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A monster saison
A new Godzilla movie comes out today! I'm a fan of the kaiju classics, so I've got my ticket for tonight. Babysitting realities prevented me from going to any of the advance screenings this week, but no matter – I've been prepping for tonight by watching Showa-era Toho kaiju movies for weeks with my thirteen-month-old. He's enjoying them so much that he now smiles every time he sees the Toho Company logo, laughs when he hears an Akira Ifukube score, and kicks happily when he sees Godzilla's head (sure signs that I'm doing something right as a dad).
Last night while watching Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, I also tapped the first glass of my new dry-hopped saison Le Petit Kaiju. This was an update of last year's Le Petit Plésiosaure, a Summit-hopped pseudo-clone of Brooklyn Sorachi Ace I brewed and bottled to give as favors at my wife's baby shower. Why kaiju this time? Not just because of Godzilla's return to the big screen. See, we've been calling our little one "kaiju" for as long as I can remember. And replacing the peaceful, cuddly Loch Ness Monster I featured on the Plésiosaure label with the shrieking, atomic-breathed, stomping lord of destruction Godzilla seemed very fitting now that he's a toddler.
The grain bill for the saison was the same as last time. I mashed in with 11.75 lbs (5.33 kg) of Belgian pilsner malt for a single rest at 148°F (64°C) for 90 minutes, which is recommended at lower temperatures to ensure full conversion of the starches. I added a pound of dextrose at the beginning of the boil to bring the OG up to 1.067. And lest you turn your nose up at the dextrose, let me say that I believe kettle sugar does wonderful things to the right beer recipe (i.e., dry), and I follow the teachings of Randy Mosher, who said in his book Radical Brewing that Belgian candi sugar – which many would use in a similar recipe – is "a complete rip-off". Dextrose or evaporated cane sugar for light beers, or a little piloncillo or demerara for darker beers, have never done me wrong if I keep those simple sugars to less than 25% of the fermentables.
I duplicated the Summit bittering hops of Plésiosaure with .4 oz (11.3 g) of 16% AA pellets at 60 minutes, but changed up the later hop additions to pay homage to Gojira's Japanese island roots. While Sorachi Ace – a Japanese cultivar – would have been perfect, I'm still having trouble sourcing them. I did, however, manage to get my hands on some 15% AA Pacific Jade from New Zealand. It's still Eastern hemisphere and Pacific rim, and has a profile reminiscent of Sorachi Ace, if not quite as sublime. I added 0.4 oz (7 g) at 30 minutes and 3 oz (85 g) at flameout.
I pitched a starter of White Labs WLP565 and fermented for 3 weeks before dry hopping with my last ounce (28 g) of the Pacific Jade hops, which sat in the fermenter for 2 more weeks. The FG was 1.005, leaving this kaiju saison a monster at 8.2% ABV, even stronger than last year's batch.
Surprisingly, Le Petit Kaiju is very easy drinking, as I found out last night. It poured a lovely golden straw color. A little cloudier and thicker than I expected, but this was the first glass off the keg so there was a lot of sediment in suspension.
The head dissipated very quickly, so more time on the CO2 will do it good. But the aroma is sweet and citrusy, almost like lemonade, with a lot of yeasty character. As for the flavor, it's spicy and lemony, bold and memorable. But it's not quite dry enough. At first I was shocked by the heavy mouthfeel given the low FG, but then I remembered all the yeast in suspension. I'm hoping once the dregs are drawn off and I get some clear beer out of this keg, it will have the dry character I'm looking for. I've got a lot more Toho movies to show my little kaiju this summer, and I'm going to need lots of refreshment.
On-Tap Recap: Beers for the aging former headbanger
I was a metal kid in the late 80's. Although I liked the music, it was the album art that drew me in. Iron Maiden, Dio, Ozzy, any album with demons or creepy magical glyphs on the cover was fair game for my tape collection when I was about twelve. See, back in the late 80's before Viggo Mortensen and Peter Dinklage, it was hard out there for fantasy geeks. We didn't strut proudly down the street shaking our D&D dice in their little bag, shouting about how geeky we were to passersby. Just being seen with a paperback of The Lord of the Rings was enough to get your ass kicked. But wearing a T-shirt or pin with album art from a metal band was, if not exactly "cool", at least likely to scare people away so they'd leave you alone. It was a subtle way to get your geek on while people around you just assumed you were into something more socially acceptable than fantasy, like consuming heavy drugs or worshipping Satan.
The parental shock value of the album art was a factor as well. As an honor-roll student in the suburbs of a southern American city, there were few ways I could terrify my parents more than by hanging a life-size poster of Iron Maiden's mascot Eddie the Head next to my bed, where it hung for almost ten years. My wife – who has been with me since we were teenagers – still has fond memories of that poster, recalling our first evenings as a couple (studying, always studying) under the leering visage of Eddie in his Somewhere in Time cyborg form. And they say teenage boys know nothing of romance.
Today is the twentieth anniversary of my first date with that wonderful woman I married, so I'm celebrating the past by recapping two beers that I think the twelve-year-old me who bought that poster would be proud of.
Eddie himself stars in my first tasting, snarling at me in 19th-century dragoon uniform from the label of a pint-sized bottle of Trooper by Robinsons Brewery, named for – and featuring the art from the 1983 single release of – the Iron Maiden song "The Trooper".
Billed by Robinsons as a hand-crafted real ale "developed" by Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson with "true depth of character", it sounded about right for my taste. It poured a deep orange-gold with a thicker head than I expected, with the brassy, crackery aroma I love in an English ale. The taste was fine, a little astringent and earthy with a hint of slick, oily mouthfeel like one gets with oats in the grain bill, though I don't know if there were any in this one. I don't know about "true depth of character" but it was a pleasant enough pint at a sessiony 4.7% ABV. A friend of mine who is both a homebrewer and an Iron Maiden obsessive described the beer as "not as good as you want it to be", and that was true. It's a gimmick, plain and simple, and I bought into it; the beer was pleasant but not as remarkable as the song it's named for. I could drink it again, but would rather drink my own English-style homebrew … though I will save the bottle.
Drawn in a style reminiscent of a seventeenth-century woodcut, a three-headed demon towers over a burning sea of tortured mortals beneath a ring of runes and glyphs on the label of Blakkr Imperial Black Ale, a collaborative brew between the self-proclaimed "unholy trinity" of Three Floyds Brewing in Indiana, Surly Brewing in Minnesota, and Real Ale Brewing in Central Texas, brought together by their "love of brewing and love of metal". The black double IPA is available in 4-packs of – what else? – metal cans. Twelve-year-old me would totally have worn a pin of this label on his jean jacket.
How's the beer? Well, it's black. With a thick beige head and a citrus aroma that leans towards bitter orange and lime. But it's surprisingly drinkable for an imperial brew with an ABV of 9%. I don't find it syrupy at all. There's a crisp bitterness on the front end from traditional American pale ale hops, though as I empty the glass and my palate becomes fatigued, I notice the hops less and the roastiness of black malts comes to the foreground, like a dessert of dark chocolate cake after a pungent salad. But for all that, the beer isn't that memorable. It's tasty, and I would drink it again (good thing since I have three more) but I'm not sure that it lives up to the awesomeness of the label art.
Which means we have a trend here. Wicked art that satisfies your inner twelve-year-old and tie-ins with your favorite metal band are neat, but only get you so far in craft beer. Both beers could have been worse, but could have been better. I've learned I'll buy a beer once on a gimmick, but I won't rush out and buy it again. And it seems that you can't judge a beer by its label.
On-Tap Recap: Ommegang Game of Thrones vs. homebrew
HBO's Game of Thrones came back with season four last night. Hordes gathered in the homes of HBO subscribers for viewing parties, cosplayers donned their finest, and social media lit up as the geekosphere celebrated the return of a beloved show to weekly television.
Beer geeks had reason to celebrate too, as the show's return meant the release of the third installment in Brewery Ommegang's series of Game of Thrones-themed seasonal beers. Dubbed Fire & Blood, the latest release pays homage to House Targaryen – that's the one with the dragons – with ancho chilis (presumably the fire) in a Belgian-style red ale (the blood).
The color of this beer is absolutely striking. When I hear "red ale" I'm usually imagining some middle-of-the-road amber kind of beer. This one was deep, dark red. Beautiful ruby highlights – impossible to see in the picture above, unfortunately – beckoned me to smell and taste it. This was an exercise in delayed gratification, because the rocky head was so thick and persistent I had to wait several minutes before it subsided enough to drink. So I contented myself with smelling it, taking in the tart lemon freshness and barely detectable hint of chili pepper.
I hate to say it, but I found Fire & Blood drinkable and yet unremarkable. The flavors promised on the label and website – spicy chili, "assertive" hops, dark fruit – just didn't manifest for me. The chili pepper was detectable only when I looked hard for it. The hop presence was faint and the dark fruit notes were muted by the extreme dryness of the beer.
Not that disappointment came as a surprise. I love everything I've ever had with the Ommegang label on it except for the three GoT beers they've released. The first – Iron Throne Blonde Ale, released in March 2013 – was decent enough but sort of ruined for me by excessive hype. Take the Black Stout, released last fall, was interesting with its star anise and licorice, but fell short of my expectations. I'm glad Ommegang is making these beers, because anything that promotes awareness of craft beer is good. But I keep hoping that one day they'll brew one that delivers as intense and memorable an experience as the show itself.
So what's a Zyme Lord to drink when watching the rest of the new season? Not to worry! I've got my own GoT-themed beer on tap: Wit Walker Wight Ale (recipe here).
This beer that I made primarily to have something sessionable on hand for parties has turned out to be one of my own main pours these days. It's an enticing cloudy straw color (again the photo above does it little justice) with a thick fizzy white head that dissipates quickly. There's a faintly footy Belgiany aroma coupled with a hint of clove and spice. When it hits the palate, the blood orange comes out in full force – not overpowering the beer, but providing a backdrop of bitter citrus and zest that bounces effervescently on the tongue. I'll be glad to finish a keg (or two?) of this beer as the season progresses.
It isn't often that I face off one of my homebrews with a commercial beer. But when I do, it's encouraging that my own beer can come out the winner. Don't get me wrong, I love Ommegang and will continue to support their efforts to bringing beer awareness to GoT fans and vice versa. When the fourth GoT beer comes out this fall, I'll buy a bomber or two. I'm just that big of a geek – for beer and for the show. But as a backup, it'll be nice to have my own GoT-themed beer on tap so I can drink the beer I want, when I want. After all, that's what homebrewing is about.
On-Tap Recap: 24 hours on the West Coast
I took a trip for my day job last week to San Diego, an area known to many as the home of Stone Brewing Company. Stone is of course a force to be reckoned with in craft brewing, and some have called them synonymous with the American IPA style. But before I got deep in pints of the old powerhouse, I celebrated the relative local freshness of some beers from my other favorite West Coast breweries.
The first beer I had after landing was a Firestone Walker 805. These guys aren't actually located in San Diego; their brewery is in Paso Robles in the Central Coast area of California (which, having lived in Southern California, I can tell you is considered practically a different state). But Firestone Walker is a perennial favorite of mine. I routinely stock several bombers from them in my cellar (their Wookey Jack Black Rye IPA pairs astoundingly well with a coffee-chipotle rubbed steak we cook at chez Zyme Lord twice a month). So I appreciated the chance to drink a Firestone somewhat closer to its home than usual. 805 is a blonde ale – not my favorite style but appropriate before dinner – and it exemplified the style: light, with a hint of noble hop character. The color was darker than I expect from a blonde, but that could have been the fault of dim lighting in the hotel bar where I drank it. The beer was also flat, which I'm sure was the fault of the hotel bar. Unfortunately, the lack of carbonation made the light apple-fruity notes common in blonde ales (and part of why I don't care for them) ever more apparent. Too bad … but I'll try it again if I find it on tap at a more trustworthy establishment.
My second beer, also at the hotel bar, was a Fathom India Pale Lager from Ballast Point. This is a San Diego brewery, and if I'd had more time in the city I would have loved to pay them a visit. They produce fine beers from their easy-drinking Sculpin IPA to the South Asian punch-in-the-face Indra Kunindra, and Fathom did not disappoint. I've been generally skeptical of this newcomer style called IPL, but Fathom showed me exactly why lager yeast is an exciting addition to a hop-forward beer. The ferment was clean and crisp, allowing the hops to take the stage with no estery fruitiness or sweetness like you may find in even the best made IPAs. I also found the malt profile perfectly calibrated to let the hops and lager crispness shine: there was very little crystal malt if any. Maybe some dextrin or Cara-pils in very slight amounts, but none of the caramel that plagues so many American IPAs (not the best made ones). As for the hops so deftly spotlighted, they exploded with delightful grapefruit and lemon verbena aroma and flavor, a similar profile to my memories of Sculpin. I wondered how similar the worts are for those two beers before yeast is pitched. I won't say Fathom has made me give up my IPAs for their bottom-fermented cousins, but I am no longer skeptical.
My last beer before leaving San Diego – indeed, from the Stone Brewing Co. brewpub in the airport – was Stone Go-To IPA. A new offering this year in another trendy hop-forward style, the session IPA. I enjoyed it, finding it exactly what it purports to be: a beer with a ton of hop flavor and aroma that you can't quite pin descriptors on but that you can drink all day. Pleasant, but it didn't really surprise me. And I'm not sure I'd "go to" this session IPA sooner than another such as Founders All Day IPA. But I'm a fan of the session IPA trend; I prefer session beers and am glad they're making a comeback. It's a welcome change from the imperial everythings we've been getting so much of on shelves and in gatherings of homebrewers for so long. And at 4.5% ABV, it was perfect to get me in the mood for several hours of red-eye flights back home.
A craft beer for every palate … and a palate for every craft beer?
Great news for craft beer lovers earlier this week: NPR reported that craft beer sales jumped 20 percent in 2013, and now make up almost 8 percent of beer sales in America, according to numbers released by the Brewers Association.
These days, there's a craft beer for practically every palate — and price range.
It got me wondering. What does "a craft beer for practically every palate" mean? Is craft beer growing because consumers are finding their favorite among a wide range of options and then drinking only that beer from then on out? Or because consumers are more adventurous and willing to try new things? Or some combination of the two?
In my day job, I work with marketing and product development people enough to know that modern businesses position themselves for success by offering a diverse portfolio of products. Today's consumers demand customization. An electronics company won't just make smartphones; they'll make tablets, TVs, or laptops, or all of the above. A company that makes messenger bags offers a variety of similar bags with different colors, patterns, and compartments. Companies that make chewing gum make four thousand varieties of chewing gum. The idea is simple: no matter who you are, we have a product for you.
But most people only need one smartphone, or tablet, or messenger bag – at least one at a time. As consumable commodities, beers are something you always go back to buy more of. Still, craft breweries follow a similar model by offering a variety of beers: a stout, a wheat, a pale ale or two, etc. On the surface, the idea seems to be the same: no matter what kind of beer you like, we brew one for you. And I'm sure that accounts for the growing popularity of craft beer among most beer consumers. There are "Sierra Nevada Pale Ale men" out there the way there used to be "Bud men", and that's a great thing.
But there are other craft beer consumers, and I've mentioned them once already: the chamomile-and-white-sage-IPA hipsters. Hardcore beer geeks. Bearded and/or bespectacled, wearing shirts emblazoned with zymurgic shibboleths like "OG/FG" in the AC/DC font or with the logos of obscure breweries. Using words no one else uses, like Brett, goaty and attenuated, and otherwise talking about discontinued seasonals like some people talk about vintage comic books ("No, Tyler, you're thinking of the Great Divide 16th Anniversary Wood Aged Double IPA, not the 18th.")
These folks – maybe you know one, maybe you are one (guilty as charged here) – but the point is that we don't just drink one kind of beer, no matter how good we think it is. We approach the beer aisle of our favorite store like entomologists on a hunt for some rare insect. We buy things we haven't seen before. We may be disappointed or nonchalant. We may not buy it again. But we know it's worth it to slog through nine six-packs of mediocre beer to find that tenth beer that absolutely wows us. And we buy a lot of beer.
For us, variety and innovation are the whole point. That's probably why many of us homebrew. And we would be no happier in a world with only one beer even if that one beer was Pliny the Elder instead of Bud Light. (Okay, maybe we'd be a little happier.) But where do our palates fit in with the concept of "practically every palate"? Or is there a line on the spectrum for us whose palates are motivated by the love of all beer and are excited by beers that are both innovative and exceptionally brewed?
It's not that I'm questioning the wording of the NPR article, far from it. It's a great article shedding light on an issue that's very important to me, and I appreciate NPR devoting space to it. I'm just wondering.
I'd love to see statistics on how much of craft beer's growth is due to brand allegiance from consumers buying one kind of beer, and how much is due to consumers buying a lot of different beers. Someone must have a graph.
What do you think, Internet? Does anyone out there know?
Shamrock the house
Sláinte! It's Saint Patrick's Day.
If you're a regular reader of this blog, you may know that March 17 is one of the three days of the year I proudly proclaim myself Irish by bullshit, the other two being February 2 (James Joyce's birthday) and June 16 (Bloomsday).
It may seem I'm trying too hard, but my wife claims a slice of Irish heritage and therefore of course so does my son. I'm outnumbered and I have to try this hard just to keep up. So we've got a lot planned in the Zyme Lord house. Here's how we're celebrating this year, aside from the obvious ways (i.e., wearing green and drinking something fermented):
My wife is preparing a beef-and-stout stew with turnips, rutabagas and carrots, served alongside cabbage sautéed with bacon and garlic. Props to the slow cooker – and the wife – for making it happen.
As an appetizer, we'll make our way through at least one of the two loaves of stout soda bread I baked last night. I stayed up late to do it, but judging by the way the kitchen smells today it will be worth the loss of sleep. We've also got some aged Irish cheddar cheese with Oscar Wilde's face on it (on the label, not on the cheese) to go with it.
We're rapidly approaching the end of the current keg of Anna Livia Irish Stout. We'll either empty it today or have fun trying.
Just before bed, I'll toast to my faux Irish heritage with a dram of Jameson Distillery Reserve. It's only available from the Jameson visitor's center in Dublin, so I've been saving mine for special occasions. My eleven-month-old son's first Saint Patrick's Day certainly qualifies.
Speaking of the little leprechaun, he's sporting his shamrock onesie and learning how to rock out to the Pogues.
And the Gaelic fun won't end at midnight. Yesterday I bottled entry samples of Anna Livia Irish Stout and another Celtic-inspired beer (Thane McCrundle's Wee Heavy) for the Celtic Brew Off homebrew competition in Arlington, Texas in April. I'm filling out the entry paperwork today. Anyone got a four-leaf clover to send me for good luck?
Finally, because the Anna Livia stout is almost gone and the wife has expressed some trepidation about facing an entire month without it, I'm already making plans for the next batch. Fortunately I have all the ingredients on hand except the yeast, so I'll work it into the pipeline as soon as I can.
After all this is over – though the soda bread may well last through the week – I'll go back to being Italian until June 16.
Well, okay, I might let myself be Scottish by bullshit for a weekend in early May for the Texas Scottish Festival and Highland Games, but other than that …
On-Tap Recap: Mardi Gras ("Show us your cans")
Last week's On-Tap Recap was postponed due to a family vacation. We took our eleven-month-old to our native New Orleans for his first Mardi Gras. You read that right: a baby at Mardi Gras. If that surprises you, if all you know of Fat Tuesday in New Orleans is what you've seen on late-night television, be aware that the booze-soaked, boob-baring buffoonery is generally limited to a downtown district called the French Quarter and primarily attracts tourists. For the locals, Mardi Gras is all about the parades uptown: hours-long processions of colorful floats filled with masked revelers peppered with the best marching bands and the weirdest dance troupes from Louisiana and beyond. Families come in droves with kids, coolers and box after box of Popeyes fried chicken. Beads are thrown, but no one has to debase themselves for them. And while there is lots of drinking, it is as one local friend put it, "A family friendly drunkenness". It's no more improper than your average sporting event tailgate party.
Beer is the beverage of choice for most uptown parade-goers (unless you catch the "merry band of hipsters" called Box of Wine, who march carrying the eponymous boxes giving free pours to anyone with a cup) and New Orleans open container laws prohibit glass, so cans are the norm. This gave me an opportunity to catch up on the state of brewing in Louisiana (and beyond) by trying a few canned craft beers that I can't easily get in Texas. In the interest of curbside refreshment between bouts of scrounging for plastic trinkets thrown from motor vehicles, I gravitated towards pale ales.
Louisiana doesn't have as extensive a craft beer culture as Texas does, but it's growing. I'm excited to watch it from afar, since the seeds of my love for craft beer were sown during my formative years in the Crescent City. Fittingly, the control for my taste test was an IPA I know well: Jockamo IPA from Abita Brewing in Abita Springs, Louisiana. This is the brewery that started it all for me; Abita Turbodog and Amber were the first craft brews I ever tasted in the mid-nineties. Today, Abita is the elder statesman of New Orleans craft brewing: ubiquitous and familiar. Extensive and experienced, they brew beer of consistently better quality than any other Louisiana brewery I've tried, but their beer isn't very exciting. They play it safe in recipe creation, offering beers that can be summed up with simple descriptors like "dark" or "bitter" and skewing heavily towards fruit beers – all for the purpose (I believe) of not alienating a market that's still bi-curious about craft beer. Someone has to do it, and I'm glad they're taking one for the team by serving as the gateway to craft beer for an entire state. But I haven't been wowed by them in some time. Jockamo IPA I find very sweet, a bit too raisiny from the interplay of IPA-level hops with too much dark crystal malt (a common flaw in American IPAs, so maybe it's just me). It's bitter but has little aroma. It's not bad, and I can drink a couple at 6.5% ABV, so I'm always happy to find a six-pack of it at Rouses. But it's not spectacular either.
My second tasting was another 6.5% ABV IPA from relative upstart NOLA Brewing. NOLA seems to be catching on better than any other brewery in the city limits, and that's great news for anyone who loves New Orleans. The brewers at NOLA seem to have a passion for their craft, offering a varied assortment from a simple blonde ale that I haven't tried but I'm told is the best in town, to more trendy advanced offerings like a saison and smoked ale. However, I happen to find their output rather inconsistent, and I think their hop-forward offerings skew too much toward inappropriately extreme IBUs in lieu of flavor and aroma. Hopitoulas IPA (named for the notoriously tongue-twisting Tchoupitoulas ("chop-it-TOOL-us") Street in New Orleans where the brewery is situated) was no different. It was bitter, resiny, and unbalanced. It's not hard to drink, exactly, but it has little to recommend it over even something as prosaic as Jockamo, unless you want to support smaller breweries. Okay, yeah, I do too. And I will. But I'd feel better if I could find a NOLA Brewing beer I actually love. I'll keep looking.
The brightest light in my Mardi Gras pale ale flight came unexpectedly from outside the state, from Southern Prohibition Brewing in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Mississippi has until recently been a desert for craft beer, with no packaging brewery operating in the state from Prohibition to 2003 (Lazy Magnolia). But a handful of new breweries across the state and the legalization of homebrewing last year suggest hope is springing for Mississippians. Devil's Harvest Pale Ale caught me by surprise, coming from a brewery I – shamefully – had never heard of before last week and being so astonishingly freaking good. Bright and light, crisp and clean, with a citrus-pine aroma and a ton of lemony flavor. It was fantastically easy to drink (good thing it's only 5.8% ABV). Southern Prohibition boasts Munich in its recipe rather than crystal malt, and they have definitely struck gold. I would gladly order Devil's Harvest in a bar, even over an old favorite like Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. Again, we gotta support the little guys. But in the case of Southern Prohibition, I have no reservations about doing so. They clearly know what they're doing, and I can't wait until I'm back in a place where they're sold, so I can try their beer again.
On-Tap Recap: Black Sunday
I've been doing these On-Tap Recap posts documenting my weekend beer tasting adventures for a few weeks now, and it seems I've just been reviewing bottled beers from my home cellar. I haven't actually posted a review of anything on tap. Guess that's my bad, but I do have a good excuse. With a small child at home to take care of, I just don't make it out to the pubs like I used to. For the most part, I drink what I can drink at home.
Luckily for me, my adopted home town of Austin has many pockets of craft brew indoctrination, with more popping up all the time. Craft brew taps are appearing in the unlikeliest places, and so it's getting easier for even a boring old homebody like me to get a pint. One such unlikely place is the Happy Trails Saloon at the Whole Foods Market a mile from my house. Springing from the floor of the store like an oasis in the desert, halfway between the pizza counter and a refrigerator case stocked with hummus in little plastic tubs, Happy Trails is a bar with about a dozen taps, four devoted to wine and the rest to a rotating selection of craft beers from the likes of local heroes Austin Beerworks, Hops & Grain and Adelbert's to national favorites like Southern Tier and Ballast Point. Here the weary grocery shopper can take a break with a beer and food from either the Happy Trails pub menu or from any shelf or counter in the store (including the esteemed pizza counter).
This Sunday, halfway through our weekly family grocery trip, we stopped at Happy Trails, bolted the baby's high chair to a table and let him bat his eyes adorably at Whole Foods employees and customers while he munched finger foods and we relaxed with slices of mushroom pizza and a couple of pints.
First up, a Baltic porter from Hops & Grain's Greenhouse rotating line of experimental beers. This beer, I was told, was made with Whole Foods' in-house roasted Allegro coffee. The coffee was noticeable, but mostly a background flavor in a very smooth, smoky black porter. Medium body with a lot of flavor, not too much alcohol, and not syrupy or thick. Great for an afternoon pizza break with the weather outside getting into the 70's.
Next, a Southern Tier 2XSTOUT. Much as I love (almost) everything I've had from Southern Tier, and as fond as I am of milk stout, this one was a little anticlimactic after the Baltic porter. It was smooth and sweet, what I want out of a milk stout, and a good example of the style. But next to something as complex as Baltic porter, a milk stout was like a blunt object, beating me over the head with malt/sweet instead of the nuanced profile of the previous beer.
Really, the true star of this story is not either of the beers I drank, but the location. Good beer and good food right in the middle of a market I visit once or twice a week? That gives me hope that maybe the pub life isn't behind me after all.
On-Tap Recap: My Beery Valentine
Friday was Valentine's Day. While couples around the world were struggling through "romantic" evenings out at crowded restaurants with overpriced bottles of red wine or bubbly, Mr. and Mrs. Zyme Lord celebrated ours with a home-cooked meal and a pair of bombers.
Dinner was a pair of 12-ounce dry aged New York strip steaks served alongside grilled lobster tails (special thanks to the Texas weather, which warmed up enough on Friday to allow me to grill both the steak and the lobster to perfection in the backyard). We rounded out the meal with oven-roasted fingerling potatoes and grilled broccolini, and a bottle of Boulevard Brewing Company Bourbon Barrel Quad. Based on their year-round Smokestack Series offering The Sixth Glass, the Bourbon Barrel Quad was a strong-but-smooth take on the barrel aged concept, and I liked the result. Unlike so many of the barrel aged stout and porter offerings that pair heavy malt notes with heavy barrel flavors, the quad was a well-balanced canvas for the palette of barrel flavors. Vanilla and toffee notes overlay a cherry tinted beer with pleasantly subdued residual sugars that was neither slick nor thick. There was bourbon booziness there, but nowhere near what I expected from a bottle proclaiming an ABV of 11.8%. And I can't imagine a better pairing for surf-and-turf, with bourbon and dark crystal malt complementing the lightly-seasoned aged beef, and cherry and toffee accentuating the sweetness of the lobster.
For dessert, a few Swiss chocolate truffles found love with a bomber of Ommegang Chocolate Indulgence. Yeah, I know, truffles aren't a very "beer guy" kind of dessert, but dudes – if we can't explore our softer sides on Valentine's Day, when can we? I didn't really feel self-confident eating dessert from a heart-shaped pink box, but then I never pass up a chance to eat candy. As for the beer, I was cautiously optimistic when I popped the cork. I've always been skeptical of so-called "Belgian stouts", and it seems like chocolate beers are everywhere I look these days … most of them pretty good, but you never know when the trend is going to jump the shark. Fortunately, although Chocolate Indulgence wasn't the best chocolate beer I've had recently, it delivered with Ommegang-worthy uniqueness. Perle hops and Belgian yeast imparted a light, fresh note that lifted the chocolate stout up in a way that would have made it the wrong pairing for a triple chocolate cake, but that worked well with the whole spectrum of European chocolates.
A perfectly romantic evening achieved, and not a wine glass in sight. Thanks to the creativity and passion of modern craft brewers, we live in an age where we can treat ourselves to excellent beer pairings for both our dinner and dessert courses. Now if I can just come up with a homebrew that pairs with conversation hearts …


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CIPER - Chile
Dawn Media - Pakistan
L'Espresso - Italy
La Repubblica - Italy
La Jornada - Mexico
La Nacion - Costa Rica
Malaysia Today - Malaysia
McClatchy - United States
Nawaat - Tunisia
NDR/ARD - Germany
Owni - France
Pagina 12 - Argentina
Philip Dorling - Fairfax media contributor - Australia
Plaza Publica - Guatemala
Publica - Brazil
Publico.es - Spain
Rolling Stone - United States
Russian Reporter - Russia
Ta Nea - Greece
Taraf - Turkey
The Hindu - India
The Yes Men - Bhopal Activists
Sunday Star-Times - New Zealand
Community resources
courage is contagious
The Global Intelligence Files
On Monday February 27th, 2012, WikiLeaks began publishing The Global Intelligence Files, over five million e-mails from the Texas headquartered "global intelligence" company Stratfor. The e-mails date between July 2004 and late December 2011. They reveal the inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations, such as Bhopal's Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defence Intelligence Agency. The emails show Stratfor's web of informers, pay-off structure, payment laundering techniques and psychological methods.
Re: examples of KIRs I wrote in the Spring
Released on 2012-10-11 16:00 GMT
|2011-12-16 21:22:16
|firstname.lastname@example.com, firstname.lastname@example.com
few reports included in the summary
The notables are single article items which basically just alert the
reader to the fact that it happened and that there is more information on
the item if they wish
On 12/16/11 2:20 PM, Nate Hughes wrote:
i do like the notable section at the bottom -- having a good place to
very briefly slip in interesting or anomalous events without having to
justify them too robustly seems like a good idea structurally.
On 12/16/11 2:18 PM, Michael Wilson wrote:
* Ivory Coast - Gbagbo says he won the election but the discussion
over the issue continues, he is not negotiating his departure,
Face to face talks with Ouattara is the only way to end the
violence and the army called for the ceasefire and is negotiating
that on a tactical level but no political decision has been made.
But others told reuters he had surrendered and that negotiations
centered on his and his families safety as well as whether he
would recognize Ouattara
* Syria: The new PM has started consulations and a state media
source said 4 ministers would keep posts including FM, DM, and
religion guy. Assad met Kurds and the new law will not allow
religious parties like egypt.
* PNA: Al Aqsa brigades are asking Hamas for their weapons back and
doing open enrollement to prepare for an incursion by Israel.
Israel's Minister of Public Security Yitzhak Aharonovitch said
"there will soon be another war with Gaza. Hamas said Abbas only
wants to visit Gaza for show and is not ready to negotiate now so
that his visit can celebrate a culmination of coming together.
Fatah is investigating old powerful guy Dhalan's sending weapons
to Qaddafi
- Ecuador declared the US Ambo persona non grata
- Oman said it arrested protestors preparing weapons for upcoming
Friday demos
- Algeria is talking up how Qaddafi pulled troops back from the
border which is helping AQ and smugglers
- Transdniestria invited Moldovan PM to visit
- Belene Nuclear plant development will be suspended for 3 months
- Morocco's const refor committee is trying to bring youth in but
they are not buying it
- Jordanian fighters are escorting aid planes to Benghazie
- FBI Questioning Libyans to Prevent Revenge Attacks in America, Help
Military Campaign
* Libya Libya sent Younis and spokesman el-asawi went to Italy last
night. Ghogha said they had sent requests for weapons to countries
that had recognized them Today the Italian DM spoke to US SecDef
Robert Gates who apparently asked them to play a greater NATO role
but they are skeptical. They will meet next monday. The US for its
part said it had not been asked by NATO to do more, but did
approve of what the Qatar's announced about helping deliver
refined products to Libya and take away for export crude products
* Israel - Netanyahu is reportedly considering allowing flotillas to
Gaza provided they pass a Israeli inspection with a third party
like Greece. An Israeli report said Turkey had asked IHH to delay
until after elections b/c Erdogan didnt want to have to deal with
it but IHH denied the request. An Israeli paper claims Obama has
decided to recognize a palestinian UDI
* Turkey's mediation efforts: Turkey will saturday continue its
second of three meetings with Azerbaijan and Iran to try to cool
relations. It also reportedly offered to negotiate between Meshaal
and Abbas.
* Ukraine-Russia - Putin and Azarov met. Azarov called for a JV,
lower gas price and guaranteed long term supplies while Putin
extolled the benefits Ukraine would recieve from joining the
Customs Union
* GCC: There was a Kuwait As-Sessayah report that said the GCC was
working towards really creating confederation that would help it
against Iran, but they said proposals were such as GCC only having
one embassy for all GCC members in each foreign country, and that
just sounds like BS to me
- A US citizen was arrested in DPRK and is being negotiated over
- Belarus said one of the metro bombers was "non-slavic"
- EU laid sanctions on Iranian officials, ibyan officials and
Myanmar, but eased some travels restrictions there - - Ivory coast
Army chief swore loyalty to Ouattara and asked others to do the same
- EU is blaming its inaction on refugees on Tunisia saying it is
awaiting action from them and will provide $
- Jordan freed 4 salafist to avoid protests today (there are still
more locked up)
- Iraqi Shiite militant group Asa'ab al-Haq said it would re-join
Sadr if he resumed militancy
- Qatari Emir is in DC
- Hariri reportedly will go to Bahrain over Lebanese expulsion issue
- The GCC has asked the arab league to delay a planned May meeting in
- Mubarak has reportedly had a heart attack and is in a hospital
- - - - - - -
* Syria: Lebanese OTV reported Assad would unveil new reforms in the
coming days. Erdogan said he told Assad to do more reforms and
would prob send an delegation there on Thursday. Meanwhile
important Turkish NGO's are hosting Syrian Opposition conference.
- Latest on Yemen is that the agreement will be signed Monday, after
reports it would be signed Wednesday
- Libya asked Russia to bring up NATO attacks at UNSC after Putin
decried western actions
- Gates and Foz met on Libya, Fox said Qaddafi was on his way out,
gates didnt say much.
- Putin and Denmark's Rassumussen met and talked about natural gas,
ports investments
- Reports that Miqati will form the new cabinet on Thursday
- Jordanian King created constitutional reform commission
- Israeli MP proposes Israel annex West Bank if PA declares
- Qatar confirmed pledge to help Spanish economy
- Iraqi cabinet approved 37bil infra bill
- Iran parliament approved budget
- - - - - - -
* Syria: Assad formed a new cabinet with new IntMin, FinMin and
InfMin. He promised to release all recent detainees that had not
committed state crimes. The lebanese border is almost closed b/c
of the extra time taken to examine trucks. New protests occured in
Sweida in the Druze area for the first time (3oo people)
* Libya: Unnamed EU and US officials say the US is now thinking it
could take years to train the Opposition to oust Qaddafi. A
stalemate is what they see now, plus hopefully a weak enough Q
that there can be a political solution. Qatar is confirmed to be
arming them with anti-tank missiles, with KSA open to the idea.
Misrata port is shit. UK removed Moussa from sanctions liost
* PNA - A Salafist group kidnapped a Italian aide worker and said
they would kill him if Hamas didnt release members from their
group and their leader Hesham al-Sa'eedni.
* China - Statistics showed a rise in new loans in China in March,
with banks lending 679.4 billion yuan ($104 billion) compared to
535.6 billion yuan in February
- Yemens' JMP accepted GCC proposal and is willing to go to riyadh
- Chinese police clash with civilians at Tibetan monastery where dude
Michael Wilson
Director of Watch Officer Group
221 W. 6th Street, Suite 400
Austin, TX 78701
T: +1 512 744 4300 ex 4112
Michael Wilson
Director of Watch Officer Group
221 W. 6th Street, Suite 400
Austin, TX 78701
T: +1 512 744 4300 ex 4112

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Password Generator 2004.08.27
Discover how this program can help you create easy-to-remember passwords based on 2 words (of your choice or selected at random by the program), or on a phrase you already know (with many well known phrases already included). The generated passwords can be saved to a text file, printed or copied to the clipboard (which is cleared when you quit the program for obvious security reasons). The program also generates the usual random passwords.
See also: forgot password, forgot passwords, lost passwords, lost password, easy-to-remember, random passwords, random password, password generator, passwords, password, change password, forgot, forget, change, change passwords
Advanced RAR Password Recovery 1.52
A program for recovering lost or forgotten passwords for RAR/WinRAR archives. Supports the customizable brute-force and dictionary-based attacks, optimized for Pentium III and Pentium IV processors. Multilanguage interface is provided.
See also: guess, lost, rar, password, recovery
Easy Password Recovery 2.0
* Recovering passwords in Internet Explorer, supporting IE 4.0, 5.0, 6.0, and later.
* Recovering passwords in Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003.
* Recovering passwords in Windows NT.
* Recovering passwords in Windows 9X, including Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME.
* Tiny, powerful and easy to use.
See also: asterisk revealer, password recovery, recover lost password, lost password, recovering password
Excel Password Recovery 1.0L
Excel Password Recovery is a program to recover lost or forgotten passwords to the Microsoft Excel 2003/XP/2002/2000/97/95 documents protected with password for open. The program supports the "brute-force" attack, dictionary-based attack and dramatically fastest "Booost-Up" attack. The program automatically saves password searching state and can resume an interrupted attack (after a stop, crash, etc.)
See also: forgotten excel password, lost excel password, lost password, excel password craker, excel password recovery, password recovery, excel, password breaker
Windows Password Analyser 1.0
WPA provides two capabilities to system administrators:
It helps administrators secure Windows systems through comprehensive auditing of Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows 2003 user account passwords.
It recovers Windows user account passwords to access accounts whose passwords are lost.
Password recovery is done with minutes.
See also: Password, recover, recovery, lost, lost password, analyser, WPA, expert, free
Office Password Remover 1.00
Office Password Remover allows you to remove an "open" password in MS Word and Excel documents. The search for a decryption key is done on the online document decryption server, while the actual decryption is executed on your computer. This technology provides maximum security to the owner of the document as the latter remains on the computer and is not sent anywhere. Password removal is accurate and done in about 15 seconds.
See also: decrypt, word, password-protected document, remove password, lost password, word, excel, office
Akala Password Revealer 1.00
Akala Password Revealer is a powerful yet compact and easy to use password manager program that allows you to store all your passwords and data snippets in a single, easy to navigate and secure database. It is not limited to storing only passwords - you can store any information you want, like key codes and serial number of purchased software programs, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, membership numbers, etc.
See also: password, personal information manager, password manager, forgot my password, lost password, password list, data manager
Outlook Password Recovery Wizard 2.0.2
First a user thinks of a good, reliable password for his mail account, then of a way to somehow recall it. If this is you, you surely need Outlook Password Recovery: a program that restores passwords for MS Outlook email accounts and PST personal folders, regardless of their length and their author's ingenuity. System administrators will appreciate the thorough and clear-structured account reports, ideal for backup and security tasks.
See also: outlook, lost, password, recovery, pst, email, mail, microsoft, recover, folder, office, open, account, login, pop3, pop, http, e-mail
Access Password Recovery Pro 2.0.3
Losing a password for a vitally important MS Access document is a more common situation than you can imagine. But don't panic if this happens to you, just install Access Password Recovery Professional, and even if your lost password was an unutterable fifteen-character Japanese name for some exotic animal, this program will instantly recover it for you. Success is guaranteed.
See also: access, lost, password, recovery, database, workgroup, user, login, mdb, mde, mdw, mda, microsoft, recover, office, open, group, owner
Word Password Recovery Wizard 2.0.5
Word Password Recovery Wizard will relieve you from the difficulties associated with the loss of MS Word passwords by providing a competently organized set of tools that can restore any Word password. The wizard-like interface and built-in efficient attack profiles allow you to regain access to data stored in your Word documents with just a few clicks. The utility supports all versions of Microsoft Word.
See also: word, lost, password, recovery, document, doc, microsoft, recover, remove, office, open, protect, protection
SIW - Freeware Version 2008.12.16
SIW is a System Information tool that gathers detailed information about your system properties and settings. A utility that includes detailed specs for Hardware, Software and Network as well as real-time monitors for CPU, Memory, Page File usage and network traffic. Shows used TCP and UDP Ports. Windows 9x password retriever. Serial Number (CD key) for operating system and applications. Show Hidden Passwords.
See also: System Information, Asset Management, software inventory, hardware inventory, PC Audit, password recovery, lost password, behind asterisks, Portable Freeware, Installed Software, Hotfixes, Product Keys, licenses, Product Keys, licenses, Serial Number
MS Outlook Password Rescue Tool 188.8.131.52
Office outlook password breaker tool displays complete list of outlook express users including passwords. MS outlook password rescue utility retrieves passwords hidden behind asterisks (***), dots (?) and other symbols. Outlook mailbox password revealer rescue newsgroup accounts passwords regardless of length and complexity. Outlook and outlook express password recovery software saves recovered passwords in text file.
See also: office, outlook, password, rescue, outlook express, forgotten, login ID, recovery, recover, misplaced, asterisk, dot, viewer, retrieve, lost, Unicode, PST, email, newsgroup, account, unmask, revealer, server, information, breaker
Windows Live Messenger Password Recovery Tool 5.0.1
Hotmail password recovery program reset multiple MSN Messenger login passwords and recover lost or forgotten mail account password created on MSN and Hotmail domain. It is used for decrypting lost passwords from messenger applications like MSN Messenger, Windows Live Messenger and Windows Messenger. It is fully capable to restore multilingual passwords. Provides user friendly and interactive graphical user interface to easily operate the softwa
See also: Password Recovery for MSN, MSN messenger password recovery, MSN password decrypter, retrieve MSN password, MSN passwords decoder, MSN password finder, Hotmail, MSN Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, recover MSN Messenger passwords, lost, forgotten
Google Talk Account Recovery 5.0.1
Password decoder works when "Remember Password" checkbox is ticked in Google Talk instant messenger. It is compatible with all versions of Windows Operating System like Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/2003/XP. All passwords are recovered instantly with full install/uninstall support. Software supports all versions of Google Talk. User can download our free Gtalk password recovery program demo version and recover the first 2 characters in passwords.
See also: Google Talk Password, Gmail Password, Change Gmail password, GTalk password decryption, GTalk password decrypter, GTalk password finder, Decode GTalk passwords, GTalk password retriever, Google Talk Password Recovery, GMail account, decrypted, lost
ZIP RAR ACE Password Recovery 2.43
ZIP RAR ACE Password Recovery is a program to recover lost or forgotten passwords on ZIP, RAR and ACE archives. Key Features: Unlimited Password Length; RAR 2.x and 3.x; RAR archives with encrypted Filenames Support; Multi-volume RAR archives; ZIP Archives Support; ACE Archives Support; SFX Archives Support; Brute-Force attack; Mask attack (with custom mask character); Dictionary attack; User-defined charset; Autosave feature, etc. Auto Update.
See also: rar, zip, ace, password, recovery, archive, recover, lost, forgotten, encrypted, decrypt, extract, key, code, multi-volume, sfx, aes, protected, free, freeware, download, remove
Windows Password Breaker Standard 184.108.40.206
Forgot Windows password? Don't be worried! Just recover or reset Windows password with Windows Password Breaker on your own. It allows you to reset Windows administrator password and user password. With this Instant Windows Password Recovery Tool, you can instantly regain access to your locked computer by burning a bootable CD/DVD. No need to reinstall computer and pay to PC experts when you forgot admin password on Windows 7/Vista/XP/2000.
See also: windows password breaker, recover windows password, windows password recovery, forgot windows password, lost windows password
AnyPasskey IE Password Recovery 18.104.22.168
AnyPasskey IE Password Recovery contain features in detail together:
1.Perfectly works on recovering lost Internet password, website URL, user name, etc.
2.Internet password recovery for FTP, hotmail, emails, forums and online chatting rooms, which have been saved in Internet Explore.
3.Microsoft Windows 2000/ XP/ Vista/ 2003/2008 and Windows 7 (32-bit or 64-bit).
See also: ie password recovery, ie password reset, forgot ie password, lost ie password
KRyLack ZIP Password Recovery 3.42
KRyLack ZIP Password Recovery is a program to recover lost or forgotten passwords on ZIP archives. Key Features: Unlimited Password Length; SFX Archives Support; Brute-Force attack; Mask attack (with custom mask character); Dictionary attack; User-defined charset; Autosave feature, etc. Auto Update tool.
See also: zip, password, recover, lost, forgotten, encrypted, decrypt, key, code, archive, aes, extract, protected, Free, freeware, download
AnyPasskey SQL Password Recovery 18.104.22.168
With AnyPasskey SQL Password Recovery, you can:
1.Reset the administrator and user password for your Microsoft SQL Server efficiently.
2.Perfectly supports Microsoft SQL Server 2000/2005/2008 and Microsoft SQL Server Express 2000/2005/2008, etc.
3.100% accuracy in recovering administrator and user password for Microsoft SQL Server.
See also: lost sql password, forgot sql password, sql password reset, sql password recovery
Word Password Unlocker 5.0
Forgot the passwords to open your MS Word documents? Word Password Unlocker is an efficient tool that allows you to recover MS Word 97-2010 password through Brute-force attack, Brute-attack with Mask attack and Dictionary attack. It allows you to recover lost Word passwords at high speed using SSE technology and advanced search algorithm. Moreover, GPU acceleration and Multi-core CPUs are supported significantly speed up Word password recovery.
See also: word 2010 password recovery, word 2007 password recovery, word password recovery, recover ms word password, remove word password, lost word password


text:
#2628 of 2 points
- 1 Everything
- 1 Review
- 0 Questions
- 0 Photos
- 0 Videos
Northwave Nero Shoes
I have been racing with shimano r-315's (custom molded) for 2 years now. When I received the northwave shoes i was blown away. First of all it comes in a leather box that looks like its carrying the queens crown jewels. The shoes look great. The construction is refined and sturdy like Shimano but much more fancy and Cipo-esque. The comfort and fit is unbelievable!!!! Size down from shimano im 43.5 reg/ 43wide shimano and northwave fit me perfectly at 42.5!!!!
0 Comments


text:
Musical Flip Cards for Kids.
1 - 5 downloadsAdd this app to your lists
Download Musical Flip Cards for Kids.
Changelog and permissions
PermissionsChangelogPackage air.com.flipcards.musica
- This application requires no special permissions to run.
- + downloadsBecomes more popular. 1 downloads level reached on 04/30/12.
- NewFirst appearance on 04/10/12.
Users who installed this also installed


text:
reviews & comments (16)
This was delicious and refreshing. The salad dressing was light and fresh tasting. I peeled the peaches 'cuz we hate the fuzz. And since I forgot the shallot, I used red onion soaked in water for 15 minutes instead.
I thought this made for an absolutely delicious salad. The dressing made a fantastic contrast with the sweet peaches and tomatoes. It's important to use ripe fruit so they're sweet enough.
I could only find red tomatoes so that's what I used. I served this with the "Roast Beef Sandwiches with Lemon-Basil Mayonnaise" on this site. They were a hit together for most of my guests. Only one didn't love the savory dressing with the fruit, but I'd serve it again without question. This is hands down a fantastic way to take advantage of the produce of summer!
I made this without a single change and would do it again! Great healthful way to use fruits of the season. The dressing really makes it!
For a salad, this has rich flavor and wonderful heart-healthy ingredients. Sometimes we throw feta or some other type of soft cheese on top. Excellent in summer as a side dish. Made as directed!


text:
searchandizingThe word is a combination of search and merchandizing. It is an electronic commerce term used to describe using your own site search to promote products when users search for certain keywords or phrases, akin to merchandizing a retail store for up-selling, cross-selling or promoting specific merchandise. Also called multi-faceted search.
Tape clearly is on the decline. But remember, legacy systems can hang for a shockingly long time. Read More »Apple Pay Promises to Strengthen Payment Security
Experts believe that Apple Pay and other competitive payment systems will be far more secure than cards, even cards equipped with EMV chips. Read More »Internet of Things Shaping IT's Future
To make the IoT both work and pay off, IT is juggling upgrading and building app-centric networks, mapping out new data center architectures and... Read More »
The trend for the past two years has been for shoppers to spend more online during the holiday season. How do you typically shop for holiday... Read More »How to Create a Desktop Shortcut to a Website
This Webopedia guide will show you how to create a desktop shortcut to a website using Firefox, Chrome or Internet Explorer (IE). Read More »Flash Data Storage Vendor Trends
Although it is almost impossible to keep up with the pace of ongoing product releases, here are three recent highlights in the flash data storage... Read More »
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text:
Sept. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Oil advanced from a two-day low in New York as investors speculated that signs of manufacturing growth in China and the U.S. indicate fuel demand will increase in the world's two biggest crude consumers.
Futures gained as much as 0.5 percent after China's Purchasing Managers' Index and U.S. factory orders climbed. Crude supplies at Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point for West Texas Intermediate oil, dropped a fifth week, according to the Energy Department. A report today may show U.S. jobless claims fell last week. Brent futures rose for an eighth day.
"We've got a reassuring PMI number from China, and if the U.S. turns out to have more jobs than expected, I think we're off and running for Brent," said Gordon Kwan, head of regional energy research at Mirae Asset Securities Ltd. in Hong Kong and the most accurate forecaster for New York oil among analysts ranked by Bloomberg in the eight quarters ended June 30.
Oil for October delivery gained as much as 44 cents to $89.25 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange and was at $89.01 at 2:27 p.m. Singapore time. The contract yesterday fell 9 cents to $88.81. Prices dropped 7.2 percent last month and are down 2.6 percent this year.
Brent oil for October settlement climbed 14 cents to $114.99 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The European benchmark contract was at a premium of $25.94 to U.S. futures, compared with a record close of $26.21 on Aug. 19. The front-month contract's 8-day winning streak is the longest since October 2009.
China Manufacturing
China's PMI rose to 50.9 last month from a 29-month low of 50.7 in July, according to the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing. A separate index by HSBC Holdings Plc and Markit Economics was 49.9, compared with 49.3 the prior month. A reading of 50 is the borderline between expansion and contraction.
Cushing stockpiles fell 577,000 barrels to 33.1 million, according to the Energy Department report yesterday. Total U.S. inventories increased 5.28 million barrels as Hurricane Irene approached.
Refinery utilization slid 1.1 percentage points to 89.2 percent, the report showed. That's above the five-year average of 87.7 percent. Total products supplied, a measure of fuel demand, rose 1.7 percent to 19.6 million barrels a day, the first gain in three weeks.
"Large draws at Cushing and firm refinery utilization leave us bullish in our daily biases," Stephen Schork, president of the Schork Group Inc., an energy advisory company in Villanova, Pennsylvania, said in a note.
U.S. Orders
Oil capped its biggest monthly loss since May last month amid signs of slowing economic growth in the U.S. Prices rebounded today before a report that may show claims for U.S. unemployment benefits fell to 410,000 last week from 417,000 in the prior week, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists. Data yesterday showed orders placed with U.S. factories rose 2.4 percent in July, the most in four months.
Katia became the second Atlantic hurricane this year, according to an advisory by the National Hurricane Center at 11 p.m. New York time yesterday. Katia, rated category one, was about 1,165 miles (1,875 kilometers) east of the Leeward Islands with 75 mph winds and moving west-northwest at 20 mph, the advisory said. The storm may reach waters north of Puerto Rico by Sept. 4, the Miami-based center said.
While the storm is forecast to turn out to sea eventually, a shift westward could bring it to land in eastern Canada, according to private forecaster AccuWeather. Canada's Atlantic region, a major gasoline supplier for the Northeast, exported 469,704 cubic meters (2.96 million barrels) of the fuel in May.
--Editors: Paul Gordon, Alexander Kwiatkowski
To contact the reporters on this story: Ben Sharples in Melbourne at email@example.com; Ann Koh in Singapore at email@example.com
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Alexander Kwiatkowski at firstname.lastname@example.com


text:
I've finally dragged my lazy rump onto Twitter....well truth be told I signed up ages ago but rarely use it, but will now start getting into it a bit more.
For those of you who enjoy my ascerbic wit, dry humour and general all round japery feel free to follow me. I can't promise profoundness, but can promise the same rollercoaster excitement you get reading one of my threads in BTRD!
I'm @dopefishmedia (Follow me) on there so feel free to drop by and bask in my resplendent glory.
Yes, this is a cry for attention, so do your duty damn you!


text:
E3 is many things to many people. It's exciting. It's nerve-wracking. It's enthralling. But most of all, I think we can all agree that it's sexy beyond belief. And this year's show floor contained a particularly high quotient of the sexy. So much so that we've collected together the 10 sexiest images from E3 2011, and presented them in a gallery here for your perusal and appraisal. Brace yourselves. It's going to get hot.
Smash! Such solidity. Such sense of purpose. Such uncompromising form, emphasised by an eye-catching but never showy soft gloss finish. Blunt but sensual, with the delicate detail of the smashed glass drawing a powerful juxtaposition between intricate kineticism and unswerving stoicism.
From this angle, kind of sexy in a sleek, battle-hardened cyborg ninja space marine kind of way. If Master Chief and Ryu Hayabusa had sexy sex and produced a sexy offspring, it would look like this.
But from this angle? Ultra sexy! Shadowy. Moody. Mysterious. Red lights glowing ominously and textured detail subtler, but somehow more striking. It's a lot like Tron, if Tron was a subdued, smokey noir nightclub rather than a film about tiny computer men.
Sleek. Elegant. Simple. We're all used to the Vita's paddle-lozenge silouette by now, but here it's showing that it can be minimalist, unobtrusive and classy. It's the perfect way to show off its often overlooked brushed steel curves too. They're a hot but understated detail.
The rear touch panel. Mmmm. Rear touch. Sexy.
The interplay between the keyboard's thin, delicate panel and beliggerently razor blade corners gives it a striking countenance, simultaneously entrancing and intimidating. Truly the dominatrix of the keyboard world.
Smooth, soft roundness set off delectably with a pearly metallic finish, broken up with understated but assertive elegence by the angular thread patterning and slick lines of the side buttons. Imposing but inviting.
An otherwise unremarkable mouse made remarkable by the underplayed power of the inset red LEDs. Blotted out by the dense matt black of the scroll wheel, looking at them is like looking into the glowing embers of the fires of Mount Doom. Pure, simmering, glowering heat and rage.
No-one ever pays attention to the back of controllers. But they should. Because they're sexy. The smooth, inviting curve above that soft ridge fairly demands that your fingers caress it, and the sharper alcove below is so snug and comforting a fit for the digits that it should be illegal.
Bold but soft. Robust but subtle. Evoking the powerful and the pristine all at the same time. And that satin finish makes you want to stroke it all day long.
Hottest E3 ever? We rather think so. Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go outside and turn a cold hose on myself.
June 10, 2011
blynd_cyte - June 14, 2011 1:40 p.m.
MurderInTheBarn - June 14, 2011 12:12 a.m.
MurderInTheBarn - June 13, 2011 11:53 p.m.
KrazyGamer - June 13, 2011 5:29 a.m.
grayguwapo - June 13, 2011 3:49 a.m.
GodofPS314 - June 12, 2011 6:57 p.m.
underwareman - June 12, 2011 4:58 p.m.
quincytheodore - June 12, 2011 7:28 a.m.
ThatFanInThePeacoat - June 11, 2011 8:25 p.m.
philipshaw - June 11, 2011 11:59 a.m.
Terrorrizor - June 11, 2011 8:27 a.m.
KippDynamite - June 11, 2011 12:34 a.m.
510BrotherPanda - June 10, 2011 7:24 p.m.
d0x - June 10, 2011 7:07 p.m.
FunnyNameHere - June 10, 2011 6:45 p.m.
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text:
Sport | Motorsport
Flash floods halt Dakar Rally
Peterhansel keeps overall lead, motorbikes complete shortened stage
Fiambala, Argentina: Flash floods stopped the Dakar Rally on Wednesday but the shortened 11th stage still left Stephane Peterhansel with a commanding lead three days from the finish.
Two swollen rivers forced organisers to stop the cars after 53 kilometres of the scheduled 219-kilometre stage on the sand dunes around Fiambala. Robbie Gordon led in his Hummer at that point, followed by Ronan Chabot and Lucio Alvarez.
Peterhansel, who was lying sixth, was given a provisional 52-minute lead over Giniel de Villiers as the Frenchman closes in on an 11th career victory in the Dakar.
"On every day that brings us closer to the finish, it's important to finish them without making any big mistakes, so it gets us nearer to the podium," Peterhansel said. "It's better to lose a few seconds trying to find the right place to pass than losing several minutes stuck in the mud or water."
The motorbikes completed their shortened stage before the rain hit. Defending champion Cyril Despres of France increased his overall lead to 13:16 ahead of KTM teammate Ruben Faria of Portugal, and 18:08 in front of Francisco Lopez of Chile, another KTM rider.
Kurt Caselli of the United States won his second stage in his maiden Dakar. He finished 4:45 ahead of Paulo Goncalves of Portugal and had a 6:24 advantage over Despres.
"There was a storm in the dunes and it started raining," Despres said. "It wasn't easy to navigate. We came across some streams full of mud and water, which brought back bad memories from last year. ... I'm just happy to be here without too many problems."
Caselli spoke like a winner.
"Today was good, it was perfect," Caselli said. "The dirt was wet so you could see fine and the weather was good, so it was a nice day."
The rally crosses back over the Andes on Thursday for a 12th stage on the descent into Chile.
More from Motorsport
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Emirates Motorplex breaks new ground
Walsh not interested in being Ecclestone puppet
New Yas Marina series off to a flying start
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Badminton boss delighted with Dubai's progress
BWF President Larsen has high hopes after inaugural World Superseries Finals in UAE
No way back for Pietersen despite Cook sacking
England chief Downtown quickly moves to clear air on swashbuckling batsman
Johnson insists mind games are crucial
Australia fast bowler says he sets out to intimidate batsmen, especially tailenders


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Tagged: ajax search, header, magnifying glass, search, search box
June 11, 2014 at 10:00 pm #277734
Hey Everyone,
I've been asked by my client to remove the search magnifying glass that is standard with the Enfold theme (that opens the pop-up AJAX search box below it) and instead just have a regular search box right in it's place. I'm assuming this isn't too difficult, but after a couple of hours of searching and sifting through the code, I figured maybe someone else could point me in the right direction?
Here is the link to their site: http://instaglucose-com.web10.prepropagate.com
Thanks for the help as always everyone!
– JohnJune 13, 2014 at 5:41 am #278483
Hi jnhaswell!
Thank you for using the theme!
You can add this on functions.php to remove the search icon and add the actual search form right after the main menu:
add_filter( 'wp_nav_menu_items', 'avia_append_search_nav', 10, 2 ); function avia_append_search_nav ( $items, $args ) { if(avia_get_option('header_searchicon','header_searchicon') != "header_searchicon") return $items; if ((is_object($args) && $args->theme_location == 'avia') || (is_string($args) && $args = "fallback_menu")) { global $avia_config; ob_start(); $getform = get_search_form(false); $items .= '
'.$getform.'
'; } return $items; }
Add this on Quick CSS or custom.css:
#top #searchform > * { opacity: 1 !important; display: block !important; }
Best regards,
IsmaelJune 16, 2014 at 5:49 pm #279586
Thanks so much Ismael!!
I had one more question question related to this. I wanted to see how it would look with the text "Search" right next to the magnifying glass. Just wanted to give myself another option. What would be the best way to accomplish this?
JohnJune 16, 2014 at 6:09 pm #279606
I can see that "searchform.php" is where the code is stored, but I'm not a pro at editing PHP and continue to get syntax errors when trying to input anything. I believe I just want to add the text before $icon = av_icon_char('search');June 17, 2014 at 3:05 am #279800
Thank you for the update.
If you want the search text next to the magnifying glass. Just remove the suggested codes above then add this on Quick CSS:
#menu-item-search [data-av_icon]:before { float: left; margin-right: 10px; } #top .avia_hidden_link_text { display: block; float: left; }
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.


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The Crown and Two Chairmen
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Up-and-coming comedy listings website London is Funny (they're trying so hard, bless 'em) curate this live gig in association with the Crack Comedy chain. See the dates below for the latest line-ups.
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5 / 5


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E3 09: What press conference did you like best?
Well, the three big conferences are finally over and now we have some time to reflect on what went down. Microsoft kicked it off and blew people's minds with Project Natal, Halo Reach, Final Fantasy XIII and more, Nintendo introduced a stunning-looking new Metroid title AND Super Mario Galaxy 2, and Sony thrilled audiences with The Last Guardian, Final Fantasy XIV and tons more. All in all, it was a pretty incredible showing, and we can't wait to get our hands on these games!
It's easy to say one press conference or another "won" as the best, but we have another question for you: which press conference spoke most directly to you as a gamer and gave you what you wanted. For me personally it was Sony, as I've wanted a new Team ICO game more than anything in the world and that's exactly what I got, but I loved all the conferences. Weigh in and tell us which one resonated with you the most!
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- Hotel Details
- Member Reviews
- Photos
Radisson SAS Caledonien Hotel Kristiansand4 Stars
Vestre Strandgate 7 Kristiansand NO-4663
Conveniently located right by the railway station, bus and ferry terminal, the Radisson SAS Caledonien Hotel is situated in the heart of Kristiansand and is 14 kilometres from the Kjevik Airport.
This property offers 205 quality guestrooms with an amazing view of the beautiful southern coast. All the rooms are magnificently furnished, gracefully decorated and well equipped with a host of modern amenities to make your stay a pleasant one.
Serving the sumptuous super breakfast buffet every morning and offering an a la carte lunch and dinner menu, the attractive and popular Brasserie C Restaurant is known for its excellent light dishes and cosy setting. Stylish and relaxing, the lobby bar offers your favourite drink with live piano performance and is a perfect meeting place after an exhausting day.
This elegant hotel provides comprehensive conference and banqueting facilities suitable for all types of business events from one-to-one meetings to large seminars and residential conferences. The staff at the hotel are always at your disposal to arrange boat rides, fishing trips, rafting and hiking trips so that you can enjoy Norway to the fullest.
Additional Information
- 14 km to the Airport (Kjevik)
Hotel Facilities
- Bar / Lounge
- Gym / Fitness Facilities
- Non-Smoking Rooms
- Solarium
- Conference Facilities
- Laundry Facilities
- Parking Facilities
- Disabled Facilities
- Night Club
- Restaurant
Room Facilities
- Air Conditioning
- Ensuite / Private Bathroom
- Pay-per-view Movies
- Alarm Clock
- Hairdryer
- Radio
- Cable / Satellite TV
- Mini Bar
- Telephone
Other Recommended Hotels
|Clarion Hotel Ernst Kristiansand
|4 Stars
|Comfort Hotel Kristiansand
|4 Stars
|Quality Hotel & Resort Kristiansand
|4 Stars
|Thon Hotel Kristiansand
|4 Stars
|Heddan Gard Guesthouse Tingvatn
|3 Stars
Find similar hotels as Radisson SAS Caledonien Hotel Kristiansand in Kristiansand
|4 Star Hotels in Kristiansand
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|Luxury Accommodation in Kristiansand


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7 results for "espnw"
Games We're Watching: A process of eliminationSarah Spain
Half of the 10 teams competing in tonight's NBA and NHL playoff games may see their seasons end prematurely. Five games with elimination blows on the line? Gimme the remote and let's get after it. Here are the Games We're Watching.Story | Conversation | April 27, 2011
Games We're Watching: Top-Seed Turvy?Sarah Spain
The playoffs continue on the ice and the hardwood, with two top-seeded NBA teams hoping to avoid falling into a 2-0 hole and one NHL team playing to keep its season alive. Here are the Games We're Watching tonight.Blog | Conversation | April 20, 2011
Games We're Watching: League-best Spurs will be tested tonightSarah Spain
Just two NBA games on the docket tonight, but they sure are doozies, as the Bulls test their talent against the league-best Spurs and the Mavs look to stay hot against the Sun.Blog | Conversation | February 17, 2011
Games We're Watching: Fight off football withdrawalSarah Spain
After a season of Sundays spent watching football, the dent in your couch is perfectly formed to your rear. Now's not the time to get up and do something with your life. Stay inside, grab some snacks and find a way to power through this weekend.Blog | Conversation | January 28, 2011
Games We're Watching: In a football funk? Get your hoops scoopSarah Spain
This weekend is all about football, football, FOOTBALL! But if you're not an NFL fan or you're sick of watching teams that aren't YOUR team battle for a trip to Dallas, there are plenty of other excuses to spend the weekend on your couch.Blog | Conversation | January 14, 2011
Games We're Watching: Gimme some SugarSarah Spain
After the Big Ten went 0-5 in New Year's Day bowl games, I suggested the league change its recently announced division names to "Legends and Losers." Tonight, Ohio State will try to stay out of the losers bracket in the Sugar Bowl.Blog | Conversation | January 04, 2011
Games We're Watching: Dunks, kills, award show thrillsSarah Spain
Cam Newton looks to add to an already impressive collection of hardware at Saturday night's Heisman Trophy ceremony, the NCAA women's volleyball regionals get underway in the Lone Star State and a couple NBA teams try to get off the schnide.Blog | Conversation | December 10, 2010


text: I'm shocked by the amount of bad reviews for this place. We actually ended up eating here for lunch and dinner on the same day; not on purpose. It was super busy during lunch, but lets be honest, everywhere on a ski mountain is packed during lunch. It may have been the fact that it was just my wife and... More


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The UN confirmed that three people died and one survived — all Russian citizens — when one of its helicopters crashed. The UN said it is investigating the cause
The Pope met Meriam Ibrahim as she cradled her daughter born weeks ago in jail. Ibrahim, her husband and their two kids are visiting Rome before moving to the U.S.
Meriam Ibrahim, released from prison after a court cancelled her death sentence for apostasy, was arrested Tuesday with her children and husband
A Sudanese woman on death row for apostasy had her sentence cancelled and was ordered released by on Monday
Meriam Ibrahim, 27, had her second child in the hospital wing of the prison where she awaits execution by hanging for refusing to renounce Christianity
Meriam Yehya Ibrahim will receive 100 lashes and be executed by hanging in a sentence to be carried out after she gives birth
Amid the eruption of violence along ethnic lines in South Sudan, UN investigators discovered a mass grave, as a possible opening occurred for negotiations to avert civil war
Abousfian Abdelrazik was arrested but not charged during a 2003 visit to Sudan. While there, he was interrogated by CSIS about suspected extremist links
Officials in the North African nation have concluded that Israel fitted a vulture with a GPS chip and solar-powered equipment that can take reconnaisance pictures from a bird's eye view, according to Israel's Haaretz newspaper, which cited Egypt's El Balad website
A day after Obama led a somber ceremony marking the return of Americans killed in Libya, Obama acknowledged that a surge of anti-American violence in the Middle East is disturbing


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State windfall for UTC
Deal offers $400 million in tax breaks
HARTFORD — The House voted Thursday to authorize a groundbreaking deal for United Technologies Corp. intended to secure the company's continued presence in Connecticut and finance a substantial expansion of its operations.
The Malloy administration has asked the legislature for authority to conclude an agreement that will offer UTC up to $400 million in tax breaks for investing $500 million in new manufacturing and research facilities, maintaining the headquarters for its helicopter and aerospace divisions here, and expanding its workforce.
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- May 16:
- Colorado women making over the image of the cannabis industry
- Apr 18:
- 4/20 in Denver: The rise of a new entertainment holiday
- Apr 14:
- Denver's 4/20 rally grows up, but dance over pot-smoking endures
- Apr 12:
- Marijuana-infused neighbor conflicts: Ways to clear the air
- Mar 27:
- 21 applicants in Colorado win approval to grow hemp
- Mar 11:
- Denver 4/20 rally likely will go on after smoothing legal rift
- Mar 4:
- Mayor Hancock says Denver 4/20 rally's pro-pot stance concerns him
- Feb 26:
- Denver officials consider denial of 4/20 permit in Civic Center
- Feb 24:
- "Colorado Pot Rush" a balanced Harry Smith CNBC documentary
- Jan 13:
- Denver police citing one person per day for public marijuana use
- Dec 31:
- Partygoers celebrate the end of marijuana "prohibition"
- Dec 30:
- DIA first Denver facility to ban marijuana possession
- Dec 27:
- Denver issues finalized licenses to recreational marijuana stores
- Oct 17:
- Colorado grant to Lifeloc funds development of roadside THC-level test
- Sep 4:
- Denver joins cities seeking to crack down on risky hash oil extraction
- Aug 21:
- DeBeque turns from gambling to pot to boost its economy
- Aug 12:
- Colorado lawmaker seeks marijuana tax review amid disappointing sales
- Aug 9:
- June the best yet for recreational pot sales
- Jul 31:
- Colorado's marijuana edible manufacturers face tougher rules
- Pot revenues starting to help select schools on pricey projects
- Jul 29:
- Feds need a coherent weed policy, say Colorado and Washington senators
- Jul 5:
- Wariness around legal pot seeps into worker retirement, bank accounts
- Jun 20:
- Hemp seeds headed to Colorado from Canada stopped at border
- Jun 10:
- Denver may shut down dozens of medical-marijuana businesses on July 1
- Jun 6:
- Denver plans to beef up staffing using marijuana sales tax money
- Jun 1:
- Pot shops in Denver's suburbs fewer and farther between than in city
Plenty of hoopla will accompany the opening of recreational marijuana retail stores at the start of this year, but Gov. John Hickenlooper and Denver Mayor Michael Hancock won't be participating.
The mayor won't hand out keys to the city to an industry he's announced opposition to. The governor won't do the standard ribbon-cutting photo-op that usually accompanies a new industry coming to town.
Their absences underscore the arms-length relationship two of the top political leaders have held with the marijuana industry, which is still viewed by some as a shady enterprise.
Hickenlooper and Hancock haven't welcomed retail cannabis sales despite predictions from state and city analysts that sales will be robust — along with sizable sales tax revenue.
Hickenlooper opposed Amendment 64, the ballot measure that legalized limited possession of marijuana for adults in Colorado.
"Colorado is known for many great things — marijuana should not be one of them," the governor said when he announced his opposition.
Hancock also has said he personally disagrees with legalizing marijuana.
Voters had the final say though, and approved Amendment 64 handily passed in November 2012.
Following voter approval, Hickenlooper and Hancock worked to implement a regulatory framework that will allow marijuana sales to flourish. Hancock initially pushed for a two-year moratorium on licenses for retail marijuana shops, but the City Council overrode his recommendation and backed allowing the shops to open at the start of 2014.
Hancock also pushed for a higher sales tax on marijuana retail sales than the 3.5 percent voters eventually approved.
Neither Hickenlooper nor Hancock plans to attend any of the grand openings scheduled for the first marijuana retail stores in the state, their staffs confirmed.
Their decision to stay away won't stop the industry from robust growth, according to state and city projections. Cary Kennedy, Denver's chief financial officer, has projected that the 3.5 percent municipal sales tax on retail marijuana will bring in an estimated $3.4 million a year.
The Cannabist
The nonpartisan Colorado Legislative Council projected that gross retail sales of retail marijuana will total about $197 million in the fiscal year set to begin in June and nearly $394.6 million in the fiscal year after that. The council projected the excise and sales tax on retail marijuana sales would generate $33.5 million in the fiscal year set to start in June and $67 million in the fiscal year after that.
While Hickenlooper and Hancock won't show up for the first legal marijuana retail sales in the state, at least one Denver council member does plan to observe.
Councilman Charlie Brown, who chaired the council committee that shaped the regulatory framework for retail marijuana sales, says he plans to attend the opening at 8 a.m. New Year's Day at 4305 Brighton Blvd. of 3-D, which stands for Denver's Discreet Dispensary.
Leaders of the campaign that made marijuana legal in Colorado will hold an early-morning news conference there on New Year's Day to recognize the first-ever legal marijuana sales.
"I'll be there," Brown said. "I'm just going to observe. But I do not expect to see anyone offer a key to the city."
Councilman Chris Nevitt, who has been one of the political leaders most receptive to the marijuana industry, said he's not showing up — but not because of any animosity.
"I'm a union man," Nevitt joked. "And I don't work on the holiday."
Christopher N. Osher: 303-954-1747, firstname.lastname@example.com or twitter.com/chrisosher