Cyvasse

Disclaimer 1: This post isn't totally beer related.
Disclaimer 2: This post contains non-plot information from later in the ASOIF series

Cyvasse, maybe.

In some of the later books of the series, the reader is introduced to a game called Cyvasse. It appears to be a form of Westerosi chess. While the rules are never clearly defined, there is enough information between the books to allow you to come up with a good estimate.

Cruising through r/ASOIAF brought me to this link several weeks ago with a pretty good interpretation of the rules of Cyvasse (including a proposed board type/size). Last night I got a bit bored, so I decided to make a Cyvasse set using an 11x14" sheet of tag board, a ruler, way too much math, two sets of chess pieces, and some plastic tokens.

More after the Jump

Beers of Ice and Fire: Chapter 2 - Baratheon Imperial Vanilla Porter

Baratheon Imperial Vanilla Porter

Okay, I'm going to admit something here. I feel like I might have cheated with this beer, so maybe I'll remake it at a later date (actually, I most likely will). I brewed this beer on St. Patrick's day - before I had even thought of the BIF series. It also became an Imperial Porter on accident. I'm not sure how or why, but my OG was way high (I'll get to that). 

Here's the recipe* (after the Jump):

The Beers of Ice and Fire: Chapter 1 - Origins

They're cute when they're young.

The Beers of Ice and Fire (here on known as "BIF") is a series of home-brewed beers inspired by George R.R. Martin's book series A Song of Ice and Fire as well as HBO's TV Series based on the same story Game of Thrones. For brevity's sake I'll refer to them both by Game of Thrones or GoT.

I became interested in GoT when I first heard about the HBO series, more specifically that the series was being shot on this awesome new camera called the Arri Alexa. I watched a few of the episodes and was pretty impressed. I eventually picked up the books and have read through the series to date (still waiting on book 6!).

A few weeks ago, my roommate (whom I've since gotten hooked on GoT) showed me a design on TeeFury of the "Baratheon Brewing Co. Black Stag Imperial Stout." I found this incredibly hilarious, especially since I just bottled my own Imperial Vanilla Porter earlier that week!

From there myself and a few friends came up with a list of beers based on the houses and characters of the GoT universe. I threw the idea out on Reddit.com's forum for home brewing (r/homebrewing) and got tons of positive response, as well another ten or so varieties to add to the list of beers.

After compiling and finalizing the list, I spoke with a few of my, more experienced, brewing buddies and hashed out a plan to make these beers.

It's going to take a while.

My best estimate is something like 36 months on the short end. This is due mostly to the amount of time some of these beverages need to rest in order to develop their full flavor.

Here is the list of beers and wines (in no particular order) to be included in The Beers of Ice and Fire:

• Baratheon Imperial Vanilla Porter
• Winter Is Coming Lager
• King Slayer Imperial Blonde
• Iron Islands Belgian Trippel
• Night's Watch Imperial Russian Stout
• Gold Cloak's Golden Ale
• Flayed Man Flanders Ale
• Warlocks Blue(berry) IPA
• Dothraki Mead
• Dornish Red Wine
• House of Black and White Black Cream Ale
• Wildlings Wild Ale (Brown Ale made with hot rocks / wild yeast  - experimental, small batch)
• Targaryen Mole Beer
• Knight of the Flowers Citra IPA
• Lord of Light Irish Red
• Sir Dontos' Barley Wine
• Milk Stout of the Poppy
• The Hound's Water Imperial IPA
• [Ice]-bock
• Arbor Gold Apfelwein
• Dream Wine Barley Wine
• Redwyne Red Wine
• Castle Black Lager
• Highgarden Saison

Valar Morghulis

Winter is coming.