Most bang for you buck: the smartest franchises

This is a pretty interesting study about the "smartest" franchises in sports...all sports. If you look closely at their default parameters, they have the Cubs as dead last and the Blackhawks as first overall. Who's number two? The St. Louis Cardinals. Yep. We knew it was coming. Cubs and Cards on opposite sides of the coin.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-04-24/smartest-spenders-in-sports-2014

Blue Mountain State: The Movie Kickstarter campaign

I hope it gets made. Link to the Kickstarter page.

Friday singer-songwriter showcase

Inspired by capital_prototype's love of acoustic folky/reggae ballads I bring us our first FSSS (Friday singer-songwriter showcase). Really the only point here is to post any new singer-songwriters you have come across or any who you feel are underrepresented/unknown. I present to you two songs by Mason Jennings. Streetlight Manifesto covered the first song, but you'll just have to youtube it.





Feel free to showcase more!

Jarlsburg cheese dip

A few months ago, my cousin brought home this interesting dip called Jarlsburg cheese dip. I've never heard of this dip before let alone Jarlsburg cheese but decided to try it out. It was surprisingly good. She only bought it once and I never asked her where she got it. Something reminded me of it the other day so I embarked on a quest to find this cheese dip. It was a short adventure as I just texted her to see where she bought it. Turns out it was just Kroger. When I arrived at Kroger, I found that this dip is $7.99/lb. That's pretty ridiculous I thought so I decided to check out the ingredients. Three ingredients is all it takes to make Jarlsburg cheese dip; Jarlsburg cheese (duh), mayonnaise, and red onion. Should be easy and cheap enough to buy these ingredients, plus I already had mayonnaise at home. I googled "Jarlsburg cheese dip" and this was what greeted me:

Awesome. This is exactly what I am looking for. Someone had liked this Kroger Jarlsburg cheese dip enough to figure out the ingredients proportions and post it online. So I bought up what I needed and headed home. After mixing all the ingredients together (and dealing with the most eye-watering onion I've ever dealt with in my life) the dip was ready. Due to the extremely strong onion, I thought it tasted a little too onion-y from what I remembered it tasting like. Thankfully Sawsheezle had encountered a Manager's Special sale on this dip at Kroger and informed me of it. Now I could compare the actual dip to my attempt at recreating it. After eating a bit of it for lunch today on some Triscuits, I can say that my dip tastes almost identical. Mine is bit more dry though. Next time, I may add a bit more mayo. Here are some comparison pictures of the two dips. The Kroger version is first while my version is second. If you like Swiss cheese and the taste of onion, I suggest you head to your nearest Kroger and try this dip out for yourself. Or try and make it yourself like I did.

Mike's Pull Chain

Choo-choo motherfucker!  Next stop is an American Pale Ale from Mike's named Pull Chain. Pretty much the whole review is that second picture.  I don't know what was going on but my guess is a carbonation problem.  I let the bottle sit for a while and tried pouring it again and it fizzy bubbly-ed back up again.  Then I poured it into my mouth and it did the same thing in my mouth.

I love Pale Ale's and this one tasted pretty good so its a shame, but it seems to me you need to walk before you can crawl and I am not trying to drink foam so Mike, your disqualified brah.

Choo Choo!

Toms coffee (for real)

Inspired by the recent inspirational posts from cp.  For my birthday my sister in law Nikki bought me coffee from Toms.  Yes, that is the shoe company.

Toms buys a week of fresh water for someone in the country the beans come from for every bag of coffee you buy.  I suppose that means I am the savior to 4 lucky people this week.  That being said, I have only tried the one on the far right so far.  And damn was it good.  I am going to try 2 more of them today.  I can post with updates.

More information:

http://www.toms.com/toms-roasting-co/l

The one I tried is Malawi.  It is supposedly a light roast, but seemed more medium to me.

ps.  I need to work on my blogging skills.  Its been too long.  I'm about to get all crazy blog up on dis bitch.

Bent River, Uncommon Stout

The second stop on our six stop tour is a beer called Uncommon Stout by a Bent River.

Bent River Brewing Company is located on the Quad (Cities) in Moline, IL, so its a local in-state brew.  This was a very dry tasting stout and according to their website it is their oatmeal stout infused with coffee.  I love me some coffee and I really think that someone should be able to infuse the two to great effect.  I actually liked this beer, and while I dont usually like the drier stouts, I did enjoy this one and I enjoyed the coffee flavor. Still, I dont think that I've had the coffee stout that I believe is achievable.

I tried to look up what malts were used to make the oatmeal stout/this uncommon stout but I couldnt find the recipe online.  Do any of the 4 fur-thers no what usually gives dry stouts that dry flavor?  Is that what people even say, dry?  I personally think its from using a lot of a certain malt, e.g. chocolate malt, but I could be wrong.  It seems to me that there are only so many ingredients in beer so you really just need to balance your hops with your malts.

I also wish they would disclose the type of coffee they used in this beer, and I really don't understand why they would keep it anonymous.  Seems to me like the perfect kind of cross-pollination of products.  Hey, I really like Intelligentsia coffee, maybe I'll try this Uncommon Stout.  Man I really like Bent River Brewing Company, maybe I should buy a bag of intelligentsia coffee.     

Tommknocker Maple Nut Brown Ale

This is a new six part series inspired by the gift of a six pack and the mention that someone would like to bring back the fur. First up is what is labeled a Maple Nut Brown Ale by Tommyknocker. (First I must say I enjoy the name, especially as it was gifted on Tommyknocker's birthday.)

This beer reminded me of a beer I've already tasted, and I'm pretty sure it must be Newcastle, the famous maker of brown cola ales. If you look at the second picture, it looks like a coke, no head and fizzy wizzy.  You could kind of taste the maple syrup they added to the brown ale, but overall it just kind of tasted like a Newcastle with a slight hint of maple syrup.  

Maybe we should try to put some maple syrup in a Newcastle sometime?

Stay tuned for the rest of the six pack!