Last night I was fortunate enough to get into the sold out private dinner at Bocktown. Wrapping up the Lew Bryson tour of Pittsburgh was a dinner featuring 6 courses paired with barrel aged beers. If you ever get the chance to listen to Lew speak I can’t urge you enough to jump on that. His knowledge of not only craft beers but also whiskey, bourbon and the barreling process. Yes, he mentioned the bunghole too.

Here were the courses for the evening:

1. Cherry & Beet Arugula Salad tossed in Lemon Oil Mint Dressing – Beer Pairing: New Holland Oaked Aged Mad Hatter (Brewed for the GABF, this oaked version of New Holand’s IPA is aged in Woodford Reserve barrels. ABV – 6%)
2. Grilled Brown Turkey Figs, Stilton Cheese & Smoked Almonds finished w/Balsamic Fig Reduction – Beer Pairing: Great Lakes Oaked Blackout Stout (Russian imperial Stout aged in oak bourbon barrels. ABV – 9%)
3. Untouchable Pulled Pork Sandwich – Beer Pairing: Brewer’s Infusion Stoudt’s Scarlet Lady ESB (Stoudt’s English style ale run through Elijah Craig bourbon soaked French oak chips and U.K. Kent Hops. ABV – 5%)
4. Salmon Cake with Smoked Pepper Aioli – Beer pairing: Erie Oaked Railbender Firkin (Erie’s oaked version of their Scottish style ale, Railbender aged in American white oak barrels. ABV – 6.8%)
5. Strawberry Pierogi with fresh whipped cream – Beer Pairing: Arcadia Big Dick’s Oaked Ale (Aged in Pappy Van Winkle bourbon barrels. ABV – 8.2%)
6. Apple Barrel Bread Pudding with Bouron Sauce – Beer Pairing: Arcadia Cereal Killer (Actual batch of Arcadia’s GABF Gold Medal winning barleywine! ABV – 9.1%)

Click here to see the whole gallery

Favorite part of the meal for me was the Stilton Cheese & Smoked Almonds. I’ve never had either before and those… sweet Jesus almighty! Now the beer paired with it is one of my favorites from Great Lakes but overall favorite beer was the Arcadia Cereal Killer. I think a full bottle would take you to Shangri-La. I’m not a big barleywine fan but this was soothing and packed full of deliciousness.

Thank you Lew for an incredible education over the last 3 days. it was a pleasure to get to know you over that time and listen to you talk. What a great experience and I can’t wait till your new book comes out.

For a collection of Lew’s writings check out this list on amazon.com

(photo from onlyinpgh.com)

I’ve heard rumors of this existing but have never seen one myself. If I have then I blocked it out for obvious reasons. While house hunting today I came across the following amenity listed “walk out basement with pittsburgh commode”.  You’re reading that right, they’re showcasing a toilet in the basement.

Why would there be a toilet in the basement? Is there a problem with the water pressure up stairs? Are the people too lazy? Do you sometimes get the urge and say “you know what, I’m droppin pants right here!” Do they even wear pants? Do they have a thing against walls. bwwahhhhhhhh I need to know!

Don’t think to hard about that or your ears will start to bleed.

So I went to the one place that I knew an answer could be found… The Twitter!

Within minutes I not only had the answer to my “WTF is a Pittsburgh Potty” quest but I was sent pictures, the history and even a video!  One thing is for for sure, Pittsburgh love their history especially when its as unique as a toilet.

Here were some replies

Any time I’ve given a presentation, recorded a live show or have been in group conversations about craft beer someone always asks me what the most expensive beer was I’ve drank. It’s not what necessarily what I paid, since I get a lot as gifts , but what their current value is at that time of consumption.

Since this is a popular topic once again I thought I’d share this gem of a video showing myself, Drew and sickpuppy drinking it.  Of course you share it with friends, that’s what craft beer is all about.

Shot 2 years ago with an old Kodak digital camera on movie mode, Ladies and gents i present the $385 (currently $497 on Ebay) bottle of Sam Adams Utopias MMII – 24%ABV

I love yinz. Everyone who entered to take my free stuff I say thank you and hope yinz get good use out of it. I’ll ping you about pickup/shipping.

Mrs. Crappy is the new owner of the entertainment table IKEA thing

I expect something Ohio State to be painted on it next time I see it.

The wine/liquor decanters goes to reader Sunshine!

I know you’re going to use it for your plants because an innocent boy like yourself doesn’t drink. Oh wait, don’t give them to your dad as a gift either because where they originated would make it an all too funny story.

More stuff coming soon and we continue to clean out the basement. Anyone need old computer parts (kbd, cables, SIMMS. DIMMS). I have a boatload of those too. Even an old ZIP drive.

This is the best thing about Steeler games in our house, the food. Today I had a craving for a taco salad dip and after a quick trip to Giant Eagle, Lushie whips this bad boy up. I like watching the games and I know our players but don’t try talking about other teams with me cuz I’ll just nod and say “oh yeah, of course!”  I’m not a big football guy but I’m a fan of the festivities. If a guy isn’t on my fantasy team I wont know who you’re talking about. However I will be able to give you some kickass food and serve up the finest craft beers.  Today is Erie Brewing Ol Red Cease n Desist.

I’m in between games of NHL10 so I have to keep this brief before some friends show up.

Go Steelers!

Get some!

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia – 10PM Thursdays

I love my readers and this is more proof why all yinz kickass. This was submitted to me from Tim at The Size of Life. He was planning a motorcycle trip that had him traveling from SE Ohio, through West Virginia and Pennsylvania. No biggie right? Make sure God is your co-pilot because Google Maps well gets you all sorts of messed up.

Class, pay attention…

For those of you unfamiliar with the eastern part of the United States here is a map for you (not Google Maps). I have colored in the states that are in question for this assignment. Tennessee, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Pretty easy eh? Well let’s zoom in and see what Google Maps has to say.

Looks kosher right?  Click that image and see the full screen size.

Still can’t tell?  Here let me help you out. Now click on this map

Thaaaaatttt’s right. Apparently Tennessee not only borders West Virginia but has also taken ownership of PA. Now I know some people call it Pennsyltucky (Pennsylvania and Kentucky, get it! wow thats bad) but this is a new one for me.

Thanks Tim for sending it in!

** UPDATE - Apparently Google Maps has already fixed this error.  Glad we got the screen shots when we did! **

I love playing hockey video games and for the longest time they were the same game with different players so I grew bored and my PS2 collected dust. From the conversations on Twitter I read stories of how NHL 10 revolutionized the experience and I gave in.  In fact THE reason why (amongst others but this was #1) I got the Xbox360 was for this game. I knew I was taking a risk buying a gaming system for the purpose of one game but believe me when I say that this game is crack… mind crack.

Be A Pro
This part of the game is what has sucked me in 100%. Not the sleek game play overall or the quest for the cup but the fact that I get to create myself as an early draft pick with the Penguins and work on my career. the game does a great job of making it feel like its really you in the game from the warm up and entering the ice to focusing on your player throughout.

Number 10? No idea. I need to change that to 22. Right now it’s my tribute to Gary Roberts and Pierre Larouche. When you create your player you can customize the heck out of yourself. Hair, eyes, nose, facial features, build and as you can see I have some work to do on myself. As you gain more experience and reach new levels of skills you can upgrade your equipment and also increase your personal performance.

You can either get drafted or assign yourself. I opted for the Pens since I can’t live with myself if the Flyers drafted me. Starting the season in WBS has been cool so far and updated rosters has helped me learn some of the young guys who may make an appearance some day. Being a former goalie, I really have no idea how to be a forward, so I made myself a power LW. The HUGE plus to doing this is that when you’re playing there are blue arrows showing you where to be on the ice and what angle you should approach the blue line so you’re not offsides. My first game I was skating around lost but did manage to get a point of an obscene 25 shots. Games 2 and 3 I was a huge ball of suck.

Game 4 the unthinkable happened…

Someone got their groove back

As luck would have it the clock hit midnight and I had be up in 5 hours so all of the magic was going to sleep.

It’s going to take me awhile to get use to this Xbox controller but for the most part I have it configured the way I can remember.

I’m absolutely hooked and plan on playing out the season in full for the first time since NHL 06. I’ve talked to a few friends about joining a pickup league so I only have a few more weeks before I get my ass handed to me on a regular basis.

Good friend Phil from “My Life as a Foodie” sent me an IM one morning that simply read “I’m making bacon”. Knowing Phil I knew that he wasn’t feeding me some bull, he would do it… and he did.

Read about the bacon process here

The reason why I bring this up is that we’re living in a time when it’s cheaper and most times more rewarding to make some of these guilty pleasures yourself. You get a better understanding of the process which goes into making deliciousness that we take for granted. This also ties into why I advocate homebrewing but that’s another post.

Phil is a badass chef and is host to one of the only podcasts that I still subscribe to. He’s professional, entertaining and has the greatest palate of anyone I’ve ever known. Through his inspiration and my obsession with bacon I’m talking to Lushie about giving this a go. Phil is an unreal chef whereas me, yeah I like to bbq, grill and make soups. I’m gonna need some help getting this started since its her kitchen I’m making the mess in.

Check out his website and see for yourself how easy it is to make bacon.

Now my question is, when’s he gonna ship some from Cali to PA?

cheers!

Nina – The Good Night Show on Sprout.

Sprout or Nick Jr. is on our TV all the freaking time these days with the only break comes when Teaspoon goes to bed or there is hockey on. Now calm down, Teaspoon doesn’t watch TV all day or even that much but its great background music when playing with the boy. Back to my point, dads if you’re tired of the same old drab cartoons and claymation check out the Good Night Show and watch Nina. mmmhmmm

This 2ft man reminds me of what’s important in life and I keep on truckin.