The Brewmeister Branches Out

This Saturday (9/24) I attended a Mixology Class and well, color me impressed.  I was joined by my friends Neil and Joe for a well-spent Saturday afternoon.  I recommend everyone take a class, just choose your favorite liquor.  I'm also working on trying to get Steve to hold a special mixology class using beer as a cocktail ingredient.

Armed with a shaker, alcohol, and fresh ingredients, we learned about the history of the alcohols we were using and the drinks we were making while we made, and drank, several delicious concoctions. The drinks we mixed were a Brandy Smash, a Sidecar, and a Brandy Daisy, and all were excellent.  Afterwards, with the leftover ingredients, we were encouraged to create some new mixes and apply some of what we learned. 

The master mixologist at work

Joe with his brandy daisy

A fine looking drink

Neil and his sidecar

Cheers!

The Cocktail Chef, Steven Kowalczuk.  You can follow him on twitter @thecocktailchef 

For more information visit: http://www.thecocktailchefatlanta.com/page.php?page=Art_of_Mixology_PGH 

Bar Profile - Hough's of Greenfield

Overall Score - 9/10

Recommendation:  Go to this bar.  A little out of they way but definitely worth the trip.  Note:  I visited on a Wednesday night, during a Penguins hockey game. 

PRR (Pittsburgh Relative Ranking) - 99th Percentile - if you're looking for a good beer and a good time, I highly recommend this place.

Beer 9/10 - Good, large selection.  Unfortunately, a lot of the names are fairly common.  That being said, they have 60+ taps, and a good selection of seasonals.  A damn fine selection: one of, if not the best, selections in Pittsburgh. 

 



My recommended selections are the Sierra Nevada Life & Limb, Lagunitas Little Sumpin' Wild, and Weyerbacher Old Heathen.

Atmosphere 9/10 - Inside was surprisingly open with friendly feel.  Good amount of TV's.

Food 7/10 - Note, I didn't eat but a friend's sandwich looked pretty decent.  Chips were good, homemade. 

Service 8/10 - Busy night and I still never had to wait very long without a beer.  They have new specials all the time. 



http://houghspgh.com/

Tepper's First CNBC Blog Post

Get to know our school, our team, and our strategy, just a little bit.  Updated standings at the bottom. 

Always Nice to Get a Lucky Bounce 
By: Max Egan 

Our team here at the Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business is thrilled to participate in the MBA Face-Off portion of CNBC’s Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge. Our approach to the contest will combine fundamental, macro, and quantitative strategies.

Right out of the gate, one of our large holdings, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, announced a merger agreement with Azur Pharma. The market reaction has been overwhelmingly positive and the stock is up about 11% since we initiated our position. While we would like to take credit for conducting thorough fundamental analysis and anticipating this company’s potential next moves, we instead got lucky.

Jazz Pharmaceuticals came through one of our quantitative stock screens, and while we took a cursory look at the business, none of us had heard of the company nor did we learn much about it. It may appear that we are just blindly picking stocks with snappy ticker symbols. The quantitative model behind the screen is actually a great deal more complicated, but it was certainly not calibrated to predict corporate mergers and acquisitions. We are still a long way from those iPad2s, but we are confident in our team’s approach to this contest.

	Rank	MBA Program, University	Avg. Portfolio Value
	1	(Tepper) Carnegie Mellon	$1,019,557.08
	2	(Fisher) Ohio State	$1,016,504.04
	3	(McCombs) Texas	$1,010,953.41
	4	(Johnson) Cornell	$1,007,161.53
	5	(Booth) Chicago	$1,006,794.41
	6	(McDonough) Georgetown	$1,006,367.70
	7	(Mendoza) Notre Dame	$1,004,256.70
	8	(Ross) Michigan	$1,003,506.58

Follow our progress here: MBA FaceOff Blog

Delta-One Trading News Just Keeps Coming

The news just keeps coming.  Former Goldman trader caught in insider trading buff.  Via @ZeroHedge

Quotes: "The case marks the SEC’s first insider trading enforcement action involving ETFs."

"Two former Goldman Sachs staffers are working to launch the first equity derivative swap execution facility... The facility will focus on dealer-to-dealer over-the-counter delta one swap..."

CNBC - MBA FaceOff - Day 2

As of day two, Team Tepper is still in the lead but the competition is closing.  If you have any ideas, let us know in the comments section.

	Rank	MBA Program, University	Avg. Portfolio Value
	1	(Tepper) Carnegie Mellon	$1,019,557.08
	2	(Fisher) Ohio State	$1,016,504.04
	3	(McCombs) Texas	$1,010,953.41
	4	(Johnson) Cornell	$1007161.527
	5	(Booth) Chicago	$1,006,794.41
	6	(McDonough) Georgetown	$1,006,367.70
	7	(Mendoza) Notre Dame	$1,004,256.70
	8	(Ross) Michigan	$1,003,506.58

CNBC MBA FaceOff

For those who don't know, CNBC holds the Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge every year.  (http://milliondollar.cnbc.com)

This year, the Tepper School of Business, along with 7 other B-Schools, were invited to participate in an MBA Challenge.  Teams of 10 manage individual portfolios (900,000 equities/ETF's, 100,000 currencies). 

The winning school will be determined by average portfolio amount.  I know it's early but after day 1, Tepper is in the lead.

	Rank	MBA Program, University	Avg. Portfolio Value
	1	(Tepper) Carnegie Mellon	$1018560.06
	2	(Fisher) Ohio	$1009650.85
	3	(Mendoza) Notre Dame	$1007833.40
	4	(Johnson) Cornell	$1007161.52
	5	(Ross) Michigan	$1006174.44
	6	(McCombs) Texas	$1005323.57
	7	(McDonough) Georgetown	$1005064.40
	8	(Booth) Chicago	$1003474.58

http://www.cnbc.com/id/44149628

Save the Economy, Drink More Beer

Apparently depression, economic in nature, can also be fueled by beer.  Or lack of it.  Drinking at home, as opposed to bars, is contributing to the rapidly declining economy (especially in Europe).  Play your part!  Drink more beer at your neighborhood establishment.  Your pint of depressant could be an economic stimulant. 

Source: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/its-a-beer-recession/

A Tale of Two (Beer) Labels - Second Year Delirium

Second Year Delirium

The Tepper Brewmeisters just finished their latest round of Beer Bottling and it was, I might say, a roaring success.  The new beer; a triple strength, double pitched, Belgian style ale, brewed with orange peel and coriander.  We added a new twist and offered attendees two labels, below.  Careful folks, it rings in at approximately 11.5% ABV.  

         

 -The Brewmeisters