I received my BIF package a couple weeks back, and this was certainly a good one. (H/T to that magnificent bastard: IoBot). Extra props for the packing, I had to get the “big ass” knife out to get these out of the packaging. I will eventually go through all but wanted to focus on one in particular.
This is my review of Rockaway Brewing Company “Bungalow Nights” Habanero Imperial Stout.
This shoudn’t go together, should it? Maybe.
Chilies are believed to be first cultivated in Mexico or Central America and were eventually cultivated and incorporated into various cuisines around the world due to the Columbian Exchange. The Columbian Exchange in this case is not drug related, other than perhaps tobacco or if you happen to be one of those freaks that eats chillies to polish their rocks.
These people do exist, and there are a variety of reasons for doing it: people get pleasure out of pain which results in an endorphin rush, they might simply like the taste, the health benefit, or just for the challenge between friends. In my case it was typically for bragging rights between me and several cousins as to who could drink the most hot sauce. A custom recently alluded with regard to a certain fake 
Mexican. Unfortunately, that tended to leave us devoid of hot sauce and left the adults in a precarious position. Due to my grandmother’s allergy to chillies (it closes her airway) if anybody wanted a hot taco at a family gathering it could only come in the form of hot sauce added after the fact.
There are two ways to determine how hot a chilli pepper can be. The first are Scoville units, which is an objective measurement of the amount of capsicum in the pepper. The other? Eat it and find out if one is hotter than another. For reference, the common jalapeño is around 3500 Scoville units, while a bell pepper is 0–an habanero is a rather intimidating 100,000…
On that scale we find this pepper isn’t the highest or even particularly high. That honor goes to the Carolina Reaper, which is a hybrid of the ghost pepper and the Red Habanero. While it may sound like weapons grade pepper spray at 1-2 million Scoville units, the cops spray people with 5 million.
While I have reviewed a chilli beer before, this one is quite a bit different. Unlike the Sriracha beer, this one has a heavier stout to back it, and much as I found out when I experimented with habaneros in salsa, a little bit goes a long way. The imperial stout is heavily roasted with a lot of chocolate and and notes of dark fruit. The peppers give it an interesting mouthfeel with a tingling sensation on the tongue followed an overwhelming stout. Even though it may not be my first choice, I might even go so far as to say I enjoyed drinking it but beware—this is not for everyone. Rockaway Brewing Company “Bungalow Nights” Habanero Imperial Stout: 3.5/5.
Comments
143 responses to “Hot Stuff”
It’s no fun to get a first if no one else is trying
I actually try to avoid them.
Sure you do
I would have been first but this article was not published at 7 pm sharp.
The imperial stout is heavily roasted with a lot of chocolate and and notes of dark fruit. The peppers give it an interesting mouthfeel with a tingling sensation on the tongue followed an overwhelming stout. Even though it may not be my first choice, I might even go so far as to say I enjoyed drinking it but beware—this is not for everyone.
This sounds delicious.
Shit. I’m first loser.
Nah, I was not on topic.
Sounds like it’s better than the trend (for a brief while) to just go ghost and reaper peppers into a beer and sell it. After having several terrible examples of those, I got a lot more selective in my chili beer purchases. Founder’s Mango Magnifico is really good, just not for a full 750 ml bottle, and Rouge’s Chipotle Ale is another solid representation of the style.
Speaking of the BIF. I’ve heard no remarks from anyone not receiving their packages, so I’m going to assume that all of the packages were shipped, and consider the BIF complete. Thanks everyone for participating.
I’m most of the way through drinking my BIF beers. It’s been good. Thank you for running it and thanks to Bob Boberson for sending me beer.
the problem with chilies in the States and western Europe is that when you buy them you know what you get. In Romania people don’t sell cultivars of hot peeper. They sell ardei iute and it is basically a lottery what you get. You never know, it can be not hot at all or very hot. I usually just taste it without any idea what I get, although you can smell it first and that may give some info. I like hot so that is not a problem, but mom does not. This is generally to do with Romanian habit of not making hot food but occasionally biting on a pepper while eating. So the general uncertainty makes things more interesting is what I am getting at. Life is like Romanian chilies , you never know what you gonna get.
So, for all that EU regulation stamping on your throat, you still don’t have any quality control.
When is Romania going to stop being Remainia?
When the EU tries to foist 10M muslim ‘migrants’ on them.
when a bunch of refugees made it to Romania thinking they were on their way to Germany they started crying and demanded to leave
Hotness can vary greatly from the same cultivar.
does soil and heat and water matter like in wine grapes?
Yes, when it’s hot and dry the peppers get more potent.
Yes it does. I have grown the same peppers in two spots 200 feet apart with different soil and it makes a lot of difference.
I’ve grown Jalapeños right next to each other in the same raised bed. One would smoke your hair, the other had zero heat. Eating pickled peppers that year was like playing Russian roulette.
You’re supposed to pick a peck of them. That way they average out.
“We’ve obtained exclusive footage of @CarpeDonktum and @realDonaldTrump’s now infamous meeting.”
https://twitter.com/realPowerTie/status/1147249782357921792
“I want to thank the White House staff for being SO helpful and taking such great care of us before and during our visit. Thank you @realDonaldTrump for taking the time to see me and for giving us all such an amazing opportunity. Truly one of the greatest moments of my life.”
https://twitter.com/CarpeDonktum/status/1146975913986449408
I guess I’m out of it. Who is carpedonktum?
He’s a shitposter that makes pro-Trump memes.
Rockaway Brewing Company “Bungalow Nights” Habanero Imperial Stout.
Good grief.
SLD- I know, I know- if nobody bought/drank it, they wouldn’t make it.
I fall back on Mencken’s dictum: Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.
I thought that was PT Barnum
I thought that was Mark Twain.
I thought that was Will Rogers.
I thought that was Hitler.
I thought it was the DNC.
I thought it was Chuck Lorre, the guy responsible for “Two and a Half Men” and “Big Bang Theory”.
I use a scotch bonnet sauce instead of the peppers, generally. The peppers (at 500K or so) are simply too hot for most palates. A little sauce at the table, however, can really make the taste.
Nice review, Mexi! Too hot and humid for a stout, but I’ll remember it for the dark days.
So persona beer story, speaking of not knowing what you gonna get. Went to this overpriced beer bar in Bucharest, looked at the board above the bar and ordered a double IPA. The bar has a menu detailing beers but I did not look at it. Anyhoo the beer comes and the fuckin thing’s green. There ought to be a (purity) law… Also it had traces of Mango in it. Taste was not that good. Would not recommend.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1-Mwc_INPOGH8yE_rl_6ikrHUG3R7JZCD
this shit
https://www.ratebeer.com/beer/brewski-way-way-green/702990/
?
The tend towards New England IPA’s (hazy, almost opaque, with a lot of fruit forward notes) is one that appears to already be fading. While good ones are delicious, too many breweries were putting out poor examples of the style.
also that 20 cl glass which I think is not even 7 of your fluid ounces cost me 20 RON
/does currency conversion
Ouch.
Just say no.
I don’t enjoy IPAs. I like to drink beer and I like to eat pumpernickle bread, just not at the same time.
YAY! This is one I was most interested in hearing about as my tender old-man tummy no longer likes to have capsicum in it. RBB also does a vanilla, oak aged variant of which i am quite fond. Also, they are only a few blocks from my house so I don’t have to drive there.
It wasn’t overpowering at all. Overall you sent a great scored. Thanks!
Yeah, I don’t get any pleasure out of burning my mouth. I must be broken.
I like some of the milder hot sauces. I have an Aldi brand vinegar hot sauce on my eggs every morning. However, the stuff that lingers after the meal and reappears out the other end a few hours later is not for me.
I’m a total chili head. ? them, and do not suffer any ill “after effects”.
I’ll eat the peppers or put them in sauces. I also like the dried chili powders and hot ??sauces.
I’ll go all the way up to reaper or scorpions. Although, that level is where I just add them to sauces finely diced.
For reaper or scorpions, I’ll add one single finely diced pepper to a full batch of chili, and that gets the heat to a nice level. I’ve even brought it to parties as a dip (with ~1/2 lb of shredded cheese melted on top in a pie pan) and some of the kids were eating it (after being warned it was hot).
Apropos?
Ooops! hot stuff
Anyhoo the beer comes and the fuckin thing’s green. There ought to be a (purity) law… Also it had traces of Mango in it. Taste was not that good. Would not recommend.
Gack
Here’s one for all of us Cali glibs.
I hope everyone is safe and that your homes haven’t been fucked up too badly.
Not too bad here. Couple of things fell, the kid freaked out badly. He cried all the way through.
Thanks BTW.
And now I’m on the verge of crying, thinking about your wee lad being frightened. I’ve never been through an earthquake. I landed at Ft Ord about a few days after the Loma Prieta quake in ’89 and found there was big crack running through the facade of our 3 story barracks. I don’t want to feel the Earth quake. I’m glad y’all are ok.
Yeah we just found a large-ish crack going across our ceiling. Looks like the it’s just the plaster. Our house is on pilings so it moved a lot.
Pilings? Like a crawlspace?
Yeah. Our house is on a slight hill. I can stand up in some places under the far back of the crawlspace. I store my swap meet motorcycle parts under there.
The back of the lot is prolly 15 feet lower than the curb out front.
Strange thing – I grew up in CA and earthquakes don’t really freak me out. Now tornadoes? That is some freaky shit.
Just the opposite here. I could probably count on one hand the number of noticeable earthquakes that I’ve experienced in my life. Biggest was a 4.2 or so.
Although I’ve never seen an actual on the ground tornado, I’ve seen plenty of descending/ascending funnel clouds, and plenty of debris trails strewn by tornadoes. I’ll go sit in the carport and watch when the sirens go off.
There was a tornado half a mile from my house that I didn’t find out about until 2 days later. For some strange reason my sister was pissed when I laughed about my lack of awareness.
I told her immediately about the tornadoes a week later.
Been here all my life. Barely remember the ’71 quake, the ’94 one was brutal and all the rest are just minor. Every 20-25 years to endure a decent sized one is not bad. Parts of FLA have hurricanes almost every year.
My grandparents lived in Northridge.
I spent 8 consecutive weekends there helping them clean up, and barely put a dent in it. The worst was the chimney in the pool. They were lucky that the slab didn’t crack; the next door neighbors on each side had to rebuild.
I got my Tesla Powerwalls installed yesterday.
I turned to the kids, and said “I sure hope there’s an earthquake, so we can test them out”.
I soon as I finished saying it, the ground started shaking.
My kids think I’m god.
You’re only Jesus, my son.
My kids think I’m god.
Don’t get carried away with the smiting.
Giant Meteor 2020!
“IPA” doesn’t even seem to convey any useful information, anymore (if it ever really did).
The only way to know is to drink up.
It does, the problem is there’s so many qualifiers to IPA at this point you need to trust the brewery and/or the bar to label it correctly. Off the top of my head: session, black, double, triple, Imperial, red, New England, brut, hazy, juicy, white, wheat, fruit[ed], American, English, west coast, midwest, Californian style, and traditional (the worst description ever). And most of those can be mix and matched, so you could have (and I’ve seen) a session double IPA.
Candidate for State Rep knocked on my door yesterday evening. I grew up three houses down from him but never really knew him because he was much younger. When I opened the door the look on his face was incredulity. We had not seen each other in 40 years. We shook hands and spoke about the old neighborhood.
The fella we had for state rep is one I would rather keep but he is bowing out. I decided yeah, I will vote for this guy. He is very strongly pro-2ndA. That sold me.
After he left I took his brochure to the wife.
Pro-life
Pro-2A
Less tax, less regulation
reduce govt dependency (welfare)
Localize education
Reduce govt overall
Wife is sold. I guess I am too. I don’t know where else in the country you can find these kind of people. We will see if he lives up to his word.
Certainly not in my area.
Plenty of ’em, I bet. They just don’t win.
No, they don’t even run. It’s a lot of effort for a sure loss.
It always sounds like you like in a very rural area yet still have politicians going house to house knocking on doors. Amazing. I couldn’t pick the idiots supposedly representing me out of a lineup.
Very rural area. That is one way to put it.
nassim taleb argues that people are happier living in apartments in high density cities than at some distance from their neighbors so very rural is bad 🙂
I am a masochist
You could do worse than him.
Shit. I forgot to sugar coat that.
hates children
hates women
hates the poor
hates the poor
hates children
hates the poor
OT:
OMG. *makes note to invest in corn futures*
Interesting look at Pridemania! in the rear-view mirror.
My hope, then, is that the obsession with identity will die down. And a day will come when people are finally judged by the content of their character — not by the object of their desires. I hope. But I don’t hold my breath.
Cosigned.
Im also fascinated by how many companies went all out for Pride this year. It’s like it was coordinated or something. Nah, couldn’t be. Big tech companies wouldn’t dare take an explicit political stance. They’re just neutral content hosting entities.
relevant
Not just big tech. Mainstream companies turning their logos (the same ones that the branding managers won’t allow reordering of elements or shade changes) rainbow this year. Wokeness infiltrating corporate America or cheap low cost way to try and gain points? I hoping it’s the cynical one.
Yes.
Two sides of the same coin.
“Debate”? Yeah sure. When the host says “Raise your hand if think peole with schlongs should be able to compere against people with vayjays in atheletics.” Anybody think any of them will have the cajones to not raise their hand? Of course they’ll all vehemently support Title 9 at the same time.
Whoever came up with this idea has to be a GOP plant.
I swear that after I finish this Whiskey River I will stop procrastinating and get some work done around my house.
that is way to much alcohol for beer. Also it it almost 2100 it is kind of late to start chores
I’ve gone higher and even higher.
Also went higher
I should have known before I clicked.
I expected Jackie Wilson
This is a good chili beer that I had once and would like to have again: Vengeance! Jalapeno Cream Ale. The jalapeño flavor is there, but there isn’t an overpowering heat. It’s there, but it doesn’t burn.
Okay, First three years in this house, computer and AC in living room circuit never tripped a circuit breaker. Now it’s done so twice in three days.
What can cause that? More importantly, how do I fix that?
Holy crap, half hour without AC and the living room is ten degrees hotter. But it’s only 86 outside.
right now here it 30 outside and 23 inside, the hour being 20:53.
One thing I’m really happy about with my house, is the insulation is amazing. From 09:00 – 13:00 when it’s in the lower 80’s, and the house is in the mid 70’s, the temperature will only creep up about 3 degrees over that time frame.
I moved the fan to the bedroom circuit, since it may have been there in previous years.
I hate trying to cool this house.
if it helps, my new AC unit in my bedroom works great and the way it is set up I feel no air flow and I can barely hear it.
Next week looks like some relief is coming.
Excessive current flow or faulty breaker most likely. Do you have a current meter, either clamp on or something like kill-o-watt?
I have neither at the moment.
Total up the rated amps off the faceplates & guestimate the rest of the load and see if it’s in the ballpark. Residential circuit, probably 15A or 20A breaker?
It’s a 15A breaker.
I was wondering if there would be any negative ramifications if I swapped it for a 20.
Wiring and receptacles probably aren’t rated for 20A, unless it’s overbuilt.
If the load isn’t close to where it should be tripping, you might want to investigate further. Faulty breaker or a genuine fault somewhere. Neither is great and masking the second with a higher rated breaker can lead to greater problems.
Given the wiring in this house I wouldn’t be surprised if it were overbuilt, or not even up to snuff for 15.
DO NOT do that. It might be because your a/c is cycling too much. It takes a bunch of juice to start and less to run. Paradoxically, turning the thermostat down to a lower temp might keep it from switching as much and stop breaking the circuit.
If a receptacle is rated for 20A the neutral slot (the one that is slightly longer) will be T shaped.
This is very unusual for residential.
You can change it out assuming the wiring is 12 gauge or higher. Residential can get away with 14 in most cases so if it is 12 or 10 you should be good to go changing the breaker and receptacle.
Turn off the main before you open the panel.
I think the code requires 20A for kitchen and baths now. GFI as well.
Our electrician has started using 12 gauge for all receptacles and to feed switches, he only really uses 14 for switch legs and between lights. cost a little more but he doesn’t have to keep switching back and forth or worry about running a bathroom off a bedroom on the same circuit. But unless USC’s house is only a few years old he probably only has 12 gauge in the kitchen.
It was first built 110 years ago and remodeled several times, but not within the past few years.
I think the code requires 20A for kitchen and baths now. GFI as well.
GFI is required for outdoors, and any “wet” room. I believe.they are all 20A as standard.
And to throw gas onto the fire, wife just turned the heat on in the house. Was warm on Thursday but has regressed to this unseasonable cool snap.
After reviewing what was plugged into the living room circuit, I found two items of higher draw that were not there in previous years. I’ve moved/unplugged them and will see if that fixes the issue.
Thermostat.
Like I even need to point that out.
Had this with Habenaro at Wicked Weed in Asheville, NC a few years back and it was very good. Some of the jalapeno beers I’ve had, I haven’t liked because they tasted too grassy.
https://www.wickedweedbrewing.com/beer/xibalba/
I liked the Wicked Weed pub in Asheville so much I stopped by there for a little bit each day I was in Asheville. I only ate there twice, the other days were just to drop in for a drink or three.
Yeah, we just had dinner and flights. Food was top notch. Walked to Hi-Wire Brewery afterwards. Not a big selection there but what I tried was good.
I stopped by Hi-Wire as part of the Asheville Brews Cruise tour. I don’t remember the other breweries we stopped at. I might have the list somewhere. Hi-Wire was my favorite of the four, and all four were pretty good.
I grow a variety of peppers, about 5 or so of the hotter ones. Being a MN guy I stick with the bells for myself. Mrs Fourscore said “Why do you grow the hot ones,you can’t even give them away”. She’s right, of course, but I enjoy the challenge plus she eats a few and I mail out a few.
If I have a bunch I’ll mail them to anyone that wants a sampler, in late September. For those attending the HH there will probably be a bucket with peppers in it.
Correction : there will be until I get there.
*drops gloves*
I’d fly back in to watch NoDak-on-MN crime…
That’s sounds like a promise, doesn’t it, Tundra?
Yep. Although she has it backwards.
She’d fly back out to watch NoDak-on-MN crime?
Hey man, whatever it takes to get the band back together.
Y’all are tempting me…
nba OT but how the ever loving fuck did Ivica Zubac get a 28 million contract?
Because of all the idiots that spend money on NBA products?
Whoops. I put this in the dead thread.
Good article on earthquakes in Eastern CA
https://www.wired.com/story/walker-lane-move-over-san-andreas-fault/
Make Otisberg great again!
Funny, now that the town of Ridgecrest is in the news….my father used to run one of the mines there. When he wasn’t working he would wander around in the desert with his pistol. Every time the subject comes up he asks “Did I ever tell you about the time I ran into the Manson family out there?”
“Yeah, you may have mentioned it a few thousand times.”
What were they mining? Borax?
Copper. He specialized in copper, gold and nickel.
I spent a summer there as a yute. I wonder how many of those holes in the ground have collapsed. People have been scratching around in those rocks for a couple of hundred years, there are holes everywhere and I can tell you for certain every single one of them has a hornets nest in it.
*Grandaddy’s advice: Never shoot a hornet’s nest. From as far away as you. can shoot it they will find you.
Sound advice
Did he dig the burro tunnel?
Copper’s interesting. One of my wife’s cousins by marriage works at Copper Mountain (near Princeton, B.C.); they “enrich” the ore to about 30% there and then ship it off to Japan to have it turned into 99.99% (electrical grade purity, from what I’m told) copper. There’s so much residual gold in the enriched product that the Japanese company simply keeps the gold as payment for purifying the copper, so no actual money changes hands.
I’m told that there’s some fairly unique geochemistry going on — if you find copper, you’ll most likely find zinc, silver and gold as well, in that order of decreasing concentration.
Very interesting article.
I’m thinking it’s a good time to be in Co, the wife is supposed to go back to Cali next week, yikes
There are still 2+ and 3+ aftershocks going on every minute or so. It’s just amazing.
Did you see how they’re moving north? Some, anyway
The article describes the pattern pretty well, north to Reno!