Beer of the Week: Speakeasy Payback Porter

By Iron Chef Leftovers

It sometimes boggles my mind that a brewery that widely distributes its beer does not have one of its regularly available beers listed on its website. Speakeasy is a brewery like that. For a place that distributes to some of the bigger beer markets in the country and has been around for 15 years, you would think that you would be able to find information on their beers via their website. You would be wrong. So other than being a porter and being 7.5% ABV, I can’t tell you much about the beer, so here is the review (consumed in a 22 oz. bottle):

Jet black with a tan head. Notes of coffee and caramel dominate the nose with lots of roasted malt to accompany it. Much sweeter than you would expect, with coffee, chocolate and caramel dominating the palate in the beginning before yielding to a long coffee/roasted malt finish. This beer reminds me of drinking a caramel macchiato with a hint of bitterness and feels like it is a coffee porter without any actual coffee in it (as far as I can tell). Plenty of depth and complexity, with no single flavor overpowering the others and balanced with the alcohol. On a side note, this beer pairs extremely well with Mt. Townsend Creamery Seastack Cheese.

Speakeasy Payback Porter is a great beer to drink on a cold winter’s day if you are looking for something big and bold to get you through your evening.

Speakeasy Payback Porter breaks in with 3 revenge killings out of 5.

The Two Dollar Food Mill

by A.J. Coltrane

I had (and have) no idea what to shop for in a food mill, but when the next-door neighbors sold grandma’s old food mill at our multi-family garage sale I figured I’d take a flyer on it. The worst case scenario is that I’d be out $2 that someone had just given me for some of my junk.

Here it is:

The pic makes it look smaller than it really is. It fits comfortably over a medium size pot. As a flat guess it dates from the ’60’s or ’70’s. The little spring goes on the bottom and the wire scrapes the bottom of the food mill. There are no removable extra size screens, or anything fancy like that.

In one of her tomato sauce recipes Marcella Hazan recommends: Cooking tomatoes covered over medium heat for ten minutes (we’ve been tossing in some basil and salt), hitting them with the food mill, then returning the sauce to the stovetop to simmer, uncovered. The food mill is a little more cooperative the longer the tomatoes break down on the stove, but overall, it works great for making sauce. It’s also super easy to clean, so that’s nice.

Does anyone have a food mill recommendation? (I’m looking at you, Iron Chef Leftovers.)

——–

We’re having “big” work done to the back deck. The one million pound grill had to be rolled into the living room while the work is going on. The boy cat immediately decided that it was a good, high place to hang out.

The girl doesn’t feel the need to explore. The couch is just fine.

Serving a Whole Fish

By Iron Chef Leftovers

This is the kind of reaction that Mrs. Iron Chef would have in this situation. I never understood why people get upset when their food comes from a whole animal. Does not realizing what you are eating had a head and tail and used to be moving make it better?

Anyway, from Pearls Before Swine, August 18.

EarthBox Update — September 8, 2013

by A.J. Coltrane

Previous post here.

The tomatillos got pruned earlier in the week. Yesterday the tomatoes and cucumbers received the same treatment. I also trained the cucumber vines towards the “front” — the whole box has been leaning “back”:

The lemon cucumbers are nearly done:

Continue reading “EarthBox Update — September 8, 2013” →

Beer of the Week: NW Peaks Esmeralda Ale

By Iron Chef Leftovers

One of the best things about joining the NW Peaks Mountain Beer club with a friend (in this case Annie S.), is that you don’t need to decide which of the 2 beers that NW Peaks is producing that month you are going to take home, you just take both. The added benefit is that when they are 2 similar beers, you get to try them side by side. Back in March, they did “adjunct beers”. I know the term, thanks to Budweiser, has a bad connotation, but the reality is that any beer brewed with more than just grain, water, yeast and hops contains adjuncts and many of them are delicious. This project gave us the Granite Oat Ale (reviewed here) and the Esmeralda Ale.

From the NW Peaks website:

The name. The mountain. Esmeralda is located in the Teanaway River drainage just S of Ingalls peak and SW of Mt Stuart – one of our favorite areas. It’s on the other side of the Teanaway River from its beastly neighbors and is a much easier approach/climb than that of it’s neighbors. The “class 2″ trek to the summit offers some great views of the massive Mt Stuart and the Stuart range and is part of a great loop for a day hike.

The story of two experiences. Because of its popularity from past renditions, we bring Esmeralda Ale back for another late winter mountainBeer. Of course it is always fun (or not) to remember the comedy of errors that was our first batch brewed on our current system (Esmeralda Ale), while now we have everything dialed in.

The Beer. Esmeralda is one of our ‘adjunct’ beers for March. The adjuncts in Esmeralda are corn and molasses that create a unique character. The corn provides a nice sweetness and smoothness and complements the molasses notes. Esmeralda was fermented with an English ale yeast adding a smooth fruity flavor on top. With very little few hop notes, the slight grain sweetness and dark sugar properties are uniquely featured.

Malts: ESB, munich, corn, special B, biscuit, carafa 2. Hops: Apollo and Goldings. Fermented with British Ale yeast. OG/TG 1.058/1.016 ~5.5% ABV

The beer pours amber/orange with a fizzy white head. Strong notes of molasses, corn and malt are on the nose, giving this beer an almost syrup like character. The initial taste is slightly sweet with hints of molasses yielding quickly to strong notes of corn before transitioning into a malty finish that lingers and has notes of caramel interspersed. Nicely balanced, flavorful and different; probably not a beer that everyone will enjoy, but it should appeal to a larger audience because of a distinct lack of hop character. This beer is very different from just about anything that is on the market from any other brewery in the Northwest, so I would highly recommend trying this one if it every makes another appearance.

NW Peaks Esmeralda Ale gathers up a crew and skips in with 3 yellow brick roads out of 5.

Beer of the Week: Populuxe Brown Porter

By Iron Chef Leftovers

A few months ago, I managed to review the 3 fruit porters from Populuxe and just realized that I never actually posted the review for the base Brown Porter. In an attempt to correct that, here is that review.

The beer pours almost jet black in color. Notes of chocolate, coffee and roasted malt appear on the nose in such a way that it almost reminds me of a cappuccino. The initial sip yields some surprising yeast character before moving to the heavier flavors – notes of chocolate and lightly roasted malt dominate before yielding their position to a slightly sweet, long and pleasant coffee finish that is not terribly overpowering or bitter. As the beer warms, a light of hop character becomes noticeable – slightly floral and slightly bitter but well-balanced in the beer.

The Populuxe Brown Porter is not currently available on tap at the brewery, but it will hopefully be back soon as the season turns from summer to fall.

The Populuxe Brown Porter carries your bags in spectacularly with 4 bellhops out of 5.

EarthBox Mini Update — September 5, 2013

by A.J. Coltrane

Previous post here.

I decided that the tomatillos were due for a pruning on Tuesday. There were a lot of yellow leaves in the understory, and a lot of unripe fruit was just dropping off of the yellow vines. I figured pruning off everything that looked sick would leave more sun for the healthy plants, including the tomatoes in the adjacent box. Anything that was yellow was targeted. So I pruned and pulled and pruned and pruned and was left with one healthy plant, and one stump. The weaker of the two plants had basically completely crapped out, but I didn’t realize it until I physically stuck my head into the plants and started cutting.

There's a hole where the back plant was. — There’s now a hole in the place of the dying plant.

I also pruned out all of the little runners and new blooms. I don’t think that there’s time for anything totally new to make it all the way to fruition. It really cleaned up the mess, and both the remaining tomatillo and the tomatoes should benefit.

On the bright side, I found another five pounds of tomatillos that had been hiding within the vines.

I had no idea that many tomatillos were in there. It was “Here’s one. And here’s one. Here’s another…”

In retrospect though, it makes sense. The two plants were purchased at basically the same size, but the surviving plant started growing way faster, and the weaker plant started growing, then needed more support because it wouldn’t stand up under it’s own weight. The imbalance was compounded by the fact that the stronger plant was in position to get much more sun, since the weaker one was sandwiched between the strong one, the lemon cucumbers, and the tomatoes.

One winter project is going to be figuring out a layout for next year that maximizes sunlight for everything involved. Live and learn.

—–

Late edit: Today takes it to 112 pounds of stuff for the year!

Rick Bayless' Roasted Tomatillo Salsa

by A.J. Coltrane

The tomatillos have been cranking out fruit. Four and a half pounds of the stuff were dominating the kitchen counters. It was time to make a salsa. It was time for a Rick Bayless recipe.

In short- it’s roasted tomatillos, jalapeno, and garlic, blended with water and cilantro. Minced white onion and salt are added at the end.

There were enough tomatillos for 9 batches of the Bayless recipe. (At 8 ounces of tomatillos, a Jalapeno, and two cloves of garlic per recipe batch.) To keep it manageable it got broiled it in 3 x 24 ounce groups:

I just noticed — everything got scaled properly except the garlic. Each of those batches should have six cloves of garlic, not two. Oh well.

Removed to bowl to cool:

Keep the juice created by the broiling process.

Then the blending. Then the onion and salt. If I had it to do over again I would have used less than the recommended amount of water and added it later if I felt the salsa was too thick. As it was, I felt like the salsa was a vaguely loose.

Overall though, it went over well. This is the new go-to green salsa recipe.

Rick Bayless’ Roasted Tomatillo Salsa

by A.J. Coltrane

The tomatillos have been cranking out fruit. Four and a half pounds of the stuff were dominating the kitchen counters. It was time to make a salsa. It was time for a Rick Bayless recipe.

In short- it’s roasted tomatillos, jalapeno, and garlic, blended with water and cilantro. Minced white onion and salt are added at the end.

I just noticed — everything got scaled properly except the garlic. Each of those batches should have six cloves of garlic, not two. Oh well.

Removed to bowl to cool:

Overall though, it went over well. This is the new go-to green salsa recipe.

Beer of the Week: Midnight Sun Brewing Moscow Russian Imperial Stout

By Iron Chef Leftovers

Since I reviewed Reuben’ Imperial Russian Stout, I figured that I should continue the trend with the Midnight Sun Moscow Imperial Russian stout brewed with rye. This is one that was not exactly easy to come by and was only available in 5 states – AK, OR, WA, CA and, for some reason, NY. Not only that, it was spendy, coming in at $13.50 for a 22 oz. bottle. I, of course, had to buy 2 of them. From the Midnight Sun website:

ABV: 11.0%
IBU: 45

First brewed as part of our 2011 World Tour series, MOSCOW Rye Russian Imperial Stout is a hefty, opaque black liquid that pours slowly and soulfully into your snifter. A high percentage of spicy rye and roasted dark malts create a dense, chewy yet elegant winter wonderland of flavors. And from AK we say: Let it Snow…in Moscow.

The beer pours a beautifully jet black with a coffee brown head. Strong notes of coffee and chocolate dominate the nose with hints of rye interspersed and a very light fruitiness also shows itself, but it could easily be missed among all of the bigger scents. Thick and inky with a tremendous buildup The beer starts off with a very light milk and sugar profile before transitioning into roasted malt and chocolate, next moving into the realm of black coffee before finally ending with notes of rye and sugar in a very long fade with hints of chocolate lingering on the palate. This beer is complex and well balanced and the strong flavors hide the 11% ABV well. To add to the complexity, as the beer warms, the finish is joined with notes of fruit and rye, adding yet another layer to this beer.

It is a rare occasion that I will spend nearly $14 on a beer and even rarer that I would recommend to anyone to do the same, but this is one of those times that I am making a recommendation. If you see this beer, buy it. My second bottle is destined for my beer cellar and I really wish I had picked up more than the 2 I did. Even Mrs. Iron Chef, who really doesn’t like dark beer, wasn’t completely horrified at tasting this beer. If you like Russian Imperial Stouts, you need to try this beer. Really, it is that good, and possibly the best I have ever had.

Midnight Sun Moscow Russian Imperial Stout with rye sweeps your thoughts away with an amazing 5 Perestroika’s out of 5.