Last Minute Orders, & Further BBotE Experimentation

The past couple weeks have been rather exciting what with the travel and even more travel coming, with no sign of letting up. That said, I’ve had time to do a little bit of BBotE tinkering that I’d like to share with the collective.

Speaking of more travel, the next leg of Scientific Drinking Tour 2011 is coming up very soon, next week in fact. So, get your orders in by Friday at the latest so I can ship on Monday. After that, my Lovely Assistant and I will be on our way to the reclaimed malarial swamp that is our fair nation’s capital.

Herr Direktor Funranium, Growler & Stein In Hand at Silver Gulch Brewery
Herr Direktor Funranium, Growler & Stein In Hand at Silver Gulch Brewery

From the previous trip on the tour, Fairbanks AK, I give you the Silver Gulch Brewery, America’s northernmost legal brewery (I would be very surprised if there weren’t some small clandestine operations in Point Barrow). Pay no mind to the several miles of what looks like heavy equipment junkyard on the Richardson Highway as you drive from Fairbanks out to them, that’s just the scenic town of Fox. The beer was delicious, particularly the Epicenter Ale, so much so that I had to grab a growler to go for home enjoyment.

With regards to BBotE experimentation, I have begun tinkering with a new medium roast from a small farm in El Salvador. I have to say the flavor has been all over the map and, as always, everyone thinks my nose and tongue are broken. I swear the BBotE made from the Salvadoran has a grape Bubble Yum aroma to it. This got me strange stares as everyone else declared a salty, bacon-y aroma and flavor. On tasting, I agreed with the collective’s assessment, in so much as that I thought it was smoky. Except my smoky made me think of black powder smoke from a Civil War Re-enactment, something I’m quite fond of. In terms of mouthfeel, there was a strange sensation of a pat of flavor/butter sitting in the middle of the tongue, melting off to the sides and letting the whole tongue taste it.

No, that last sentence doesn’t make sense to me either. Describing flavor is hard.

In other news, my samples of Death Wish Coffee are now in process and I hope to have news on how they turned out by the end of the week. The guys at Death Wish have actively pursued one of my earliest questions: we know robusta strains are more hardy and higher caffeine content than arabica coffees, but taste awful. Have we tried to make good tasting robusta? I look forward to seeing the result.

Oh, some discussion with the folks at Caffe Vita seems to indicate that the Guatemala Mundo Nuvo will be returning. I have been lusting for this for nearly nine months now, as has everyone else I let taste the BBotE made from it. It will still be a limited run of BBotE, but there will be quite a bit more than last year. Probably will happen some time in late summer.

Buddies - A 665ml Shiny Brass & A Growler of Epicenter Ale
Buddies - A 665ml Shiny Brass & A Growler of Epicenter Ale

Right, with that, I should probably go play with x-rays again. I leave you with this picture of joy.