Barleywine & Minutae

Barleywines

I’m currently working on a bottle of very yummy Old Foghorn, the annual barleywine release by Anchor Brewing of San Francisco. It is very smooth, with a honey flavor; it is quite light in body for a barleywine. I’m really enjoying this.

I also picked up a few bottles of the 2004 release of Old Guardian, the “Barleywine Style Ale” put out by Stone Brewing (who are located in San Marcos, just up the coast from me here in San Diego)

Minutae

I need to post a flurry of small updates, before I forget them all. I apologize in advance to anyone whose Friends Page is overwhelmed by such.

Rice Cooker

I bought a rice cooker. It’s very cute... and it’s Neuro Fuzzy! So far, I’ve made some plain brown rice in it, and it came out really well. I also experimented with an all-at-once recipe for Spanish Rice:

• 2 cups [480 ml] brown rice
• 1 cup [240 ml] water
• 1 10 oz can [283 g] Ro-Tel “Mexican Festival” Tomatoes, Lime and Green Chiles
• 1 14.5 oz can [410 g] Del Monte Tomatoes and Green Chiles
• 1 tbsp [15 ml] minced garlic

Dump everything in there, put it on brown rice cycle, and pray. It came out better than I had hoped; the bottom was a little scorched, which I think was due to too much liquid at the start. Next time, I’ll add everything but the water, then just enough water to get to the appropriate mark.

(Actually, I’ll most likely just make up the rice by itself, then blend it with the other ingredients later; letting it sit overnight should let the flavors blend pretty well. Another option is to try a crock pot recipie I found for Spanish Rice...)

So, it’s quite pricy, but I hope to get many years of good service out of it. If nothing else, there’s a sushi rice setting that is just calling out to be tested. :)