I replanted some of the shoots from the propagator last night – including the competition Apaches.
There’s more coming through too:
I also seem to have set up a dedicated Pho Restaurant chilli farm. Mind you, if Burt keeps recruiting his chilli bitches, he’ll be needing some of my supply:
No more match reports until your reporter is fit again!
Todd (more than 1), Rich A (o.g.)and some others
Shortened, late and rather vague match report due to the continued absence of your reporter.
There was some doubt expressed in the usual quarters about the team selection; although anecdotal evidence from the terraces suggests the teams were not that unbalanced. Indeed for 30 minutes at least, this match was a contest, despite recent man of the match Rich A deciding to lob his own keeper (Andy L – no mean feat to get that up and over).
But then one man got the game by the scruff of the neck to make a difference.
Ed, clearly feeling thirsty, decided that Todd wasn’t getting enough service (check the teamsheets) and was in need of a hat-trick or two. Ignoring the age-old advice of ‘get it away’ he opted for not one, but several, across the back-line passes leading one observer to comment that his game was best summed up as ‘raped and pillaged’.
There’s always next week – as ever.
On Friday we tried out the Meltdown pizzas kindly donated by Dominos.
On the positive side, chilliheads will love the heat – if you go for the max strength it’s certainly hot. The downside of all the heat is that no actual flavour comes through, or maybe the flavour needs upping, or balancing with the heat. Mind you – let’s be honest – no-one’s going to buy this pizza for its subtle flavour tones – but, just because I like heat that doesn’t mean I don’t like taste. But, my major problem however is the American hot mustard – which is completely unneccessary, once heated it gets a plastic feel and taste and dominates the overall taste. From the first bite to last (and we did work our way through them) all I really got was the mustard taste.
Verdict: I wanted to like this pizza, but for me it desperately needs two things if it is going to raise itself from the level of teenage ‘challenge’ / novelty food category: a bit more balance between flavour and heat (that doesn’t mean lose the heat) and keep the American mustard for burgers.
I do want to say thanks to Dominos for letting us try them out.
Today I checked the propagators (possibly soon to be banned under Blacksheep’s Law) – and the first shoots of spring have sprung:
First – many, many thanks to those who sponsored Greenbud and I to do the fun run last Sunday. Greenbud really enjoyed it:
Greenbud bringing it home
And so did I – for about a mile and half – seemed a good idea to run with the buggy!
Left foot in fine working order
And then disaster struck. I trod on the back wheel of the buggy – and this was the result (look away now if you’re squeamish):
Ouch
Once the pain had subsided the realisation set in that I had done the one thing I didn’t want to do – injure myself and therefore be unable to play football. The irony of the fact I did it raising money for a football pitch is not lost on me. To say I am gutted is an understatement. I am also the only member of the family not to have a Fun Run finishing medal. A point that has been made several times in recent days.
Roy(1), Russ(1), Dave(1), Grant(1) – Rich A (1), Allen (1)
Well – where to start?
On a bitterly cold night a cursory glance at the match programme showed we had pitched all the defenders against all the attackers – not so much a game of football more a scientific exercise. But more of that later.
A late call-up for Roy (apologies again Ian) following a mix-up with the teamsheets - Roy may have felt he had been dropped, so was out to prove a point. And it was fitting that a week after my ‘Powerplay’ comment he produces the performance of the night, scoring, turning defenders – all crowned by a majestic left hand save onto the post from a typically accurate rising drive from Todd. The word Tomaszewski was mentioned in the pub. There were names for me too – as I put in, without a shadow of the doubt, the worst goalkeeping performance of all time – including talking, yes – you did read that right, as a ball that I could easily have saved (taking nothing away from the shot Grant) flew past me into the net. In true Lehmann style – I passed the blame onto my teammates.
Anyway – back to the scientific exercise – I think we have conclusively proved that a team of (mostly) defenders can’t play together. Me and Rich N up front, Todd and Rich A at the back. Yep. That’ll work. What was our strategy – the element of surprise maybe? That’s not to say we didn’t have movement – we had to move to find space – space at the back as 6 defenders lined up in front of the keeper. Shirts played well – but spent most of the night working out how to plot a course through the Hampton Court Maze that was our defence.
Remarkably, all looked OK at 2-2, but then Taibi went in goal and 2-2 became 3-2. And then 4 -2, although this reporter is not taking the blame for Russ’ last minute goal – as, having spent most of the night with 6 men at the back, we decided to have 6 men up front. Ok – we were pressing for the equaliser – but really?
And so 4 – 2 it ended. Deep frustration for many I’m sure. Or maybe just me.
Happy times at the post-match interviews with Andy N, matching the great Sir Stanley Matthews, still playing at 50. Long may it continue.
The BCGS received a very nice email from Dominos PR department asking us if we wanted to try out their new Meltdown – The Revenge pizza. As we recognise that sometimes food is pain we happily agreed. Expect some tears and much quaffing of beer in a house near you soon.
Get the full SP over at Burty’s blo
g.
Stumbled across this post on Chow the other day:
Chances are, you’ll never get to buy a bottle of Kate the Great, a Russian imperial stout from Portsmouth Brewery in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, even though it’s considered one of the best beers in the world by beer geeks. It was sold out a few hours before its official release on March 1. Fans had already reserved bottles for it the day before, so the folks who were planning on driving hours in the snow to stand in line for it were out of luck. The brewery produced 900 bottles of it, and there won’t be any more until next year. But just because you can’t buy it doesn’t mean you can’t get Kate the Great. You just need something to trade for it.
Beer trading, the practice of exchanging hard-to-find beers through the mail, is a growing phenomenon. On websites RateBeer and BeerAdvocate, enthusiasts list what beers they have and what beers they want, then email each other to arrange trades.
Three years ago, beer writer Tomm Carroll was surprised when one of the younger members of his local Culver City home-brewing club brought in a bottle of a delicious beer called Kentucky Breakfast Stout, from Founders Brewing in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The beer isn’t distributed west of the Mississippi. “I asked where he’d got it, and he said he did a trade,” says Carroll.
Sending beer through the USPS is illegal unless you’re a licensed distributor, although some states even bar shipments from licensed distributors. (That’s why when you’re buying wine online, they’ll only ship to some states.) However, home-brewers who have to send their beers to competitions have for years gotten around this by using private companies like FedEx and UPS and declaring their products, if anybody asks, as “yeast samples in liquid medium.” Beer traders use this loophole, as well as another one that allows people to ship “collectible bottles.” Of course, in this case, collectible bottles are sealed, and contain beer.
Gotta Have It
For the most part, trading is a friendly sport. The culture dictates that no money exchange hands. On the RateBeer site, talking about dollars in the beer trading forum will get you banned from the site forever, and most traders make a point of distinguishing themselves from the small black market for rare beer that exists on eBay.
Trading etiquette requires you include a surprise, or “extra,” inside boxes you ship: anything from another rare beer they didn’t think they were getting to a bottle of home-brew to a special glass or bumper sticker.
Trading gets as feverish and competitive as in any other hard-core collectibles market. “There’s a definite collector vibe that a lot of traders bring to the table,” says 24-year-old Rhode Island beer trader Phil Penny. “The ‘I gotta have it’ mentality.”
The more rare the beer, the more tradable it is, making brewery-release-only beers like Kate the Great some of the most sought after. Recently, release days like the one at Portsmouth Brewery have grown beyond locals-only events, drawing crowds and long lines, with some beer fans even flying in from other states. (The blog Beernews.org recently dubbed Kate one of the “Big Six” releases of the year, along with Sexual Chocolate, an imperial stout from Foothills Brewing in Winston Salem, North Carolina. The latter was listed as a “want” by a staggering 845 people on BeerAdvocate.)
A beer can also become a hot commodity if it’s high in alcohol, barrel aged, and/or contains esoteric ingredients: all characteristics that are trends in the craft beer industry in general, but especially so in the trading community where experimental and extreme often go hand in hand with rare. In the case of Tactical Nuclear Penguin, a limited release from Scotland’s BrewDog that is 32 percent alcohol (it’s made through freezing the beer to remove some of the water), novelty even trumps quality: TNP only received a B rating out of 13 reviews on BeerAdvocate. Nonetheless, 91 people list it as a “want” (and 15 as a “have”).
The hype around limited-release beer has gotten so loud—thanks in large part to online beer traders—that savvy breweries can create instant hits without having to wait years for acceptance. The Bruery, a well-regarded two-year-old craft brewery in Placentia, California, somehow managed to have one of the biggest releases of the year for its Black Tuesday imperial stout last September, though it was the beer’s first year out the door.
The Bruery previewed the beer in its tasting room a few weekends before its release for a sampling of its most loyal customers, says sales and marketing manager Benjamin Weiss. On the day it was released, it had weirdly risen to become one of the top 10 beers in the world on BeerAdvocate based on reviews from those few people who had had an early sampling, even though the beer was not, and had never been, released.
“This beer rivals some of the greats including: The Abyss, KtG, Firestone 11, Dark Lord, Darkness, and KBS (I’m sure I’m leaving out a few). I have a feeling Black Tuesday is going [to] create some sort of frenzy on this site…so if you can, get your hands on this stuff. It truly is that good. Cheers!” wrote one reviewer.
As this video shows, the day the beer was actually released was a madhouse. Selling out was a foregone conclusion. Although that doesn’t mean you can’t get it. If you’ve got some Darkness from Surly Brewing you care to part with, I know somebody who needs some yeast samples.
Photograph of Sexual Chocolate by Christopher Rochelle, CHOW.com
