone, but the chef, the great Bruce Naftaly, still runs cooking classes and shows you dishes that he served in the restaurant. Since we are approaching the tail end of nettle season, I figured that this would be a good one to put out there, especially considering the somewhat unpredictable Northwest spring weather. Not sure where to get nettles? Try Foraged and Found – they are at the U-District Farmer’s Market on Saturdays and Ballard on Sundays. You probably only have 1 or 2 weeks left in nettle season though, so you many want to hurry.

The Software

1 tablespoon of unsalted butter

1 medium leek, dark green part removed, quartered and rinsed and cut into ½ inch pieces, about 8 oz.

½ yellow onion cut into 6 parts, about 8 oz.

2 shallots peeled and quartered, about 4 oz.

1 Yukon gold potato, quartered, about 6 oz.

2 cups chicken or vegetable stock

¼ cup cilantro, roughly chopped

6 oz. nettles, washed

Salt and pepper

Nutmeg

The Recipe

In a heavy bottomed stock pot, melt the butter until it stops foaming over medium heat. Add the shallots, leek and onions and stir. Cook for about 15 minutes or until they soften, stirring occasionally. If the veggies begin to brown, lower the heat slightly, you are looking to sweat them, not brown them. When the veggies are soft, add the potato and stock. Cover and cook over medium heat for about 20 minutes or until the potatoes are cooked (you can pierce them with the tip of a knife with no resistance). Add nettles and cover, cooking for 6-7 minutes until the nettles are wilted (this will also take out the stinging quality of the nettles). Remove from heat and puree in 2 batches, adding ½ of the cilantro to each batch. When done pureeing the soup, if the soup is too thick, stir in water or stock in small quantities until the desired thickness is achieved. If it is too thin, add some additional cooked potato puree to thicken it. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot or warm with a few grinds of fresh nutmeg and some nice bread.

Notes

If you can’t find nettles, use spinach instead. It won’t be as good but you will be able to make the soup all year round. The recipe will feed 4-6 people and scales really easily and can be served as either a main course or an appetizer. It will keep in the fridge for 2-3 days but freezes well and reheats easily, so it makes for a nice meal in a hurry. This soup is ultra creamy and luxurious, and, best of all, involves no actual dairy and can be made completely vegan by using veggie stock and olive oil instead of chicken stock and butter.

Beer of the Week: Bad Jimmy’s Habanero Amber

By Iron Chef Leftovers

It is both a good and a bad thing to be a brewery in Ballard these days. Having 10 breweries in a one mile radius means that from a consumer standpoint, I can hit multiple breweries on a single trip. The bad thing is that it leads to the inevitable comparison of beers between the breweries. The newest kid on the block is Bad Jimmy’s Brewing, tucked away in a garage behind the Bourbon and Bones BBQ restaurant, just across the street from Hales. They have been open since late last year with the idea that their mission “is to reinvent intensity as it exists in the craft beer world.” One of the beers that they produced to keep with their mission is the Habanero Amber. I am a lover of spicy foods but there have been very few pepper based beers that have been worth drinking – they all tend to be overpoweringly spicy and miss their mark.

The beer pours dark red in color and smelled like stale beer on the nose with hints of ground pepper. The beer starts out with just a hint of grain before the pepper sets in, building in quickly and completely overwhelming everything else that might be in the beer. While the spice is pronounced and dominating on the first sip, it becomes completely overwhelming on the subsequent sips through a cumulative effect – the spiciness from the previous sip lingers on the tongue and does not fade before the next sip, so it just continues to build with each subsequent sip, becoming completely intolerable, so much so that I couldn’t finish a 5 oz. taster of the beer due to the overwhelming heat. One note and completely unbalanced, this is one of the least enjoyable beers I have had in a long time.

Bad Jimmy’s Habanero Amber attacks the senses and sprays you in the eyes with just 1 pepper sprays out of 5.

Beer of the Week: River Horse Hop-A-Lot-Amus

By Iron Chef Leftovers

Despite being one of the most densely populated states in the country, New Jersey beer, is, and I am being nice here, not exactly some of the best in the country. Sure, there are a couple of beers that are worth while, but as a whole, they generally aren’t anything to write home about. One that did come recommended to me was Hop-A-Lot-Amus from River Horse Brewing. I am always skeptical about IPA’s that are not produced on the west coast, let alone double IPAs from a brewery in NJ. I have found them lacking in general compared to the ones you find out west. Given that this was accessible from my trip to NJ, I figured that I would give it a shot. I had this beer in a 12 oz. bottle.

From the River Horse Website:

Style – Double IPA

Malts – Pilsen, Munich, Melanoidin, Caramel 15, Caramel 60, and Carapilsen

Hops – Chinook, Simcoe, Cascade, and Cenntenial

ABV – 8.5%

Continual hopping during boil gives our Double IPA tons of hop flavor and aroma. Pine and citrus notes are backed by rich malt base.

The beer poured deep orange in color with a creamy tan head. Strong notes of grain with surprisingly subtle citrus show on the nose. The beer starts off with a very mild sweetness on the palate before completely changing direction and quickly moving into a building bitterness with very light floral hints. The bitterness starts slowly and continues to build with great depth until finally fade in in a long finish. The sweetness becomes slightly more noticeable throughout as the beer warms and the beer has bester balance and structure as it warms – it felt out of balance and overly bitter with an alcohol harshness when first opened but it mellowed and smoothed out as the beer progressed. It lacked the deep citrus notes I have come to associate with a west coast IPA, but this beer was surprisingly easy to drink for its ABV and style. It is not going to make me give up west coast IPA’s but it was a nice beer in its own right.

River Horse Hop-A-Lot-Amus comes charging out of the river with a scary 3 Hippopotamus amphibius out of 5.

Beer of the Week: Populuxe Horizon Pale Ale Cask

By Iron Chef Leftovers

As contrast, Populuxe release 2 different Pale Ale casks in consecutive weeks, one that was with Crystal hops and one with Horizon. From the beerlegends.com site:

Horizon will add notes of a floral bouquet to the aroma, as well as provide some essence of citrus fruits. Horizon can be used from beginning to end throughout the brewing process.

The beer pours hazy orange in color with significant citrus and spice on the nose. The beer starts out with light citrus before quickly moving on into an interesting spice – think of black pepper, but subtle, not spicy, before finishing off with citrus oil and orange heel that bring a light bitterness that pleasantly lingers on the front of the tongue with more subtle notes of black pepper at the back of the palate. The beer drinks well with a great deal of complexity, but it moves quickly though its range of flavors, making you want more and more.

Populuxe Horizon Pale Ale Cask sets sail for the edge of the world with 4 sunsets out of 5.