(SpoCOOL) A Spokane Blog

#SpoBREW2, the homebrewing contest, is still full, but, as mentioned earlier, that doesn't mean you can't sign up for our accompanying art contest, #SpoBREW2ART. And yes, the official sign-up page is now open!

So what are the rules, and how will this contest benefit you?

To go with the latter first, we will hold silent auctions for each piece of art. In other words, if somebody likes your art, they can bid on it, and you stand the chance of making some cold, hard cash, even if you don't win the contest.

"But I want to win!", you cry, and that's fair enough. The process here is simple: We'll follow the pattern of last year, and have the audience/brewers/fellow artists vote for the various pieces. The person with the most votes win. Boom.

The rules for entering are equally straightforward: Make art that's beer related. Make a beer label, a sculpture dedicated to beer, a poster advertising a real of fake beer... Hell, write a poem if you are so inclined. As long as it's beer related, any entry should be gold. 

The contest will still go down on August 25th, but you don't need to be there to enter the contest. You should be good to go as long as we have art in hand.

That's it. Now stop reading this, and go sign up! This is your chance to become famous by partaking in #SpoBREW2ART. (Disclaimer: You probably won't become famous. :( Sorry.)

Wild Sage, we kind of forgot about you, didn't we? That's too bad, because this is quite an excellent restaurant, one that probably should be in your rotation of more upscale spots.

The food here is good, as are the drinks. My Negroni might not have quite been up there with Clover's or Italia Trattoria's, but it was still more than serviceable. For some reason a place that gets the Negroni right seems to also make good food. Coincidence? Maybe, but probably not.

At any rate, the calf's liver was very tasty. Liver's gotten kind of a bad rep over the years, and that's too bad. When made well, it's both flavorful and tender. Wild Sage got it right, and the accompanying bacon and grits made this a pretty potent flavor bomb, something that certainly surpassed your standard steak as far as taste goes. Don't fear the liver. Your grandmother was right; it's good for you.

The soups are equally well prepared, and the service holds a high standard. When we kinda, sorta described a style of drink, they were able to whip something up without much of a problem. Creativity, it goes a long way. We'll even toss out a few bonus points for the wine pairing suggestions they came up with.

Wild Sage reminds us of Mizuna in many senses. The food is good and fresh, there's a high quality wine selection, and the bar is well stocked. No wonder it placed #4 on last year's "best of" -- we won't forget about Wild Sage so quickly again.

People around these parts -- or indeed any part, I guess -- rave about In-N-Out Burger, which truly shows what products of marketing we have become. Really. They aren't that good. They're fine, but not that good.

People around these parts will also often claim D Lish's to be the closest local alternative we have to In-N-Out, and that's probably somewhat true. It's hard to argue that there isn't at least a fair similarity between the burgers, unless you've been completely brainwashed by the In-N-Out marketing machine

Yet, as with In-N-Out, I don't really think D Lish's is anything to go completely ga-ga over. These are good burgers, not great, and you can find better options in town. 

By all means though, "good" is better than many, possibly even most. The patties and vegetable actually have some flavor to them, which, hey, can be kind of a rarity. The buns aren't particularly fantastic -- they taste like Franz or whatever -- but you can always go with the "bun flinger" instead, and have the meat wrapped in lettuce.

The burgers are pretty fresh tasting, for the most part, but we're talking about burgers here, not chateaubriand. They're not going to be part of a life altering meal.

In that sense, you might be better off just going with fries and a shake. The fries, advertised as never being frozen, are quite good, and have a distinct flavor of potatoes to them. I know, right? And, really, it's hard to go wrong with a huckleberry shake.

What it comes down to, for me, is that you can get a better "gourmet" burger at Churchill's and a better fast food burger at Rusty Roof's. Now that the latter is opening in the Gonzaga district, those of us who don't live north can enjoy the spot too.

D Lish's, meanwhile, is pretty good in its own right, or, as it is, In-N-Out's right.

You pretty much suck if you missed out on our 17th of May/#SpoBREW2 meet-up last night, but judging by the turn-out, I'm guessing you don't suck.

Parading down Sprague; eating traditional Norwegian food with American beer; partaking in way too competitive potato races... Yes, it was quite something, and we will probably have a few more #SpoBREW2 get-togethers before the August 25th brew-off.

As for #SpoBREW2, it is now moving forward pretty dang quickly. To keep you up to date:

We opened a... god help us all... Facebook group. That's not something we are proud of, but there you go. Feel free to join it; there probably will be some 17th of May photos there at some point.

More importantly, we've decided to repeat the beer-art contest from last year. We're pretty open for any type of art to be entered, as long as it's beer related. Beer labels, posters, custom-made bottles, statues, paintings, objects, whatever... Send us a mail to team@spocool.com if you'd like to make some beer art, in what we imaginatively have named... #SpoBREW2ART.

Really, that is now pretty much your only chance to partake in what is destined to become a historical event. The homebrewing portion has completely filled up.

Finally, to the guy last night who actually somewhat fondly remembered Spokane's seminal podcast, Remi and Stefan Do Spokane... You're a man of exquisite taste.

(Thanks to Nicole Hensley for the image we're using without obtaining any kind of permission whatsoever.)