Tag: beer

  • Beer Review: +1 Charisma Pale Ale from Boundary Bay

    Beer Review: +1 Charisma Pale Ale from Boundary Bay

    A beer? For nerds! It’s getting to be more and more common these days. Classic Bellingham brewery Boundary Bay’s +1 Charisma took a journey down to me via a coworker.

    Once upon a time I was a distributor for Boundary Bay. I’m not any longer. Their Scotch Ale was one of the beers at my wedding, and I consider it one of the best of that variety.

    This beer was a gift from a friend.

    Boundary Bay +1 Charisma Bay Ale

    Close up of +1 Charisma's 12 ounce can. It looks like a character sheet.

    Beer Review

    First, let’s talk about the beer like a beer.

    Reminiscent of their classic IPA with lighter hop character. It has bitterness, like a classic pale or western IPA. There’s some malt character, providing a crispness. A good balance with the mosaic and moteuka hops.

    Boundary Bay didn’t overdue anything and for someone in the PNW or who regularly drinks strong beer this could be considered a session at only 5.5% ABV and 42 IBU.

    If you are looking for a easy drinking, quality beer that treads that line between West Coast IPA and classic Pale Ale with no haze or sweetness this should be on your game table.

    It currently isn’t on the tap list nor available for order on the website, which tells me this is a Bellingham, WA only release.

    D&D Character Review

    The can art is a Dungeons & Dragons character sheet, and properly done.

    Vorlauf the Great is a 5th level sorcerer with a brewer background. The art makes it look like a custom lineage (hop plant humanoid).

    Str: +1
    Dex: -2
    Con: +2
    Int: -2
    Wis: +1
    Cha: +1

    That’s a valid set of stats for the AC 14, speed 30, initiative -2, +3 proficiency bonus character with the Saving Throws all correctly done. Their preferred spell is Fireball, though I would have been tempted to use something with acid or Hideous Laughter, because it’s a beverage.

    The available spell slots are true to the game, as is the Brewer’s Tools. There is a custom magic item, an Ale of Bewitching (Wondrous, Rare). The section Features and Traits includes the tasting notes.

    Unlike many who dabble in D&D inspired merchandise, Boundary Bay’s artist seems to actually play the game. This character isn’t merely an homage, it’s the real deal. This is a playable, if not quite optimized character. I’ll be adding Vorlauf as an NPC to one of my games.

  • The City of Dragons is on the come up

    The City of Dragons is on the come up

    For a couple generations Renton was Boeing mechanics and engineers, and the people who supported them. Somehow despite these strong union jobs the reputation of Renton was negative. The rest of the 425 felt like Renton wasn’t worthy of the area code.

    Down here on the southern tip of Lake Washington there’s a little boom.

    Over the past 15 years, Renton has been doing things a bit different. The economy has shifted, the dining improved, and the reputation is tired. The City of Dragons is also the City of Seahawks and the City of Sounders.

    The Seattle Sounders are building their training center on the old Longacres property. Additionally the property will also have over 500,000 square feet of office space, around 3,000 units of housing, and some light retail space right at a transit hub.

    That’s not the only modern tech hub. Directly on the water is Southport, which combines great office space and a high-end hotel with views of both Bellevue and Seattle. There are also restaurants directly on the lake, something rare in the other ‘burbs surrounding it. Maybe someday there will be a water taxi connecting Southport to UW and South Lake Union (and maybe later up along the eastside).

    The Dragon Erasmus looks out over Renton

    The City of Dragons is also host to the billion-dollar division of Hasbro, Wizards of the Coast. For this, and other reasons, Renton has a statue of a dragon downtown, little dragons to indicate parking lots in the core of the city, dragon art on retail spaces awaiting tenants, and my heart.

    Tucked in Renton is a top ten steakhouse in the state, a home converted to wine library and eatery, at least four waterfront restaurants, great sushi, a Korean-burger fusion place, and is the originator of what has become the Puget Sound family-style Mexican experience.

    Located in the mountainous region of southeast Jalisco, Cuautla is a small community of about 3,000 people. Fundamental to the special connection between Renton and Cuautla, are Cuautla’s “Absent Sons,” of which many live in or near Renton. The “Absent Sons,” as they are referred to in Cuautla, are a band of greater Puget Sound Region restauranteurs who left Cuautla when they were young men, came to the United States, and opened the majority of the Mexican restaurants we patronize today: Azteca, La Fuente, La Hacienda, Las Margaritas, Mayas, Mazatlan, Tapatios, Taqueria Guaymas, and Torero’s to name just a few.

    City of Renton

    Also, in this 8th largest city in Washington are;

    • Three Breweries (Bickersons, Dub Town, Four Generals)
    • Two Gaming Stores (Wizard Keep Games, Shane’s Cards and Games)
    • A library built over the river
    • A taproom and a wine bar
    • Half of the Cedar River Trail stretching from Lake Washington to Lake Wilderness
    • A museum that tells the stories of Renton and South King County
    • Two theaters, for plays, not movies
    • Renton Memorial Stadium, that once hosted the Sounders in USL play
    • River Days

    Once upon a time I moved away from Renton, thinking I’d never come back. I saw the world. Now, I own a home here and have realized that my city continues to grow into a place where I want to be — diverse, welcoming, friendly, with walkable distinct neighborhoods.

    And dragons.

  • My Best of 2021

    My Best of 2021

    In 2021 I rejoined the community that taught me how to write, that taught me how to believe, and that taught me how to be a better person every day. I started writing about soccer again, mostly about Tacoma Defiance, but also about the Seattle Sounders and OL Reign. Putting the polish back into my words gave me hope in a year when I needed it more than ever.

    The past year was also the year that established my voice around D&D. More people read Full Moon Storytelling in 2021 than they did in every other year of its existence, combined. To throw yourself into a new endeavor is hard. To do it during a reboot and a pandemic has been a struggle. The journey has been worth it because the people who enjoy my writings about Dungeons & Dragons are the type of people who always have more stories to tell and who know — deep and fundamentally — that a diverse group is a strong group.

    These are my favorite writings of 2021, only originals, no updates. Just the best of what was new this past year.

    Seattle Sounders

    Throughout the pandemic the Sounders continued to open new mini-pitches. These small, all-weather soccer fields help ensure that all youth have access to play. Brad Evans and the RAVE Foundation opened pitches in Renton, Tacoma, and Yakima in 2021.

    Covering matches gives me the platform to do more than just write about soccer — it gives me the opportunity to write about feelings. After the Sounders “lost” to Real Salt Lake I embraced the Wheel of Time.

    Tacoma Defiance

    More for myself than anyone else, I reviewed the Day that Sports Stopped. This gave me an opportunity to reconnect with Justin Dhillon and to think about just how much life changed from March 10, 2020 to the present day.

    Centerback Taylor Mueller retired from soccer at the end of the 2021 USL Championship season. Mueller ends as one of the legends of the league, playing more than 20,000 minutes in career where he showed that there’s more to American soccer than MLS.

    OL Reign

    While Cheney Stadium is no longer home for OL Reign, it was where they ruled. Powered by their success in Tacoma, Reign are moving back to Seattle.

    Dungeons & Dragons

    The Black Dice Society burst on the scene, sharing a horror setting sharing new ways to do communal storytelling via livestreams. They do a wonderful job at creating the disquiet of the Domains of Dread and the use of cutscenes to Strahd and others makes them a must watch.

    As my skills in art aren’t good. But, I get past that through NPC art and various map makers.

    Backgrounds, of course, have been very popular the two most well received were the Tinker and the Farmer. Friends are playing the Caravanserai and the Lamplighter (which also works as a Streetsweeper). Within the edition Backgrounds offer a mechanical space that embraces a character’s state of being beyond just being a killer and sometime explorer. Your D&D character should have hobbies.

    Custom Backgrounds for 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons

    For some reason, people rather enjoy the relaunch of my campaign, particularly the way that the Allies and Adversaries are presented.

    ShantyTok was fun for a bit. This story reminded that if you’re trying to ride the wave of a meme do so immediately, or do it because you love the themes of the meme and don’t care about going viral. Me? I love pirates and tall ships.

    Flavor

    When Will Bruin made a beer, who better to write about t than the former professional coffee taster and beer salesman? The Georgetown Brewing-Will Bruin collab was an easy drinking IPA.

    Podcast and Livestreams

    As part of YachtCon, I was the Dungeon Master for a D&D livestream that raised a few hundred dollars for the Red Box program at the Seattle Children’s Hospital Autism Center. That adventure was themed around the South Sound with numerous references to Tacoma, Defiance, and Reign.

    You can also find me as a regular on the Sounder at Heart podcast.

    https://open.spotify.com/show/4r5Q8VMrdFZOCgC0tPKe2l?si=ed469274dae3456f
  • Inspiration Is Everywhere: Beer Factories and other modern approaches to food

    Inspiration Is Everywhere: Beer Factories and other modern approaches to food

    Many D&D worlds are anachronistic in their approach to the world space. The inn has rooms with bunks for a single person. Clothing and bathing habits also mimic our current world. Reading is common.

    Here’s the thing — the idea that these things are too modern for a “real” approach to world building is wrong. The ancient world through the Renaissance contained modern conveniences, and they didn’t have magic.

    Beer Factories

    No, your average inn or tavern will not have canned tall boys to crush when the adventurers visit. They most certainly would have lower carbonation beers that are mass produced, not just niche ales, lagers, meads, and such. Beer factories were present in ancient Egypt.

    Archaeologists found eight huge units — each is 20 meters (about 65 feet) long and 2.5 meters (about 8 feet) wide. Each unit includes some 40 pottery basins in two rows, which had been used to heat up a mixture of grains and water to produce beer, Waziri said.

    That’s a lot of beer. In Curse of Strahd there’s the embrace of a rather large winery.

    Embrace this. Have a popular beer, wine, liquor, etc within a region. Develop trade routes with it. Maybe your character tried it when their richer friend gifted them a bottle, jar, or cask. Maybe they carry a small vial of their favorite with them to remember home. Were they part of the merchant class that helped ship the goods from town to town?

    There are plenty of ways to add mass produced beverages to your game. Embrace the additional ways that flavor can connect to your world.

    Recipe Books

    Related to beer is that recipe books go back to the dawn of writing. Your brewer or vintner could be producing a recipe from many towns over, not due to word of mouth, but because the recipe is known to the world.

    https://twitter.com/marinamaral2/status/1370360221080633346

    The foods will be different than the modern era. Eel was a quite popular protein in England, for example.

    Grab Heroes Feast for some modern foods inspired by Dungeons & Dragons, or just follow Dollop of History for pre-WWII foods going back to the early Middle Ages.

    And, of course, the Redwall Feasts bot has foods that work for any indulgent culture.

    https://twitter.com/RedwallFeasts/status/1371082030478426112

    Your world can and should include the senses of taste and smell. Street foods and walkups should exist. Develop a vibrant food culture not because it adds verisimilitude, but because it expands the stories you can tell with D&D.

  • Turn flavors into the story you wish to tell

    Turn flavors into the story you wish to tell

    In wine, beer, coffee, etc there’s the concept of the perfect pairing. At its simplest, the concept is to find foods that complement that specific flavor notes of the beverage. More completely you can find ways to do this through similar and disparate notes – sometimes hitting opposites on the flavor wheel gives the taster an experience that highlights both the food and the beverage.

    Pairing beverages with gaming in something I just do. When playing Awf I always have a beverage. Sometimes that beverage is inspired by his personality – drinking an earl grey lavender toddy out of a masonry mug to highlight his duel cultures of dwarf and bladesinger. Other times the beverage connects to the adventure that Droop’s Brigade is going – Skookum Caverns, a barrel aged strong ale, as we enter Wave Echo Cave.

    https://twitter.com/bedirthan/status/1315839234020798465

    The use of flavor here helps inspire the story being told during that gaming session. The flavors evoke a mental space where Awf’s unique history of annoying elves enough that they taught him bladesong, despite his being a stubby dwarf, is brought to the forefront. Or, the dangers and darkness of a cave are brought to the front of mind through can art and the potency of a strong ale.

    Flavor does wonderful things. Pairings aren’t just about maximizing the flavor experience. The connection between taste-smell and memory is powerful. People buy Kona coffee because it awakens memory, much more than due to its quality. A margarita on a cold winter day can put your headspace back to a nice beach vacation. Hot cocoa in front of a fire, even while home alone by yourself, will send you dreaming back to a Christmas visit to a small town.

    As roleplayers, in Dungeons & Dragons or any other game, we can use the magic of flavor to help us. The foods and beverages of your game night are important. Make those small choices that aid gaming, just like you would a token, art, or cosplay.

    Rather than confine yourself into using flavor as a way to connect your current character, you can also use flavor to inspire new characters.

    https://twitter.com/bedirthan/status/1335066277476372481
    https://twitter.com/bedirthan/status/1335080716913106945
    https://twitter.com/bedirthan/status/1335440812889391104
    https://twitter.com/bedirthan/status/1335280984602726400
    https://twitter.com/bedirthan/status/1335302097407860736

    Each of those characters started with the simple prompt related to a beverage and the object out of which it is consumed. From there decisions were made not just regarding the race, class, and background, but also to inform the skills, attributes, spells, and weapons chosen.

    Rum connected to sailors, pirates, merchants, or water genasi. Carbonation was an indication of something light, refreshing. Salt a connection to authority. The mistaken belief that halflings are just old children popped into the head with the root beer.

    What those various prompts did was start internet searches into the techniques used to create certain beverages, into their history, into their cultural significance. Chasing those touchpoints and activating them through D&D and by including others in the process, my character portfolio expanded. These are now new NPCs, or maybe even PCs, that would never exist.

    Food and drink can inform your characters just as art, books, movies, shows, music and media can. Great cooks say that their meals tell stories. Adapt that into your PC and NPCs.

    Empower flavor to empower the stories you tell.

    A replica viking longboat loaded up in charcuterie. From the 4-foot tall mast hangs shaved prosciutto. The base of the boat has cured meats, pickled vegetables, and various cheeses.

    What type of character builds a replica longboat and uses it as a charcuterie table? How does that inform who they are?

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