The Queue: Blue cheese

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky (@adamholisky) will be your host today.

I'm not sure why Blue Cheese wasn't listed as the best cheese in the world yesterday. But anyways, we've corrected the mistake.

Because Blue Cheese is really the best thing in the world. Especially between two hamburger patties.

Aliase asked:

What effect will the next tier of LFR have on the 5.0 content? Will it be possible to even run it anymore?
I don't think that people are going to abandon the old LFR content at all. I would expect queue times to go up, but the content itself will still be ran by alts and those starting on the gearing process. It's not out of the question, however, for the queue times to go way up. Right now I'm getting between 15 and 45 minutes for a 5.0 LFR, and about 10 to 25 minutes for a 5.2 LFR. Could the 5.0 LFR content have an average wait time for a DPSer of an hour?

Yes, yes it could.

But hey, that's better than never running it. And with as easy as it is to hit the next required iLevels, I don't suspect that it will be a very large issue for many players.

Silver asked:

Is there any indication that 5.4 will be the last patch for MoP? If 5.4 stays on the same release schedule as past 5.x patches, we could expect it as early as September. Assuming Blizz has an expansion ready to showcase during Blizzcon (which is 99.99% guaranteed) and assuming that the new expansion will be in beta testing for a while to work out the kinks, wouldn't it make sense to see some new content introduced to MoP after 5.4 to curb the 'end of xpac blues' that players seem to suffer from? Or would this content detract too much from beta testing 6.x and the hype of a new expansion?

I suspect that we'll see a 5.5, and that it will contain some sort of major pre-expansion event. I know that I might be in the minority here, but I loved the plague and everything getting eaten alive. I mean really, let's all turn into zombies?

Force the entire world into chaos for a few?

YES. More of that. Throw a wrench into the system, disrupt the status quo, cause anarchy. That's what makes the virtual world able to emulate the real world (without all the negative consequences).

But more to your question, no, I don't think a 5.5 would be disruptive to patch 6.0 and the [REDACTED] of [REDACTED] electrical cord.

David Kelly asked:

With our new talent system, we get a new talent every fifteen levels. With the past two expansions, we've only received five new levels at a time. Is Blizz going to deprive us of a new talent for three expansions, jump ten levels to give us the one hundredth level we thought we would have gotten by now had they continued with the ten-levels-per-expansion kick they started on, or will they simply toss us five more levels and a new talent regardless if it interrupts the one-every-fifteen theme they've had going?

You have two first names. I like that. Kudos on your birth-related selections.

As far as the talents go, I suspect that we'll go up 10 levels in the next expansion, and just get a new talent at 100. I don't know why I think that, but hey, I do.

Well, actually I do know why I think that. Two reasons:

1. The rambling dissertations of this shaman down the Street told me
2. I have a sneaking feeling that we're going to have the big squish come in the next expansion, where all the item levels, damage numbers, and health totals get reduced. By delivering only a five level increase we'll see the current generation content a little too difficult when only five levels higher. If we increase by ten levels though we'll get back to the feeling of running MC while we were 70. That wasn't bad, and the big squish that coming should return us to that level of equality. Thus -- 10 levels is my prediction for the next expansion.

And a talent at level 100.

Also just before anyone goes and quotes it, that "list of expansions" from 2004 or whenever is a fake and doesn't at all represent anything (especially the level list on it).
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A Night of Cheese

The other week we hosted a little wine and cheese night.

The is a nice little cheese spread put together from Andrew’s Cheese Shop. I’ll discuss the cheese itself in a bit, but on the right are various artisanal crackers and on the left: honey, dried figs, olives, cornichons, and quince paste.

Here is the cheese. I tried to build a progression from “mild” to “potent.” Now, this should all be taken in the context that I never go boring, being a more is more kind of guy.

I forgot to photo the wines (gasp!), but I selected a small series of very interesting ascending wines and forced all 20 or so people to move through sequential small pours, even the occasional “I don’t like white” naysayer. But they were glad they tried them as these were all drinking in peak form.

2002 Gravner Breg Anfora Venezia Giulia IGT

Deep golden orange (or orange gold) in color. Big full nose dried orange, dry flowers, and honey. Palate is complex with orange rind, dry flowers, a bit of Pinot must, and what would be honey if the wine were sweet (which it is not). Full body and firm tannins with a finish of tea and brandy. An excellent example of Gravner’s OLD Old World philosophy!

1988 Joseph Drouhin Corton

The nose was medicinal, ethereal, and fragrant with hints of coffee, dill and rich dark fruit, more of the same on the palate, lovely mouth filling burgundy, medium finish

1998 Poderi Aldo Conterno Barolo Colonnello

Tanzer 93-95 points, “Medium red. Subdued but noble aromas of plum, smoke, marzipan, minerals and dried flowers. Sweet, silky and concentrated, with lovely vinosity giving the wine a highly aromatic quality in the mouth. Sappy and elegant; a distinctly feminine style of Barolo, with lovely brightness and sweet, broad tannins. Long on the palate.”

2001 Château de Beaucastel Châteauneuf-du-Pape

Parker 96, “Beaucastel has been on a terrific qualitative roll over the last four vintages, and the 2001 Chateauneuf du Pape (which Francois Perrin feels is similar to the 1990, although I don’t see that as of yet) is a 15,000-case blend of 30% Grenache, 30% Mourvedre, 10% Syrah, 10% Counoise, and the balance split among the other permitted varietals of the appellation. This inky/ruby/purple-colored cuvee offers a classic Beaucastel bouquet of new saddle leather, cigar smoke, roasted herbs, black truffles, underbrush, and blackberry as well as cherry fruit. It is a superb, earthy expression of this Mourvedre-dominated cuvee. Full-bodied and powerful.”

I always try to represent all three “animals” (cow, sheep, and goat). This is my goat.

Monte Enebro is handmade in Avila, Spain, by legendary cheesemaker Rafael Baez and his daughter Paloma. The Baezs make their complex goat’s milk cheese from pasteurized milk and then inoculate the logs with the mold that is used to make Roquefort, adding to Monte Enebro’s complexity and distinctive appearance. It is creamy, lemony and slightly acidic; as it ages, the texture becomes denser and the flavor becomes more intense with a pungent finish. This award-winning cheese has proven to be a versatile pairing partner for many wines; it pairs exceptionally well with Chenin Blancs, Sauternes and sweeter sherries.

The Gubbeen Dairy makes effectively one cheese – Gubbeen. Like the Chateaux that produce just one wine from their land, their milk produces Gubbeen Cheese – the trick is what they do in the curing processes. Cheese vintages come from ageing plus the milk quality and the seasons.

The Gubbeen herd is out earlier than most Irish farms as they are influenced by the Gulf Stream bringing in warm winds and early grass. In the Summer their herd will be grazing the pasture and is out all night, coming home at 6.00 in the morning to be milked. During the winter weather the herd is in their main shed where they feed on silage produced here at Gubbeen with supplements of nuts that Tom chooses each year.

The tags for the next two cheeses are actually flipped. This is the Cave Aged Marisa.

A cave – aged beauty! This natural-rind variety gets its complex, sweet and slightly rambunctious flavors from open-air cave aging. Cave Aged Marisa has been a judges favorite and was awarded the prestigious “Best of Show” 1st Runner Up at the 2011 American Cheese Society and 1st Place at the 2012 World Championship Cheese Contest.

Maxx 365 is the elder brother of Scharfe Maxx 365 an Alpine cheese from Toggenburg, Switzerland. The first thing that sets it apart from other Swiss cheese is that it’s not made from part-skim, or even full fat raw milk; it’s actually classified as a double crème. This essentially means they add cream to the milk to increase the richness of the cheese. This is what gives Scharfe Maxx and Maxx365 their unrivaled richness and depth.

Epoisses de Bourgogne is one of my all time favorite cheeses.

Époisses de Bourgogne is a cheese made in the village Époisses, which is in the département of Côte-d’Or in France. It is located around halfway between Dijon and Auxerre.
Commonly referred to as Époisses, it is a pungent unpasteurized cows-milk cheese. Smear-ripened (washed in marc de Bourgogne, the local pomace brandy), it is circular at around either 10cm or 18cm in diameter, with a distinctive soft red-orange colour. It is sold in a circular wooden box, and is best served with a good dark Trappist beer, or even Sauternes.
Napoleon was a particular fan of the cheese,[1] and the famous epicure Brillat-Savarin himself classed it as the “king of all cheeses”.

Bleu du Bocage is an amazing treat for the taste buds. Packed with a variety of flavors, it is salty, milky, fruity and minerally and not overly “goaty” in any way. Assertive in taste, this blue is perfect for dessert with a fruity white wine.

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