Baron of Beverage

The Baron & Baroness head out to a local craft brew bar and happen upon a Stone Brewing March Madness IPA Bracket and their local Brass Tap. (4 IPAs this week – 2 move on; 4 new IPAs next week – 2 others move on; then those 4 go head to head, etc).

In addition, since the Baroness isn’t an IPA fan, she ordered the Port City Brewing Optimal Wit – a style she’s a big fan of, and this is a fine example of wit beer.

Cheers!

How would you close out a snow day? How about with

That’s why instead of reaching into the cellar or the liquor cabinet, this evening the Baron reached into the fridge and the cupboard and whisked up (for ~10 solid minutes) some honest-to-goodness homemade Hot Chocolate. [Recipe courtesy of Food Network Kitchen]

Listen and learn about our substitute ingredient and our delicious results.

Cheers!

Come of the most enjoyable parts of a Snow Day are having a cocktail hour right at 5pm (you’ve got nowhere to drive to get there – or after!) and enjoying a beer after a few hours of shoveling snow (or ice/slush). This evening the Baron & Baroness combined both as they tasted two contrasting Wheat Ales from (the most mega) craft brewery – Samuel Adams.

Interspersed in our discussion of IBUs, we enjoyed their Cold Snap first, a wheat ale with citrus, spices – including coriander which in some ways we thought of as a grown-up Blue Moon. Then we enjoyed Hopscape, a Wheat Ale with added West Coast hops – which definitely made a difference.

As the first flakes of Winter Storm ‘Stella’ begin to fall, the Baron follows through on his promise of a burst of initial podcasts. And what better to sip on during a pending winter storm than – single malt scotch. Our selection this evening is a new ‘Experimental’ series single malt from Glenfiddich – India Pale Ale Finish.

This single malt is brought to you as the brainchild of Brian Kinsman, Malt Master at Glenfiddich and Seb Jones brewer at Speyside Craft Brewery – with the brewery and  ~24 miles apart. Apparently they used not only the same Speyside water in their beer/whiskey, but malted barley as well.

They 3 different brews developed by Seb and who knows how many aging variations Brian went through as they developed the final product (but I sure wish I’d been along for the tasting ride. What they ended up with is a definitely a unique single malt, and one worth ordering a dram of if you find it at your local watering hole – and if your description of it sounds up your single malt alley, grab a bottle – it’s likely priced in the range of any ~12 year age statement single malt.

Sláinte!

After dinner, we settle in to await the first fall of snowflakes for this season’s first winter storm with the bottle of wine I picked out to got with our dinner tonight – Moroccan Chicken from Blue Apron.

It called for a Carmenere and as things are, we stock them in our cellar. So take a listen as we kick off Baron of Beverage while tasting and evaluating Concho y Toro’s Terrunyo Carmenere Block 27 2008.

Cheers!