FlaSoxxJim

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Apr 13, 2011 -> 09:25 PM) Haha I was totally running a scenario through my head where I told him I felt like he was Whitney Houston and I was his bodyguard. And he woulda been like "That was Kevin Costner" and I woulda been all "Yeah I know, but that's still what this feels like." He should just be happy you didn't go for Driving Miss Daisy.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Apr 13, 2011 -> 05:56 PM) At least Ozzie is being proactive: http://chicago.craigslist.org/chc/res/2323522256.html :lolhitting

QUOTE (G&T @ Apr 12, 2011 -> 09:55 PM) Hadn't seen this, but Pierre Cellis died over the weekend. I doubt I would care about beer without him. The man was an absolute giant in the beer world. Honestly, though, i mistakenly thought he had died a few years ago. Shows what I know.

Crap

Crap

QUOTE (farmteam @ Apr 11, 2011 -> 02:14 PM) Little 500 week is here. Get ready for insanity ladies and gents. I visited an IU friend once during Little Five and I and several other people ended up one night falling through the floor of a loft that collapsed under the weight of way too many drunk people. Fortunately there were lots of drunk people on the floor below us to break our fall. Good times.

I try to get a media guide and an opening day program every year, so I have amassed a good collection of those. Lots of hats. lots of 2005 WS stuff, and a small assortment of random vintage cards. I have a signed Loaiza jersey with the 2003 ASG patch on it that would have more meaning if he won the Cy Young that year. My oddest items are probably: • a Winning Ugly trucker cap with the foam front and mesh back — ugly as s*** and I love it. • A Cooperstown Collection set of hand-painted wooden nesting Russian Dolls of Sox ballplayers in various vintage jerseys.

farmteam started an interesting conversation in the bars thread regarding his perception that craft beer snobs tend to look down on fellow beer drinkers if they are not heavy hopheads. I started to reply in that thread, but didn't want to derail the main focus of the thread, so instead I'll take my observations over here. QUOTE (farmteam @ Mar 30, 2011 -> 10:50 PM) I feel like there's some sort of mentality among craft brew snobs that if you don't like IPAs (or anything real hoppy), you're a pansy. Granted, I've talked to a few brewers themselves, and they say that's not the case at all...the common theme was, "If we brew it, we like it." As a general rule, I don't think your perception of hop-head snobbery is too far off the mark in the American craft beer world, though I think most brewers wort their salt are a bit more broad-minded. My personal take on it is that hops are the most versatile ingredient in the over-the-top/turn the classics on their head American craft beer mindset so most journeymen craft enthusiasts quickly home in on hops as the defining element of the beers they prefer. Hops flavors and aromas are more hit-you-on-the-head as far as perceptibility, so it's an easy entry point into craft beer appreciation. High hop levels are also very much a signature element in American classic craft styles, so hophead love fests are a fine homage to home-grown ale styles. On the other hand, when you talk beer with drinkers who have had a craft beer passion for 10 or 20 years, the conversation gets way more nuanced and you focus on the subtle difference different yeasts or different fermentation temperatures bring, or how much Brettanomyces horse sweat flavor is appropriate for wood-aged Belgian ales, etc. Even with hops, veteran craft beer folks will get more nerdy and talk about the pros and cons of using a big-guns bittering hop like chinook or magnum in the hopback or secondary fermenter rather than as a high-alpha kettle hop. I'm personally an absolute hophead when that's what I'm in the mood for — which is quite often. Then again, some of my absolute favorite beer styles (gueuze, witbier, Bvarian weisse, Berliner weisse, Flemish sours, Trappist tripels, even trad British cask bitters) are decidedly unhoppy. For what it's worth, I've also witnessed the evolution of out-and-out hopheads from people who started out really not digging aggressively hopped beers. It comes down to broadening our appreciation for the diversity of styles and flavors that comes over time I think. I think we're even seeing G&T in this very thread start to enjoy hoppy beers quite a bit more than he did not too long ago. Thoughts?

The Mixoloseum theme tonight for TDN is "free form". I think I typically come up with more creative cocktails when the themes are a little better defined ("bitters" or "Demerara rum", for example), but I think I have a pretty good submission this evening. (Looks good conceptually, at least, as I haven't actually mixed it up yet). A riff on one of several Olympic Variation cocktails in the CocktailDB, I hope to wow the boozebloggers with the Flippin' Good Flip: - 2 oz cognac - 1 oz kahlua - 1 oz cream - 1 whole egg Shake without ice to emulsify egg, then shake well with ice. Strain into a chilled cocktail coupe and dust with fresh fine ground cinnamon, nutmeg, and dark chocolate. Looks like a winner to me.

I just saw an extended preview for Ken Burns' documentary on U.S. Prohibition airing this fall. It is going to be brilliant, I can't wait.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Apr 6, 2011 -> 12:51 PM) I loved Dark City. Same here.

Ugh

QUOTE (Leonard Zelig @ Apr 5, 2011 -> 11:38 PM) The Shire

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Apr 4, 2011 -> 11:26 PM) Have tried a few spanish/portugal brews, and went to a few local and authentic bars with friends i met at the hostel, what a great night. I assume the local wines are wonderful as well, yes?

QUOTE (G&T @ Apr 4, 2011 -> 08:17 PM) Damn, thanks for reminding me! I forgot all about that collaboration. I've been waiting since it was announced in December. It's really great, I just had it on draft this afternoon. Ostensibly a free-form Belgian-style golden ale, it came off as a total tripel to me and a very good one at that.

Ommegang Gnomegang is an exceptional beer that I cannot begin to say enough good things about. Get it while you can, if you can.

Congratulations!!

QUOTE (Disco72 @ Apr 1, 2011 -> 02:00 PM) Anyone a fan of the Sierra Nevada Glissade? I've been trying more Sierra Nevada due to my unnatural love of their Celebration Ale, and I'm also becoming a big fan of the Glissade. I think Glissade is pretty good myself. I had only had it in bottle form until this past week and it was quite good on draft. That said, it was the least memorable beer of the evening, but that was because I was at a Sierra Nevada beer event that you would have flipped for. At the start of the event they were serving up Glissade and their regular and Pale Ale, but also had tapped a keg of their wonderful wet hopped Northern Hemisphere Harvest Ale and a keg of 2011 Bigfoot. I thoroughly enjoyed the Northern and opted away from the Bigfoot because I had to drive home and was also saving my tastebuds for the really special things to come. A couple of hours into the evening, the bar tapped a sixtel (5 gallon 1/6th keg) each of the 30th Anniversary Grand Cru as well as the star attraction of the evening, the much-anticipated whole-cone Hoptimum Imperial IPA. An amazingly easy-drinking 10.5% abv/100 1BU beer made with lots of Magnum, Chinook, Cascade and Simcoe hops as well as a new proprietary Sierra strain that they are not revealing much about. I had enjoyed the bottled Grand Cru a few months earlier, and he draft version was excellent. This was probably my favorite of the various 30th Anniversary releases, and it gets my mouth watering in anticipation of the Ovila Abby beers slated for release in a couple of months. As for the Hoptimum, I wish the bar was a stumble away from home rather than an hour's drive because one pint of that was not enough. I'm sure it will be at least another year before the place manages to get their hands on another keg of the stuff. Yummy stuff for sure.

QUOTE (G&T @ Mar 31, 2011 -> 06:56 PM) Moscow Mule is a winner. Now let me say that I hate vodka so I really don't need to be detecting any amount of it. I supplemented your recipe with maybe .5oz of simple and that did the trick. Very refreshing and absolutely dangerous. Oh and ginger beer is yummy on its own. I'm no fan of vodka either, but I like the Moscow Mule. There are so many Ginger beers that work very differently in cocktails. om it's own I really like the heat and the bute of DG Jamaican gunner beer but I'm never too happy with it in cocktails. the Barritt's or Gislings ginger beers tend to work better for me. We just bought a Soda Stream carbonation system gore the house that I haven't used yet, but I have some Janaican ginger beer syrup that I'm looking forward to making ginger beer with. If I can find the time I'll eventually try to come up with a scratch home ginger beer recipe now that I can carbonate soda.

Problem: You open a 12 oz. can or bottle of ginger beer to use a few ounces fix a drink, but then wonder what you are going to do with the rest of the open container. Solution: Make a night of it (hide those car keys) and mix up four tasty ginger beer cocktails using four different base spirits. . . El Diablo: • 2 oz reposado tequila • 1/2 oz creme de cassis • 1/2 oz lime juice • 3 oz ginger beer Moscow Mule: • 2 oz vodka • 3/4 oz lime juice • 3 oz ginger beer Darm and Stormy: • 2 oz Goslings Bermuda Rum • 1/2 oz lime juice • 3 oz ginger beer Mamie Taylor: • 2 oz blended Scotch • 3/4 oz lime juice • 3 oz ginger beer Fresh squeezed lime juice is the other common ingredient in all of these, and I think this is a good study in how to riff on a drink like the Dark and Stormy to quickly and easily expand your cocktailian repertoire. All of the above can be simply built in an ice-filled double rocks glass or shaken (sans ginger beer) on ice and strained into a double rocks glass and topped with ginger beer. I like to garnish all four of these Trader Vic Mai Tai style with a spent 1/2 lime shell.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 29, 2011 -> 09:35 AM) I dunno, I would have struggled to make a caricature that said something that asinine. A secular-atheist country dominated by radical Islamists Don't you know that any religion that's not Christianity might as well be atheism?

Happy birthday all!

QUOTE (G&T @ Mar 28, 2011 -> 01:44 PM) I don't know the impact of this: AB buys Goose Island But I don't like it from a beer enthusiast perspective. I guess we wait and see. My biggest issue with the move is that has prompted Greg Hall to step down as brewmaster. I think A-B has demonstrated through its handling of Red Hook that it can largely keep it's hands and its beancounters away from messing with the success of the craft beers in it's portfolio. If that is indeed the case, I understand the move in terms of giving Goose Island access to more markets through the A-B distribution apparatus. But I'm afraid the brand will stagnate without their passionate brewmaster who was always looking to try new things.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Mar 28, 2011 -> 12:51 AM) What kind of tequila were you using? Definitely going to have to try those at some point in the near future but obviously want to use the correct tequila. See the post just above yours — I used Cazadores blanco because I have it on hand to make the La Palomas I have become partial to. I try not to go broke on tequila, so El Jimador or Hredura or 1800 Silver is about as pricey as I get — any of those would work with these drinks. Another tequila drink that I'm digging is the El Diablo, and if you like ginger beer you should give it a go. • 2 oz reposado tequila • 1/2 oz fresh lime juice • 1/2 oz creme de cassis 3 oz good ginger beer Build in and ice-filled double rocks glass, adding ginger beer last and giving a quick stir to mix. If you make that one and then find you have the rest of a bottle/can of ginger beer to use up, spin up a Moscow Mule and then a Gosling's Dark and Stormy. Three drinks that basically vary their base spirits and the lime juice ratio to end up with fairly different flavor profiles.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Mar 28, 2011 -> 12:11 AM) Oooh, those tequila drinks sound intriguing, Jim...going to put those on my "to drink" list... They are both worth trying. I didn't specify, but serve the Boscoe in a rocks glass over ice like a White Russian. I used Cazadores blanco for both drinks but any 100% de agave blanco or reposado you're partial to should make a nice drink.