(SpoCOOL) A Spokane Blog

Full Sail might have its hits and misses, but there's no denying Black Gold is a good one. I'm guessing it'll be even better after a few years of aging, but really... You need to try one now and one later so you can properly compare. It's science, people!

Anyway.

It pours a deep dark color, with about a finger's worth of tan head. Looks pretty much like what you'd hope an Imperial Stout would look like. Give it a whiff and there's a lot of sweetness to be found, all very pleasant and you can pick up on the bourbon straight away.

Give it a sip and it's almost as much of a high end spirit as it is a beer. I don't mean this in a bad way, the flavors meld really nicely. There's a certain mellowness to the stout, and in a sense it reminds me of The Abyss. That's a pretty high compliment.

Keep sipping, and the malts and chocolate make their way into the picture. At a hefty 10.5% ABV it's obvious you should take it easy with this one, and really, that's a good thing. This is one to kick back with and enjoy. If you smoke cigars, I assume it would go well with the whole experience. 

Black Gold is a good one, one of Full Sail's best. Go grab a couple of bottles, and make sure to age at least one of them.

We like DOMA here at Team SpoCOOL, or at least we did until they decided to compete against us in SpoBREW. We've heard (from ourselves) that Keaton actually snatches old ladies' purses and uses them in his homebrew. We support the elderly here at SpoCOOL, and in an effort to show our solidarity with them, we re-tried Starbucks in a fit of rebellion.

Then we were quickly reminded that Starbucks is pretty damn awful and we came crawling back to our bags of DOMA. (What have old people done for us lately, anyway?)

If you haven't sniffed around DOMA's website, you've been missing out. There are guides there that really should be read by anyone who ever drinks coffee. Take their French press guide. Follow this and you'll enjoy the best damn French pressed coffee you've ever had:

1. Grind your fresh coffee beans right before you brew.  The grind should be coarser than drip coffee.  Use about 2 tablespoons for each 8 oz. of hot water. 
2. Place grounds in the bottom of the clean, French press. 
3. Use fresh water between 195-200°F (just off the boil).  If your water is not hot enough, your coffee will taste sour. 
4. Pour the hot water vigorously over the grounds.  Start your timer now. 
5. Let the press sit for about one minute with the lid off while the coffee foams up. 
6. Give the coffee a quick stir and put the lid on the French press, when the timer reaches 3.5 - 4 minutes, press the plunger down gently. 
7. Enjoy.

Take some time and check out DOMA's website. Just remember that Team DOMA makes homebrew out of marmot tears, and probably should not get your vote.

Spokane has conveyer belt sushi fever, and why not? Granted, it did catch it about a generation after the rest of the world, but now it's here and Spokane is loving it.

Kaiten-zushi, as it's called in Japan, is simply fast-food sushi. Cooks put the dishes in boxes, and they come rolling  on the conveyor belt where you pick what you want. The color of the plate indicates the price. A pretty simple concept in other words, and admittedly a pretty entertaining way to eat. You can use the menu to figure out exactly what's passing by (or to place orders if you don't see what you want on the belt) but part of the fun is to make Russian roulette style choices.

Rather sadly, the quality of the dishes seems to be a bit of a Russian roulette too.

I suspect it might be dependent on how long they've been rolling around the conveyor belt, and I'm not sure there's a system in place to remove anything that hasn't been picked up after a certain amount of time. Either way, there were a lot of inconsistencies here.

The rice, for example, went from being a goopy mush to almost undercooked depending on which dish you picked. As far as the fish goes, it wasn't too bad, though clearly not fresh either. Not that I expected it to be, and it was certainly edible. The shrimp, meanwhile, was not. Awful awful stuff. Don't go with the shrimp.

Lesson learnt here: Scope your sushi out carefully before picking up a plate. I don't want to sound too negative as some of the sauces were good, particularly the creamier ones. There were also plenty of vegetarian options. Other than the shrimp, nothing was downright awful and "pretty OK" came to mind more often than not.

Sushi Maru is all about fast-food sushi. They don't try to deny that, and it's definitely a place to check out if you want fast and fun sushi that's pretty affordable to boot. For the really good stuff, try something like Sushi Yama on 3rd instead.

Alaskan's "Pilot Series" of ales is pretty much just a series of rotating limited releases, not too different from Deschutes' "Reserves." The main difference being the quality of the latter compared to the former, but that's neither here nor there.

Alaskan's Imperial IPA isn't too bad, though I wouldn't say it's particularly special or anything to create an event around.

It pours a hazy dark copper color with a fairly thick head and decent lacing. Looks nice enough. A sniff reveals the inevitable -- hops. Plenty of hops. Maybe a bit of a citric note, but that's more of a P.S. than anything.

And it is hoppy, yet surprisingly sweet too. The hopiness and the sort of syrup-y sweetness don't really mix particularly well. I assume the idea here was to create something hopheads would love, yet tone it down for the mass market. Understandable, I suppose, from a business perspective, but as far as drinkability goes, this Imperial IPA just has that "well, I get it, but..." thing going for it. 

In the end I don't think anyone will be particularly happy with the ale. It's not awful, and might even be refreshing. The 8.5% ABV is hidden well and there is a smoothness here. In the end the mix between hops and sweetness just doesn't do it for me and ruins what could have been an experience.