Bell’s Hopslam is a remarkably drinkable rendition of the Double India Pale Ale style that has a pretty serious cult like following. Each winter when it is released in January it disappears from shelves as quickly as it came into the store. People have stalked delivery trucks just to be sure they could get their hands on some. Though with so many stores utilizing social media now, it is no longer necessary to do so.

Cases O’ Hopslam

Just look at what O’Bryan’s Wine got delivered last Monday. Roughly twenty cases. It disappeared before the day was over though. I personally bought an entire case. I believe that most stores in Ohio are now out of Hopslam. However Kentucky didn’t release theirs until this week, and I’ve heard that the Party Source still has some available.

2014 vs 2013

I set aside a couple of bottles from last year’s release in my continuously growing beer cellar. Normally an IPA is something that you want to drink as soon as possible, as hop profiles fade quickly with age. With that said I had read some somewhat positive reviews of cellar aged Hopslam. Personally in my taste taste I much preferred the fresh variety, though my wife (not much of a hop head) preferred the aged. I let her have my second bottle out of the cellar. For a much more descriptive comparison, check out what the Brew Professor had to think in a similar taste test.

The latest restaurant to open in Over-the-Rhine’s Gateway Quarter on Vine Street is The Eagle Food & Beer Hall. This latest venture is owned by the same folks who brought us Bakersfield OTR and Currito, both of which I have enjoyed. The Eagle has received a lot of praise since opening, and needless to say it was just a matter of time before I tried it myself.

Fried 1/4 Chicken

The Eagle specializes in fried chicken and the rest of the menu is a pretty simple offering of a few sandwiches and various southern style sides (but no biscuits). I ordered 1/4 chicken white meat ($5) which comes served with a side dish of spicy hot honey. The 1/4 chicken is the perfect serving size for one, with most of the food coming from the large natural, free range, Amish chicken breasts. The chicken was perfectly cooked and delicious. The spicy hot honey was a lot hotter than I expected. I made the mistake of dipping my first few bites deep in the honey, which then overpowered the chicken flavor. I recommend to use the provided spoon to drizzle the honey on top of the chicken before eating.

Side Of Fries

I also ordered a side of fries with aioli ($3). The serving size is large and easily could be split between two. The fries were a fried shoestring style and perfectly seasoned with herbs. The aioli was a fine accompaniment to the nearly bottomless bucket of fries. Others in our group had the fried chicken sandwich, which looked amazing, and the grilled cheese. I will definitely try a sandwich on a future visit. I’m told they do have high chairs and a somewhat kid friendly menu, so perhaps I’ll take the whole family down there for lunch sometime soon. And I will return to The Eagle soon, the food was awesome and the prices are very affordable.

One advantage to the below average and freezing temperatures we have had lately is that Mirror Lake in Eden Park is fully frozen. My buddy Kenny caught word of some pond hockey taking place on the lake this past Sunday at noon. I haven’t played pond hockey since high school, so I immediately let him know that I was definitely ready to play.

Kenny on the Ice

Sections of the frozen lake had already been cleared of most of the near six inches of snow that had fallen recently, but we brought along a few shovels to remove any extra that we found. It seems we weren’t the only ones using the lake for hockey, in fact there was another group of younger players getting in some extra practice time, as well as a steady line of others coming out with family and friends for a good skate.

Game On

We ended up with roughly twelve guys in our group. We started by playing with teams of four as the crowd was still growing, but quickly changed to teams of three. We randomly drew teams and created a little tournament. One of the guys in the group built some awesome goals, with two small openings on either end, that proved to be challenging and way more stable than a pair of shoes like we used to play with back in the day. Everyone had a great time and some were talking about playing again this coming weekend. Let me know if you’d like to give it a go and I’ll keep you informed on the status.

Sleepy Bee Cafe is a new breakfast and lunch spot that opened in Oakley just before Christmas. My wife and I finally made the five-minute drive from our house for breakfast a couple of Fridays ago. They are committed to serving local, pesticide-free, non genetically modified foods when possible.  The menu will be dynamic and evolve with the seasons.

Bottomless Coffee

I started with a bottomless cup of coffee ($3) while my wife ordered a chai latte from the coffee bar. We enjoyed the drinks very much while looking over the menu. The inside of the restaurant is fairly spacious and is filled with many two and four top tables. It wasn’t busy during our visit but I’m told that wait times can be expected on the weekends.

Inside

For breakfast I went with the apple cakes, three buttermilk pancakes topped with sautéed caramelized apples, whipped cream and house-made granola ($9.50). The pancakes themselves were rather average and not as fluffy as I was expecting. The fruit and granola topping was wonderful though and was easily the highlight of the dish, as expected.

Apple Cakes

My wife had the Avi omelet with avocado, spinach, mushrooms, tomato, onions, and white cheddar ($9.95). I didn’t hear any complains from her and she seemed to enjoy every last bite. She choose to have the oven-roasted potato “hive fries” on the side, which I shared with her. The item on her plate that stood out the most to me (I did not try the omelet) was the house-made ketchup with a slightly smoky flavor and very little sweetness to it. It was a good start but I would like to see even more spice added to the ketchup.

The Avi

Overall the Sleepy Bee Cafe is off to a good start. We will definitely be back for more, though I would like to see the menu expand beyond the pancake and omelet offerings. The lunch menu looks really good, so I’m hoping that will be our next meal at the new café.

This past Friday night my wife and I took the kids to meet up with some of my in-laws for some indoor water park fun at Coco Key in Sharonville. The temperature outside was below freezing and there was plenty of snow on the group, so a warm indoor activity was just what we needed!

Parrot’s Perch

I’ve only been to one other indoor water park, Fort Rapids outside of Columbus, but I have seen the inside of the Great Wolf Lodge in Mason, and the size of CoCo Key is smaller than both. Basically there is a fairly large interactive play area in the middle of a lazy river. On the other side of the building is the zero-depth entry area with slides for the little ones. At the back of the building are four water slides with tubes that run outside. To round out the attractions are an indoor/outdoor hot tub and an activity pool with basketball hoops.

Dip-in

I did not visit the small children’s area, but my wife took our nine-month-old there and found the water to be much too cold. It didn’t help that the air temperature inside wasn’t as warm as I would have liked. One of the employees said that they are closed during the week, and since they just opened at 4pm the night of our visit, it would take some time for things to heat up. Despite what was said, we found the water to be much warmer in all other attractions. So we spent a good majority of the time either in the lazy river or the activity pool, but since life jackets are required for the latter (54″ and under) we didn’t stay there long.

I did find some time to spend with the older kids in our group and enjoyed the three water slides that were operating. One of the slides was boarded up and had no water flowing through it. The hot tub was also a nice feature but is restricted to those guests 16 and over. We all had free passes or discounted tickets through Groupon, which seem to be offered fairly regularly. I would have a hard time paying the standard daily rate of $25 per person, but there are even discounts offered on their website. We ended up spending the better part of four hours at the water park and would recommend it for a good winter activity.

Last week I spent a few days in Denver for work. I flew in on Sunday evening and immediately met a couple of friends for a few beers at the World of Beer in the Belmar development of Lakewood, CO. The bar has a pretty amazing selection of roughly 50 draft beers and a 14 page bottle list. I thoroughly enjoyed Renegade Brewing Company’s Elevation Triple IPA as well as Dry Dock’s Double IPA, both from Denver area breweries.

World of Beer Bar

While there is no food served at World of Beer, a variety of food menus are available from the bar for neighboring restaurants that will deliver food directly to your seat. One of my friends recommended The Rock Wood Fired Pizza and grabbed one of their menus for me. They offer over 20 specialty pies, so choosing what I wanted was a little intimidating. Eventually I settled on the Founders Pie with sweet Italian Sausage, pepperoni, tomato sauce, mozzarella and ricotta cheese. ($10.99 for 9″).

The Founders Pie

After placing my order I was told it would take fifteen minutes for the delivery to be made. It seemed to be even shorter than the already really quick delivery time. The 9″ pie was cut into six slices, and is plenty of food for one, though I managed to eat it all. I really enjoyed the combination of toppings, though a little more ricotta would have been nice, though spreading it around on to each slice helped make sure that each bite had a little extra creaminess. Overall the pizza from The Rock was very good and went well with a couple of beers from World of Beers.

If you haven’t already bought your tickets for The Book of Mormon’s national tour stop in Cincinnati, don’t give up hope. If you have thought about going to see the musical but have not done so, I encourage you to find a way to get in before the tour leaves Sunday. A lottery drawing for $25 tickets takes place 2.5 hours prior to each performance.

Procter & Gamble Hall

If you are not already familiar, The Book of Mormon is from South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. I’m sure most are aware of the explicit language and content associated with South Park, and the same is true for this musical. But it is absolutely hilarious and highly entertaining. It has won nine Tony Awards including Best Musical and critics have called it the best musical of this century!

Curtain Call

I had the privileged of seeing the performance last Thursday night. The story follows two Mormon missionaries, Elder Price and Elder Cunningham, who are sent to Uganda to spread the word of their church. Unfortunately for the young men the villagers in Uganda have no interest in their stories. That is until Cunningham alters the Book of Mormon stories to relate more to the problems the Ugandans face, but in doing so he has created hilarious falsehoods when compared to the original stories. I haven’t laughed this hard in a long time and I would highly recommend seeing the musical.

Finally, my last restaurant review from our trip out to the Sacramento and Lake Tahoe areas a month ago. Before flying out the next morning, we enjoyed dinner on a Friday night at Pete’s Restaurant & Brewhouse in El Dorado Hills, California. Our friends who now live nearby had visited this restaurant before and thought that we would enjoy it. Our two-year-old was given a ball of fresh dough to play with and keep him entertained, so we were definitely off to a great start.

Pete’s Famous Knots

We started with a couple orders of Pete’s famous knots ($6.99 per full dozen). Pete’s famous pizza dough is tied, baked and tossed in a garlic butter glaze, then topped with fresh Parmesan cheese. We had one order as just described and we had the other order with cinnamon sugar glaze. I preferred the cheese version, but both were pretty good. I realize that Parmesan cheese may not be the easiest cheese to melt, but it would have been nice if it melted on the knots.

Pizza

Our group decided to split a large pizza with two different halves (signature pizzas starting at $24.49 for a large). We tried BBQ chicken on one half and pepperoni and sausage on the other. The crust was very good. The sauces were average. The toppings were overall pretty good, but I think an extra ingredient on the BBQ chicken would have been nice to accompany the red onion and cilantro, bacon is always a good choice.

Pete’s offers a pretty good selection of beers, but despite the name, no beer is brewed on site. The pizza was good, though I think next time I would try a sandwich instead.

A couple of days after Christmas my wife and I invited a handful of her family members to see the Harlem Globetrotters take on the World All-Stars.

Pregame Show

We arrived just before the teams were introduced, and enjoyed a couple of break-dancers who were entertaining the crowd. This was the first time I had seen the Globetrotters since I was a young boy, but I think the adults may have had more fun than the kids.

Warm Ups

There are multiple teams of Globetrotters but I think we may have seen some of the best. One of my favorites was the 5’2″ player nicknamed Too Tall. Special K was also very entertaining and was king of comedy for most of the night.

Mascot Slingshot Bowling

During one of the breaks in the action, Globie, the Globetrotters mascot, participated in a round of slingshot bowling. The two dancers from before pulled long bungee ropes on either side of a cart to sling Globie into a set of over-sized bags of pistachios.

Victorious!

Despite being down at halftime, the Globetrotters pulled out the victory 105-101 thanks to special rules such as the trick shot challenge and the four point basket. The game had us all laughing throughout and we left with big smiles on our faces.

Dining options near our condo at the Ridge Pointe on the Nevada side of the Heavenly Resort were very slim during our vacation a few weeks back. After an exhausting day on the slopes we made our way over to the Ridge Club. Fortunately we were able to call the resort transportation number and ask for a complimentary ride to the club. The shuttle bus was at our door within minutes to take us to our destination.

The Ridge Club is not only home to a couple of dining options, it also houses the indoor/outdoor pool, a workout facility, and spa. On our Monday evening visit the Hungry Bear Restaurant was not open, but the Ridge Club Deli is open seven days a week. The menu is a short list of various sandwiches along with soup, chili, and take-n-bake pizza.

Veggie Sandwich

My wife ordered the veggie sandwich, which featured a naan style bread wrapped around a variety of fresh vegetables and hummus, topped with a delicious tahini like sauce.

Cranberry Turkey Sandwich

I went with the cranberry turkey sandwich topped with Swiss cheese, onions and cranberry mayo on Grilled Sourdough ($8.50). All sandwiches are served with a garden salad or a bag of chips. I really enjoyed the garden salad and would definitely recommend it. The sandwich was piled tall with turkey and had a nice flavor from the cranberry mayo and onions.

I was very surprised and impressed by the quality of food from the Ridge Club Deli. It would serve as a great lunch option while on the slopes if it didn’t require a bus ride up to the building. Otherwise it is a great option for a quick and delicious dinner.