Guinness Foreign Extra Stout.

Dense, creamy head. Earthy, coffee notes in the nose. Taste is a solid, drinkable stout, maybe less bitter and chewy than the Extra Stout. Smooth mouthfeel, toffee finish. Superbly drinkable with board food in cooler weather.

Tasting on its own, a pretty excellent standard stout. This is exactly what a stout should be. I would like to try it next to a Rasputin Imperial stout. Tasting with Guinness Extra Stout pending.

Addendum: Had it side by side with an Extra Stout recently. Foreign is actually more bitter, but more flavorful, picked up on a lot of coffee this time. I prefer it over Extra Stout, but Extra Stout is probably more appropriate for cooking purposes.

Italian Sausage and Cabbage Stew.

From Elise. I used a regular cabbage intead of savoy since they were all out when I was at the store. I only had half a pound of hot Italian sausage which is fine since I'll eat it with sandwiches. Minced and sliced onions, white beans, fairly simple and straight forward stew. I thought it was really good.

St. Bernardus Tripel.

Terrible pour. Cannot do my no-tilt pour on a tulip glass.

I've been staying off the Belgians for a while for various reasons. Wanted to give this a go so I can start moving on from St. Bernardus, but I still have a Watou left. Light, crisp, hay flavor, very mild and refreshing. Seems a little thicker and less effervescent than I'd like in a tripel.

My tripel is still way darker than this.

Doritos Pizza Supreme.

Coincidentally, I had some stromboli on hand that I had made. Not as good as the stromboli. The chips are pretty bland and nondescript. Disappointing.

Apple and Sausage Pie.

I had been debating whether I wanted to add a cheese sauce to the apple and cheese pie I was planning on making. I figured cheese and apples go well together so I could merge some pairs transitively. I found that Elise actually has a recipe for this and hers uses ricotta (with a lot of other cheese) mixed in with egg. I skipped the feta and only topped with shredded white cheddar. With a single pie crust, it comes out fat and protein heavy which is good since I can pick a carb of my choice at breakfast.

Mead: Experimental Batches.

Four of my planned five experimental batches settling out. The Nesquik-based meads have cleared up quite nicely and I racked those. The Liquid Sex is also fairly clear, but I decided to let it sit for a bit longer while I waited for the Leap Year to ferment a bit longer. The Leap Year has been unusually slow. The cake at the bottom is not nearly as substantial as the others, and there's still a stream or two of bubbles coming up from it. Using it to start another may not be a good idea. Besides, I also read that reusing yeast cakes after high gravity brews is not recommended.

I did taste the two meads I racked. Pretty harsh and bitter at the moment. I'm a little concerned since they both measured 1.000 gravity. I didn't have a hydrometer then, but the first batch of AOCC mead I made was pretty sweet still. I used Fleischmann's yeast for that. These batches used Red Star champagne yeast. I wonder if it's an issue with the yeast as my first cider batches were also extremely dry.

I wonder if I can backsweeten with extra honey. Hopefully, it mellows out more, and that won't be necessary. I'll go ahead and rack the Leap Year onto a vanilla bean, but I'm not sure how to proceed next. I could use part of a packet of champagne yeast to start the 5th batch. Or I could just use Fleischmann's since that turned out well. Also thought about carbing some mead. Might just end up brewing up a 5-gallon batch of general purpose mead for various infusions and carbing.

Addendum: I finally got around to racking the other two meads. I did a pour instead of siphon but I was pretty careful with splashing so I figure I'm ok. The cocoa mead had a sweet cake stuck at bottom. I did figure out why my leap year mead had still been bubbling. It has apparently carbed itself. It foamed a bit when I racked, a little more when I dropped in bits of a vanilla bean that I was using in some sugar (along with a bit of sugar). So that's interesting. I didn't taste any of it, but I did get a whiff of some serious alcohol.

Shrimp Saganaki.

From Kevin. Shrimp simmered in a spicy tomato sauce, a lot like shakshouka.