As a regular diner at this establishment, I can tell you that you can’t really go wrong on the lunch ordering. On my most recent visit I partook of a cheeseburger and fries, pretty standard fare, but I can tell you that their brisket and pulled pork sandwiches are also top drawer. I’m not much of a wings or ribs guy but those are also well spoken of.
And what do all of these things have in common? Savory barbecue flavoring? The ability to make the middle of your body look like a bean bag chair? Yes, that too. But that’s not what I’m going for here.
They all go down delightfully with a pint of ale.
This is the Barley Prose blog, after all, not an ode to bean bags.
On to the beer.
This beautiful reddish concoction, pictured above, is one of the regular beers served on tap at the Dino.
It is the Jam Band Berry Ale, made by Boulevard Brewing. Sold nationally but based out of Kansas City, MO. I have a friend who goes way back on this beer, her being from Kansas, and I saw her slurping one down as we tailgated before a concert this past summer at the Lakeview Amphitheater and made a mental note to go try one.
So, on to this one (IBU 6, ABV 5.9%). For the record, ITBMCBB*, this beer is marketed as featuring “…blueberry, raspberry and tart cherry play in perfect harmony to create a slightly tart ale that sings with ripe, bursting fruit flavor. Aromas of dark berries, citrus and melon open the show, bridging to zippy fruit flavors that meld into an easy-drinking summer beer worthy of an encore.”
And doesn’t that sound nice? I personally missed the comedic duo of Cirtus and Melon, and their stylings, but, you know what? I have the palate of a barely evolved chimp.
I happened to drink one of these with my burger and fries just the other day, served up by one of the Dino’s very lovely servers. She brought me a beer, so, of course, I love her!
And, boy oh boy, what a treat of a beer this is. Tart, and sweet, and fruity, but, unmistakably still a beer. Sweet, and delightful. Goes with all kinds of things. It’s like if an ice cold beer made love to a peanut butter sandwich, and birthed a 16 oz love baby into a pint glass and found a buxom Asian gal to bring it to me in a bar-b-cue joint.
I see from public web sites that these bad boys go for a very affordable $10.99 for a 12 pack of 12 oz cans. That’s a solid price point.
I’ll be back to the Dino, of course, and this one now goes into my regular rotation, along with the similarly sweet and delicious Juicy Haze IPA also served on tap there.
Check out Boulevard Brewing Company on Twitter, and Instagram, and probably Facebook (I don’t roll with the Face.)
Beer names get sillier and sillier, so why not take silly pictures to accompany them?
For the Birds by Brix City Brewing
For The Birds was a hazy American Pale Ale. It was pretty typically fruity, with that hop burn from intense hopping. If hazy is your thing, you’ll like Brix City.
Brain Dance by Nap Time Liquid Creation
Nap Time is a new label, basically a brewer’s label, put out by KUKA/Andean Brewing Company in Blauvelt. This was a tasty one, despite my bad pour. Sticky resiny/dank hops and plenty of flavor. It’s an aptly named brain dance.
Money Mad Fat! Collaboration by Interboro and Barrier
Barrier and Interboro are both Long Island based (okay, Brooklyn and Long Island) breweries that have been making great IPAs. Mad Fat! is Interboro’s series, and Money is Barrier’s. Money is a little more traditional, and Mad Fat! is a little more New England, but they’re both great beers on their own as well.
The Last Bovine by Bolero Snort
Bolero Snort is one of only three breweries in my giant county. (I’m available to help! Let’s get another one going here in Bergen County NJ! GoFundMe!) They’ve been skirting that Cease and Desist line for a while with topical pop culture themed, and cow pun, beers for a few years and will be opening a tap room in 2019. The beers are typically good, though I admit I don’t remember how this one tasted when I had it last Christmas.
I’m a man with many ideas. Some of them are more practical than others.
One idea I had recently was a line of greeting cards where every message, happy or sad, was followed by the phrase “ya jackass” or “ya big idiot.” Because the juxtaposition of emotions is, of course, wildly funny.
“Happy 25th Wedding Anniversary, Ya Jackass!”
“Condolences on your Family’s Loss, Ya Big Idiot.”
I’ll let the reader judge the value inherent in that concept.
Another idea I had was for a brewery to open here in Syracuse where I live, only, instead of being downtown, where parking is at a premium, and requiring more driving time to get to, instead, that brewery would open in the northern suburbs, perhaps even adjacent to one of my regular running routes, and serve up all kinds of delicious local beers.
Well, lo and behold, this second idea has come to pass! In the form of the brand new Buried Acorn Brewery and tap room. The tap room features “16 draft lines pouring Barrel-Aged mixed-fermentation sour Ales, classic and long-forgotten Farmhouse styles, as well as some monogamous hopped up offerings.”
Sixteen draft lines. That’s a respectable set of choices!
Open since July 13th, I meandered down to the new joint after work and after a humid four mile run, thirst buds locked and loaded for a sudsy replenishment. The initial beers available at the time (a few more have since been added) is shown below.
I decided to start my de-thirsting by ordering a pint of the Oatmeal Stout. They have both a regular and Nitro-charged version on tap; I went with the regular only because I failed to notice the Nitro until after my order was in.
The bartender was prompt and friendly and, of course, I love her! She gave me this! (Reasonably priced $5.50 pints, by the way, not too much of a crotch kick to the wallet…)
I have had a few other oatmeal stouts and they all speak to me. I’m an oatmeal guy, it’s one of my go to breakfasts, and the mellow sweetness of the other oatmeal stouts I have had (Ommegang’s, for one, and also a cappuccino oatmeal stout by the Blue Moon folks) have all been a treat.
I think of it as a “breakfast beer.” Not that I’m drinking beer with my breakfast, I mean, I have things to do! However, on nights where my family and I are having the ever popular “breakfast dinner,” scrambled eggs, pancakes, bacon, etc., then the oatmeal stout is a winning choice.
This particular oatmeal stout (5.5% ABV, 23 IBU) is excellent. Rich and creamy and cold and frothy. It also contains, ITBMCBB*, “notes of chocolate and coffee,” though, I mostly just taste the deliciousness. If it were any more oatmealy, I’d be topping this with maple syrup and a pat of butter.
I then moved on to the Alpha Bender IPA (7.3% ABV, 23 IBU).
It’s a golden, delightful treat, much like a Disney princess’ hair. This particular IPA is described by the Buried Acorn site itself as being full of “soft bitterness with ripe tropical fruit on the nose and a crisp dry finish. Crafted with NY State grown hops and barley while employing revolving hop editions from around the world.” Doesn’t that sound pleasant?
To me, and perhaps this is why I’m not writing copy for breweries full time, the IPA tastes like “what it must taste like if a mythical dragon pee’d a rejuvenative cold mythical magic dragon pee drink into a pint glass.”
The bar is also hosting other local brewery products on some of their 16 taps.
I am likely to try the Critz Farms Pig City Porter on my next visit, as I’ve had that one in cans before but not in draft, and know it to be a treat as well.
The Buried Acorn is also now selling cans of some of their beers, to go, as well as growlers. I’ve not ever purchased a growler of beer in my life but those branded ones are pretty slick.
The tap room itself is also a very pleasant joint in which to sit down and beer up. They have bar and table seating, and board games, and the service was prompt despite there being a good sized weekday crowd present.
And the chairs have a delightful “assfeel” to them.
I’m looking forward to returning to the Buried Acorn and sampling some of their newer choices (the Ghoster Blanc and Hot Whip were not ready at the time of my initial visit, but now show on the company’s web site).
New Mexicans, it can be safely stated, are culinary innovators. The Frito pie*. The sopapilla. The green chile cheeseburger. Borne of hunger and New Mexican ingenuity, with local New Mexican chiles chopped by precise New Mexican hands, the green chile cheeseburger is the most famous example of the edible imagination of the people of the 47th state. Take a thing that is good and make it our own – bigger, bolder, spicier.
The Spanish brought chiles to the Native Pueblo tribes in what would become northern New Mexico in the 1580s. Being ancestors to future New Mexicans who will want to amplify every last flavor they encounter, the Puebloans gravitated to a particular style of pepper, and modified it to the long, fiery chile pod generations of New Mexicans would masochistically devour, setting fire to our mouths while sweating through our insanely delicious meals. We’re a little loco like this.
The New Mexico-style IPA follows in this tradition. We were drawn toward classic hop-forward profiles like Bear Republic’s Racer 5 and Green Flash’s West Coast IPA. While we thought the style was great, just like the chiles our forebears fell for in the 1500s, we needed MORE. The west coast IPA is cleaner and lighter by comparison. The Colorado-style (whatever the hell that is) seems something of a hybrid of west coast and New England styles. To drink an IPA in New Mexico, though, is not to drink a crisp or light beer, no. To drink an IPA in New Mexico is to submit your palate to an aggressive, punch-you-in-the-mouth, full-on assault by hops. See? We’re kinda loco.
That brings us to the New Mexico IPA Challenge, the Royal Rumble of IPA elimination tournaments. Preliminary rounds in Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Taos led up to the championship, which was held on Saturday at the gorgeous newBosque Brewing Co. location in Bernalillo, New Mexico.
the new Bosque North in Bernalillo, NM
The premise of the competition is simple. For 20 bucks, you are handed a tray with a dozen or so clear, plastic cups, each filled with 3-ish ounces of beer. You are also given an (empty) souvenir pint glass. You don’t know what the beers are. Under each cup is a number. Drink the cups of beer. On a piece of paper, write down the number of the beer that was your favorite and give that piece of paper to the bar-keep. They will pour you a pint of beer that corresponds with the number you chose and record your written vote. Drink that pint in your now full souvenir glass. Be happy, because beer. At the end of the day, the votes are tallied and the names of the beers are revealed, and you find out which you voted for, and which you roundly mocked like an arrogant jerk.
15 delicious, anonymous beers
We attended the Albuquerque prelim and final rounds in 2017 (won for the second year in a row by the excellentBoxing Bear Brewing Company and their Bear Knuckle IPA). We went to the first elimination round in Albuquerque this year, where 44 breweries submitted entries for the best IPA in New Mexico. There were, to me, a surprisingly high amount of hazies as the state has been a relatively slow adopter of this trend. Would our hop-heavy palates allow for this softer, fruity invasion?
NMIPAC standings before the final round
The previous 3 rounds whittled the 44 breweries down to a tidy field of 15 deserving finalists. At approximately 3 ounces per cup times 15 entries, plus an additional 16 ounces from the souvenir pint glass, each of us would be “tasting” the equivalent of a Super Big Gulp of boozy suds that day. Pretzels would reset our taste buds between sips. Lyft would cart our drunk arses home.
Aside from straight-up guzzling, there’s really no wrong way to do the blind taste test. I started sequentially, would jot down a few observations, work my way through all 15, and then start again at #1, noting the changes in each as both the temperature outside and the beer got warmer under the hot New Mexico sun.
Like a Joco Pastorius bassline, a few of Albuquerque’s premier beer makers have unmistakable hop profiles. In the elimination round, I knew La Cumbre the second that danky IPA hit my tongue (and also realized I spend way too much time and money drinking La Cumbre). It was the same in the finals with my #6 beer (which I guessed correctly to be Bosque’s bitter Just Bearly IPA) and #10 (AlbuMurky, the New England-style entry by the aforementioned Boxing Bear). I also guessed theRed River Bad Medicine Honey DIPA, but only because of the reddish color and caramelly finish. (We met the brewer later at the event and he described his recipe as the same hops used in Pliny the Elder, plus a ton of local honey. It’s not Pliny at all, but it tasted… unique.)
I liked the hazy #10 on my tray, but leaned more heavily toward the classic, hoppier offerings, deciding ultimately on #5, which was in this reviewer’s humble know-nothing opinion, the most well-balanced IPA on my tray. My brother went #5, too, and my girlfriend went on her own with #11. The votes were tallied and we walked through to the back of the brewery to await the results.
Wandering through Bosque
The announcer, shooting for some dramatic flair, slowly and agonizingly announced the third place winner as AlbuMurky, the hazy brewed by two-time defending champ, Boxing Bear. Another Albuquerque heavy-hitter,Marble Brewery, was announced as the second place finisher (my beloved #5 beer, which would turn out to be the Safeword IPA). Steve Harvey actually got the order wrong as it was Boxing Bear second, Marble third, but that was a small detail. He had one more chance with the winner yet to be announced.
So which storied Albuquerque brewery won the championship? None! It wasBlue Corn Brewery out of Santa Fe (#4 on our trays, but apparently #1 in our hearts), the first non-Albuquerque brewery to win the competition since none other than Blue Corn back in 2013.
My girlfriend, to her credit, described the eventual champ as “not bad/top contender/got malty.” I described #4 as “bitter/too skunky,” proving definitively that I know jack shit about this beer-tasting thing. We did make the trip to Santa Fe on Sunday and stopped in Blue Corn to try a pint of the champ (named Gatekeeper IPA), but they didn’t have it on yet. Presumably, it’s a special or one-off recipe, so we’ll have to wait til they make a bigger batch before we can get reacquainted with it.
The votes at the end of the day did lean heavily toward sledgehammer heavy hops, but like chile peppers, west coast IPAs, and tourists’ stolen cars, maybe the New England-style beer will be the next thing that New Mexico takes and makes her own.
Bosque North
NMIPAC final standings
Bosque 6-packs
Congrats Paul Mallory of Blue Corn!
* the late, great Anthony Bourdain disagrees with the greatness of the Frito Pie
PS – Come visit us in New Mexico and drink our awesome beers! New Mexico Ale Trail
(Note: Author is not Canadian; rather, he prefers the quaint mispronunciations depicted in the blog post title.)
Friday night is a low ebb for me. After the rigors of a work week, I can find the energy for only a very small amount of coordinated activity.
Plans with other adults, where I have to interact in meaningful dialogue? Uh, no. That’s not really going to work.
There are a few excursions, however, that I can summon up the mental fortitude for. One of them is a trip to the ballpark. I am blessed enough to live just 15 minutes from the home stadium of a AAA baseball team, the Syracuse Chiefs (soon to be the Syracuse Mets, at which point I am sure they will be afflicted by boils, locusts, hot fire, and other various Biblical plagues).
In an attempt to drum up attendance, in a park that consistently has lots of leg and elbow room available, a number of promotional events have been added to the schedule. New in 2018 is…
CRAFT BEER NIGHT.
Oh, yeah, that’s right.
For $20, the buyer, in this case myself, is awarded a 200 level ticket to the ballgame and two beers from a selection of 16 oz. delights, all served courtesy of a fine local tavern called Now & Later.
While the tavern itself has a dozen or so beers on tap, and several dozen more in cans and bottles, they bring a subset of these to the ballpark to be sold to thirsty baseball fans such as myself.
These beers do normally go for $10 a throw, so, essentially, the Friday ticket to the game is free with the promise of drinking two craft beers.
I CAN TOTALLY DO THAT.
(I suppose you could also look at it as the purchase of a $12 ticket to the game, and then two $10 brews discounted to just $4 each, but, somehow, in my brain, the concept of a free ticket to the game makes more sense).
I chose to partake, first, in this juicy IPA, so juicy, in fact, that the word “juicy” appears multiple times on the can.
My second choice was a Gose, the only Gose that I saw on the menu, this little number which touts itself as being derived from grapes.
These were both good, but not great, beer choices. They got the job done, is what I’m saying. I won’t delve into all of the subtle details of these particular beers because, quite honestly, they weren’t quite memorable enough for me to feel the need to do that. They were cold, and beery, and alcoholy, and went particularly well with the hot dog and deep-fried-cornbread-stuffed-with-jalapeno-cheese-and-bacon things that were also consumed that night.
Sadly, the home team couldn’t muster all that much offense, giving up four runs before we found our seats and ultimately losing 5-0.
Given all of the goodness I was soaking in, though, I didn’t mind that either, particularly.
Are you a fledgling homebrewer? A lapsed homebrewer? An interested in homebrewing homebrewer? Much like how everyone now has a podcast (stay tuned for a possible Barley Prose podcast), everyone is a homebrewer.
Maybe you should attend a homebrew meeting. Homebrew meetings are a lot of fun, and a great way to socialize with like-minded individuals. Typically you can find all sorts of brewers, from the not so serious folk who just occasionally mix up a store bought kit, to the ones that will go into detail about their custom built brewing setups and have more pictures of it than they do of their kids.
You’ll find all sorts of beer too. You’ll find mostly forgettable pale ales from kits. You’ll find good beer, and bad beer, though it’s less common than you think. Mostly you’ll find flawed beer that kinda tastes good but has off-tastes, or wild yeast creating unwanted flavors or other common brewing mistakes. You’ll taste some weird and unique stuff at homebrew clubs, and I’m not just saying that because I brewed a rather suspect peanut butter honey hefeweizen.
There is also good beer. Lots of good beer. You’ll taste beers as good as anything at an average beer bar, and depending on the membership, perhaps some that are even better. I’ve met people doing all sorts of zany things, making delicious beers across and between styles. It’s fun to try new things, learn how different people approach and think about beer, and just generally drink and have a good time.
Some people fool around with yeast, some people will talk your head off about water chemistry. In most cases everyone is supportive and just happy to talk about, and drink, beer. If you don’t want to go in the weeds talking about chlorine content in your town’s water supply, you don’t have to. The same goes for process. Members will happily discuss techniques and equipment with you, provide tips or suggestions, or just inquire about what you’re doing and thinking. What recipes are you building in your head? What would you like to brew next? If you’re not into that, that’s fine too. You can keep it as simple as “I added some oats for mouthfeel” or “You could try adding some honey to boost ABV if that’s what you’re going for.”
You’ll encounter brewers that generally only drink their own stuff, but gone are the days when most people get into homebrewing as a way to make better beer than 95% of what’s on the shelves. Even homebrewers these days are also craft beer fans. They’ll be drinking the local beer in your neighborhood, in fact the meetings might very well take place in a bar serving some of those beers. You’ll find brewers talking about clones of favorite, or hard to get, beers and also brewers citing professional beers that use a non-traditional ingredient you might be interested in brewing with.
Simply put homebrew meetings are typically a casual and non-judgemental way to talk about beer and brewing. If you’re already doing that online, why not try it out in person with real drinkable beer?
Out on Long Island, at a place called Plattduetsche Park, there are frequently German heritage festivals. One of these happened this past weekend, the 135th Plattduetsche Volksfest. There’s a parade, there’s plenty of German food, vendors, balloon animals, bounce houses, music, and of course, beer. I did mention this was a German peoples’ festival right?
It was hot, as per summer. Erdinger had flyers out with a special, five beers for $18 in an ice-filled bucket. I opted for that, trusting it to be fresh and clean, over something like 2017’s Oktoberfest from Hacker-Pschorr.
The Erdinger Summer Weisse is a new beer from Erdinger, I can’t say I’ve ever had strong feelings about any of their other offerings, but I did find this one a perfect fit for the environment. It comes in at a light 4.6% ABV and is still flavorful. It’s got some mild bitterness to it, the wheat isn’t too heavy, and there are some good fruity citrus notes to it that keep it crisp and refreshing.
When the long tables feature a constantly refilling set of bottles and pitchers as everyone takes a beer, pours a beer, or goes to get another pitcher, it’s nice to have something that goes down so easy, and in this case was ice cold thanks to the bucket.
The next person to buy a pitcher got the Krombacher Pils, which is a perfectly serviceable beer, particularly for the hot summer months, but I just find pilsners a little too plain for my preference and I don’t enjoy the sulfur notes that typically accompany German ones. Another problem with beers like that is that they skunk in the hot sun way too easily. Perhaps I’m drinking too slowly, or simply become more aware of the flavor, but I could practically see the light skunking the pilsner as I was drinking it, unlike the summer weisse that I kept in the dark bottle.
Hop oils being converted into skunk aroma.
After an enjoyable afternoon drinking beer and eating potato pancakes and bratwurst, we went home where I drank roughly three gallons of water to recover from the heat and alcohol. I got the kids to bed, and then I cracked open an IPA and enjoyed it in my comfortable climate controlled home.
If I were a poet, I would say that this concoction was the color of a sunrise, at Acadia National Park in Maine on the Atlantic coast, with schooners off in the distance, and fishing boats headed out for the day, and so on and so forth.
But that ain’t me, son.
I’m a man. A thirsty man, who enjoys a beer and a sandwich.
In this case, the location of the sandwich was the very recently opened Syracuse Press Room Pub, off of Clinton Square in Syracuse. This is a very hip new restaurant and tavern filled with Syracuse themes bric-a-brac and cool tables made out of cut down portions of actual basketball flooring. And some tasty vittles. In this case, the special of the day was a chicken teriyaki sandwich, topped with booze soaked salsa (see a theme yet?) and a side of their fantastically delightful homemade potato chips.
If you’re not getting the chips at this place, well, that means you blew it. YOU BLEW IT!
So, back to the Press Room. Their web site does tout the fine list of New York breweries featured among their beer selections, including “Ommegang, Brooklyn, Middle Ages, Browns, Ithaca, LIC, Single-Cut, Thin-Man, Rohrbach, Common Roots, Lake Placid, Empire, 1911, Critz Farms, Southern Tier” and promising that the list goes on from there.
(Which explains why my beer was served in a Southern Tier pint glass, despite not being a Southern Tier product.)
Today’s beverage is a Brown’s Brewing Company product known as the Guava Gose.
A gose, for those of you not in the “knows,” is a specific kind of beer. And I had to look so that I could say something more sophisticated than “goses are so good!” Which doesn’t really help anyone.
According to the Wikipedia, a gose is “a top-fermented beer that originated in Goslar, Germany. It is brewed with at least 50% of the grain bill being malted wheat. Dominant flavours in gose include a lemon sourness, a herbal characteristic, and a strong saltiness (the result of either local water sources or added salt). Gose beers typically do not have prominent hop bitterness, flavours, or aroma. The beers typically have a moderate alcohol content of 4 to 5% ABV.”
Anyhoo, the Brown’s folks have so many beers that their web site gives only very short shrift to this particular brew.
“Tart German wheat beer brewed with sea salt, coriander, and almost 400 pounds of guava puree! 4.75% ABV, 0 IBU”
That’s all you’re getting out of the Brown’s on this. So, allow me to supplement that with details.
This beer is tremendous! It is tart and sweet at the same time. It’s fruity as all get out and it’s got a wonderful aroma. I would best describe it as the by-product of a love affair between a mermaid and a fat clown that was taking a break from scaring little kids at birthday parties. Like John Wayne Gacy, if he hadn’t killed all of those people.
I’ve yet to find this one in the stores, which keeps me going back to the Press Room to enjoy them, and as long as it’s on tap there at a reasonable $6 per pint, I shall continue to return and partake.
I couldn’t even find an image of the product itself, but I think this one, shown in a Brown’s glass, is pretty close.
So head over to the Press Room, or, if you’re in the Troy area, to the brewing room, and suck down one of these bad boys. Or, you know, start stomping on the guavas yourself (writer’s note: stomping on a guava may or may not produce a delicious gose beer, when combined with several other steps and several weeks of waiting. I cannot confirm or deny this).
You know what’s better? Barbecue, washed down with the sweet nectar of life.
Out for lunch with a couple of my friends at Syracuse’s best local barbecue joint, the well renowned Dinosaur Barbecue, to enjoy their sublime Chicken Deluxe sandwich. Listen to this description!
I’m not exaggerating when I say that I’d punch my mama in the ear to get to one of these sammiches.
(Minus tomatoes, which I don’t dig on, due to their textural similarity to what a human heart must be like if you were to pull it out of a man’s chest and then place it on a mojito themed chicken).
Well, this beer is murky and delightful, with hints of deliciousness!
Honestly, as I find my voice writing beer reviews, I will admit, that many of the nuances of beer descriptions are just lost on me. It may be that this beer contains all of the wide variety of spices, aromas and flavors as described on the site’s own media.
ITBMCBB*, the Juicy Haze has a “very strong hop aroma of citrus (lemon, some orange, lime and grapefruit) and tropical (guava and pineapple), with light grassy and caramel-like malt aroma.”
And how’s the mouthfeel? Well, hell, my mouth is full of beer and chicken, so it feels great!
This is a delicious tart beer and with an ABV of 7.5% it also packs a nice little wallop to it. And that’s always a good quality by my own measure.
If I were writing copy for this product, I would describe it as the taste of “two sexy leprechaun ladies making out with each other in a rainstorm.”
This beer was served draft style but it’s also packaged in a pretty slick design by the fine folks at New Belgium.
Just a quick friendly reminder that all craft beer is the perfect patriotic choice of beverage, and those red white and blue bottles you see everywhere are actually part of a huge international conglomerate.
Fruit beers and lightly soured beers are particularly popular lately. Goses as well, which is a style of beer with some salt in it.
I haven’t quite decided what I’m bringing to the party, the hosts have a keg of Yuengling which will do in a pinch, but I’m leaning towards something like Bell’s Oberon and Bell’s Two-Hearted, which are new to New Jersey.
What are you drinking? Let us know in the comments or on Twitter at @BarleyProse.
