Perfect Pairings: Iron Hill and Ryan Flynn

Well, this post is a little late, but last Wednesday, March 6, I went to an event at Iron Hill Brewery and Restaurant in Wilmington, DE to a pairing of beers with chocolates. The beers are all Iron Hill, brewed in house. The chocolatier was Ryan Flynn. Special thanks go out to Andrew Johnston, a very talented Iron Hill brewer, and Ryan for telling me about this at the Delaware Rock Gym.

These are my pictures and tasting notes. My honest, initial impressions are what I've typed here. Since I learned more later, I've added some other thoughts or details parentheses.

 Citrus Zest White Chocolate with Pretzels
   paired with Citra IPA

 Wonderful. The Citra IPA is very light and open. It leaves a great space for the chocolate. The truffle opens salty, but finishes zesty and sweet.

(I never knew white chocolate could taste so good! The beer was very light and delicate. I was surprised by both. I'm kicking myself for forgetting to snag a growler of this.)

Chocolate Cherry Cordial paired with Cherry Dubbel

Excellent chocolate! The chocolate melts a little, but there is a solid crunch. The filling was a tasty cherry-brandy reduction. It had just enough kick, but wasn't overpowering. The beer was just okay. It is a cherry dubbel. I do appreciate the dryness of the beer.

(Full disclosure here, I'm not trying to hate on this beer. I have been a little burnt out on Belgians recently. Also, this was my favorite chocolate!)







Chocolate Espresso Brownie Bite
  paired with The Dark Side

Thick rich brownie. It's just bitter enough to bounce along with the FANTASTIC Dark Side. Just great! The brownie is dense, but not chewy– what a feat! The slightly boozey beer flavor fits right around the brownie.

(What I mean by ‘not chewy’ is that the brownie was done. It didn't seem under-baked.)







Spiced Toffee Chocolate Bar paired with The Highlander

Not sure about the pairing… I LOVE the toffee! The little flecks of bronze in the top make a nice impression. The cayenne hits right after the toffee really opens up. Great execution. I like this beer. It's round and malty. I guess the spice pierces the malt well?

(Apparently, many others thought this was the best pairing. This was my second favorite chocolate of the evening.) 

Cookie Crumbled Dark Chocolate Pâté
  paired with Señor Chocolatoro

Very round, nice and thick paté flavor. Great! Buttery texture, but plenty of flavor– NOT  “buttery-bad.” The beer is very airy and woody. I love how light it is compared to how heavy it could be. Just chocolatey enough!

(Ryan later told me that he chose to call this a pâté because if you leave it in room temperature for a few hours, it will be a spreadable consistency. Also, it had bits of dried fruit in it.)








Winter Spiced White Chocolate
  paired with Yuletide Winter Warmer

This is stupendous. Perfect pairing! Lotsa spices. I couldn't actually drink a whole glass, but I love this taste of beer. The chocolate is terrific. The cinnamon and nutmeg give just a slight burn. :)








And there you have it. I had a great time, and can't wait for another one to come along. If you haven't already, please do yourself a favor and check out Iron Hill. Also, if you want some serious chocolates for an upcoming event, look Ryan up.

Hueco and Evolution Lot No. 6

Well, I just got home from Hueco Tanks. I have a silly video of my two most recent “gifts ” to Hueco. They're included in this awful video. Crushilizations Volume 1. I'm so excited that after a year-long hiatus due to a finger injury, subsequent surgery, and physical therapy, that I can climb again, even though I'm not pulling very hard.

When I returned home, I stopped at State Line Liquors, and my buddy Joe Buchter showed me something that made my day...

The Evolution Lot Number 6 Double IPA. It is one of my favorite IPAs, and it's been draft only until now. This is easily one of my favorites. I have often looked for something like this while getting other, lesser beers. It's 8.5% abv, but still light. The hops are Columbus, Centenial, and Citra, against malts of Pale, Pilsner, Caramalt, and Dark Crystal. The hop flavor is big, but not overpowering. It's quite full of citrus with malts that are quiet but present. There is a pleasant bitter aftertaste, but it isn't off-putting. This beer could be dangerous, as it is as drinkable as it is potent.

RIP William Duckworth

I bought William Duckworth's Time Curve Preludes four days ago. I have listened to it incessantly. Today, I heard the sad news that William died. Please consider giving this a listen.

Schlafly American IPA (A)

I have to be clear here, Schlafly is one of my favorite breweries. I went there once just to grab some beer with my old band, John Henry and the Engine, before a show in St. Louis. With this disclaimer in mind, I still say that the American India Pale Ale is one of my all-around favorite beers.

First and foremost, it is extremely drinkable. I could easily put several of these away in a sitting. (I don't, because it's 7.2% abv, and I do like standing up from time to time.) I really feel like a sip of this beer is a short song. The front end of the flavor is relatively quiet and smooth. Then the hops wake up and start fluttering. The malt flavor slowly waxes and wanes under the hops, and the aftertaste is bright for at least a minute after drinking. The science graph below shows the timing of the tastes.

Green Flash Palate Wrecker (B)

This is a good beer. t's right in line with what I've had previously from Green Flash (named after the green flash phenomenon). I probably won't pick up another four-pack of this particular brew right away, but I do enjoy it. There is some serious truth in advertising with this one.

There is a relatively quiet and even front end. It is almost sweet, but not quite. The hops wake up sometime in the middle, and they ride all the way out to the end with a bit more ferocity than I'd vote for. The aftertaste is pretty bitter, but not unpleasant.

It doesn't quite qualify as “ face-grating, ” but it's also not exactly smooth. Overall, it is great pick if you are in the mood for a relatively high-octane (9.5% abv) West Coast hop worship beer.

Firestone's Union Jack IPA (A-)

Okay, so I really don't know what I'm talking about, but here are my impressions. I really like this beer. It gets a solid A-. Firestone is out of Paso Robles, CA. This is the first beer of theirs that I've tasted, and I am excited to try more.

The front end is malty and almost sweet. It is vaguely reminiscent of a barley wine, but still quite light, and not syrupy. The middle shows the hops a bit, but with very little harshness. The bitterness was pretty spot on where I like it-- just enough to show you that this is indeed an IPA, but not a showy bitterness like Stone's Arrogant Bastard. It rolls into the finish smoothly. I know that this is a cheesy thing to say, but it is really well balanced. Also, it clocks in at 7.5% abv.

Rich lines or planes in vector spaces over finite fields

This is just a little note. I visited my advisor, Alex Iosevich a few weeks ago. He has some undergraduates doing research, and they remarked that they could prove some result if they could show that a large subset of the three-dimensional vector space over a finite field must have some plane with a lot of points. It turns out that this statement, as well as a related statement in a two-dimensional vector space is not true in general. Here are the precise statements.



Flat things and curved things share very little in common. So we consider a “sphere” in a vector space over a finite field.
The trick is to consider a special type of field, and consider a unit sphere in that field.


The statement in two dimensions is similar.

Again, the proof involves curved things, but here, we use a slightly different approach.



Clearly, there is plenty of room for more investigation here. I wonder how these statements would change if we were curious about the population of spheres and circles as opposed to lines and planes. It should be no surprise to anyone that knows me that this begins to look like the Erdős single distance problem.