06/28: Random question...
any of you reading this have any suggestions/recommendations on how to... pace my cooking? So that things all get done closer to the same time and all that?
So, I'm only a day or so late - but here's the nice long post I promised. And, knowing me, it'll be somewhat disjointed - and DEFINITELY rambling - but when you have a writing style that works for you, you go with it. :-)
Probably one of the best things I did for myself recently was go up to Montreal for Mondiale de la Biere. (And yes, I know there are accents that are supposed to go in there, but honestly, do you miss them? I mean, really? *s*) It was a 7 hour drive up to Montreal, and between Albany and the border, you're on one road. This road is called the Adirondack Northway - or just The Northway for short. I now learned that there's nothing on the Northway except for trees and troopers. It may have very well been the most boring drive I've ever made, but once I got over the border into Canada, it was just kind of... surreal. First time I've ever been there. First time I've ever "really" been in a foreign country, day trips to the Dutch Antilles over spring break my senior year of college notwithstanding. I get to the hotel, and once I'm all checked in, ask about how to get to the fest. Turns out I'm within walking distance of a metro station where 3 out of the 4 Montreal metro lines converge - think... Grand Central Station, if you've ever been to Manhattan. Not quite as big and important as Penn Station, but still a sizable station that will get you a lot of the places you want to go. Picked up a 3 day tourist pass (if they still have them, I HIGHLY recommend getting one - $17 for all the metro/bus you can ride), took the metro downtown, and when I got to the fest, I just followed the noise. Came up the stairs at Windsor Station, and once I saw the environment, once I saw all the booths and the people and the beer, I couldn't help but smile. It was a GREAT feeling. I started off at a booth for a brewpub I was familiar with by association - someone I met at GABF in Denver in October told me about it - and was impressed to see a Randall being used. I explained to a couple of people what it is, and made a couple of friends from the area who I ended up walking around the rest of the festival with that day. There's a TON of great little breweries and brewpubs from up in that direction. I'm sure some of you have seen beers from Brasserie Dieu de Ciel!, but they have even more, even better stuff north of the border. One of them was a stout with cocoa and vanilla called L'Aphrodisiaque, one is a Kolsch called Basse Messe, they have a beer brewed with hemp, one with hibiscus, one that was a highly hopped white beer... this kind of stuff is the future of brewing, if you ask me. They didn't lose touch with the traditional styles and definitions, but at the same time, they're not afraid to push those boundaries. They want to keep it interesting, keep it new and different, and I applaud them for that. (The food at their brewpub on Laurier is pretty damn good, too.)
Met up with a couple of my friends up there - M and Z. I know Z from a game I play online, so since I was in their neck of the woods already, they invited me over for dinner. Great people - and afterwards, M and I went to do some karaoke in the gay district of Montreal. In some odd way, I think that was one of the more interesting, yet enjoyable, parts of the whole trip. :-) To meet Z in person was pretty damn cool, though - when you get to know these people from different sides of a computer screen, then you actually get to meet them in person, it adds a completely different dimension to the friendship. I know all these people are real people, just like I know all of you are real people, but for those of you who I haven't met, I hope to soon so I can get a better feeling of who you are. I think what it is is that I'm very big on experience. I've always considered myself an empiricist - I find it easier to garner knowledge from actual situations than from logical extensions. I need the empirical data more than I can act the part of a rationalist and come to the intelligence by reason. I think I've always been that way, but thank you, Dr. Pawelski, for helping me put words to it. I forget which 200-level class it was, but it was called "Rationalism and Empiricism" and when we first went over the Empiricism aspect of it, I just smiled and felt like the class was about me. Might also have something to do with my interest in epistemology, but that's another story entirely. :-)
But I digress. I was able to do a little exploration while in Montreal, and saw some interesting sights - including the city-wide bike network they've deployed, called Bixi. It looks like a PHENOMENAL idea and execution.
And, I'm still brewing. Just bottled my Patersbier the other night, and had the Bottling Run From Hell.® No matter what I did, I couldn't get a good siphon started using the one piece of equipment I was trying, so I ended up (after frustration and irritation that I'm not going to go into here) going to my trusty autosiphon to get the bottling done. What's wrong with that, you ask? Well, the last time I used the autosiphon was with my sour beer. The organisms that are responsible for souring the beer were still on the autosiphon - many brewers will only use one set of equipment with their sour beers, because these organisms are so difficult to kill. So I may end up with a slightly soured Patersbier - and if it turns out that it doesn't come out well, then I'm not out too much money. If something like this happened with, say, my barleywine, I'd be much more upset. Here, since I spent about... 30-40% of the amount I spent on the barleywine, I don't mind if this one doesn't come out well. Not every beer will be good, not every beer needs to be good. Dad needs slug repellent too, you know. :-)
So I entered a couple of beers and a cider into a competition out east here on Long Island. I got my scores back - they said the cider started out perfectly, but ended up way too sour, so I'm hoping time will smooth that one out. The two beers I entered, they said I entered in the wrong categories. So I found another competition not too far from here - outside of Philadelphia - and entered the two beers in there.
One did better, one did worse.
Just goes to show you that sometimes, you should trust your instinct with these beers. The judges don't always know what they're talking about, either. But the fact of the matter still remains this: I make good beer. I may not make good beer from a critical perspective, but I make good beer. I have a LOT of respect for a Norwegian brewery called Nogne O. I decided, on a whim, to pick up a bottle of Nogne O porter and grab a bottle of my porter - do a little makeshift taste test with some friends. The friends who tried my porter were split as to which they liked better - mine or the Nogne O. And since those are more the people who are going to be drinking the beers, that meant a LOT to me to hear them say that. I wasn't expecting anyone to choose my beer. Not to mention my friend, who took a bottle of my wheat beer and a bottle of wheat beer by Weihenstephaner - and liked mine better. Like I said, these are more the kind of people who would be drinking my beer than judges.
I make good beer, just maybe not critically. :-)
So I've been thinking about taking my brewing to the next step and going all grain. From a baking perspective, this is going from buying the Betty Crocker boxes off the shelf to making my own batters. I'm not sure if I'm going to do that quite yet, but what I do know is the beer I'm going to try next. It's going to be an Orange Blossom Pale Ale - just need to work out a recipe for it. And hopefully I'll get to brew it somewhat soon - if the weather stays relatively cool, that is, because I want to have a fighting chance of this coming out the way I want it. And if it doesn't, well, then I'll just have to call into service the project Dad and I are working on right now. "Red Headed Stepchild of Fermentation Chiller" - our own twist on the Son of Fermentation Chiller design. With any luck, if this whole thing works well, I'll be able to set my own fermentation temperature and make pretty much whatever style of beer I want any time of year. Hopefully. :-)
Ok, enough rambling for one night - I doubt any of you even made it this far. So for now, I'll sign off - but I'll be back soon enough to update this post with links where appropriate...
Probably one of the best things I did for myself recently was go up to Montreal for Mondiale de la Biere. (And yes, I know there are accents that are supposed to go in there, but honestly, do you miss them? I mean, really? *s*) It was a 7 hour drive up to Montreal, and between Albany and the border, you're on one road. This road is called the Adirondack Northway - or just The Northway for short. I now learned that there's nothing on the Northway except for trees and troopers. It may have very well been the most boring drive I've ever made, but once I got over the border into Canada, it was just kind of... surreal. First time I've ever been there. First time I've ever "really" been in a foreign country, day trips to the Dutch Antilles over spring break my senior year of college notwithstanding. I get to the hotel, and once I'm all checked in, ask about how to get to the fest. Turns out I'm within walking distance of a metro station where 3 out of the 4 Montreal metro lines converge - think... Grand Central Station, if you've ever been to Manhattan. Not quite as big and important as Penn Station, but still a sizable station that will get you a lot of the places you want to go. Picked up a 3 day tourist pass (if they still have them, I HIGHLY recommend getting one - $17 for all the metro/bus you can ride), took the metro downtown, and when I got to the fest, I just followed the noise. Came up the stairs at Windsor Station, and once I saw the environment, once I saw all the booths and the people and the beer, I couldn't help but smile. It was a GREAT feeling. I started off at a booth for a brewpub I was familiar with by association - someone I met at GABF in Denver in October told me about it - and was impressed to see a Randall being used. I explained to a couple of people what it is, and made a couple of friends from the area who I ended up walking around the rest of the festival with that day. There's a TON of great little breweries and brewpubs from up in that direction. I'm sure some of you have seen beers from Brasserie Dieu de Ciel!, but they have even more, even better stuff north of the border. One of them was a stout with cocoa and vanilla called L'Aphrodisiaque, one is a Kolsch called Basse Messe, they have a beer brewed with hemp, one with hibiscus, one that was a highly hopped white beer... this kind of stuff is the future of brewing, if you ask me. They didn't lose touch with the traditional styles and definitions, but at the same time, they're not afraid to push those boundaries. They want to keep it interesting, keep it new and different, and I applaud them for that. (The food at their brewpub on Laurier is pretty damn good, too.)
Met up with a couple of my friends up there - M and Z. I know Z from a game I play online, so since I was in their neck of the woods already, they invited me over for dinner. Great people - and afterwards, M and I went to do some karaoke in the gay district of Montreal. In some odd way, I think that was one of the more interesting, yet enjoyable, parts of the whole trip. :-) To meet Z in person was pretty damn cool, though - when you get to know these people from different sides of a computer screen, then you actually get to meet them in person, it adds a completely different dimension to the friendship. I know all these people are real people, just like I know all of you are real people, but for those of you who I haven't met, I hope to soon so I can get a better feeling of who you are. I think what it is is that I'm very big on experience. I've always considered myself an empiricist - I find it easier to garner knowledge from actual situations than from logical extensions. I need the empirical data more than I can act the part of a rationalist and come to the intelligence by reason. I think I've always been that way, but thank you, Dr. Pawelski, for helping me put words to it. I forget which 200-level class it was, but it was called "Rationalism and Empiricism" and when we first went over the Empiricism aspect of it, I just smiled and felt like the class was about me. Might also have something to do with my interest in epistemology, but that's another story entirely. :-)
But I digress. I was able to do a little exploration while in Montreal, and saw some interesting sights - including the city-wide bike network they've deployed, called Bixi. It looks like a PHENOMENAL idea and execution.
And, I'm still brewing. Just bottled my Patersbier the other night, and had the Bottling Run From Hell.® No matter what I did, I couldn't get a good siphon started using the one piece of equipment I was trying, so I ended up (after frustration and irritation that I'm not going to go into here) going to my trusty autosiphon to get the bottling done. What's wrong with that, you ask? Well, the last time I used the autosiphon was with my sour beer. The organisms that are responsible for souring the beer were still on the autosiphon - many brewers will only use one set of equipment with their sour beers, because these organisms are so difficult to kill. So I may end up with a slightly soured Patersbier - and if it turns out that it doesn't come out well, then I'm not out too much money. If something like this happened with, say, my barleywine, I'd be much more upset. Here, since I spent about... 30-40% of the amount I spent on the barleywine, I don't mind if this one doesn't come out well. Not every beer will be good, not every beer needs to be good. Dad needs slug repellent too, you know. :-)
So I entered a couple of beers and a cider into a competition out east here on Long Island. I got my scores back - they said the cider started out perfectly, but ended up way too sour, so I'm hoping time will smooth that one out. The two beers I entered, they said I entered in the wrong categories. So I found another competition not too far from here - outside of Philadelphia - and entered the two beers in there.
One did better, one did worse.
Just goes to show you that sometimes, you should trust your instinct with these beers. The judges don't always know what they're talking about, either. But the fact of the matter still remains this: I make good beer. I may not make good beer from a critical perspective, but I make good beer. I have a LOT of respect for a Norwegian brewery called Nogne O. I decided, on a whim, to pick up a bottle of Nogne O porter and grab a bottle of my porter - do a little makeshift taste test with some friends. The friends who tried my porter were split as to which they liked better - mine or the Nogne O. And since those are more the people who are going to be drinking the beers, that meant a LOT to me to hear them say that. I wasn't expecting anyone to choose my beer. Not to mention my friend, who took a bottle of my wheat beer and a bottle of wheat beer by Weihenstephaner - and liked mine better. Like I said, these are more the kind of people who would be drinking my beer than judges.
I make good beer, just maybe not critically. :-)
So I've been thinking about taking my brewing to the next step and going all grain. From a baking perspective, this is going from buying the Betty Crocker boxes off the shelf to making my own batters. I'm not sure if I'm going to do that quite yet, but what I do know is the beer I'm going to try next. It's going to be an Orange Blossom Pale Ale - just need to work out a recipe for it. And hopefully I'll get to brew it somewhat soon - if the weather stays relatively cool, that is, because I want to have a fighting chance of this coming out the way I want it. And if it doesn't, well, then I'll just have to call into service the project Dad and I are working on right now. "Red Headed Stepchild of Fermentation Chiller" - our own twist on the Son of Fermentation Chiller design. With any luck, if this whole thing works well, I'll be able to set my own fermentation temperature and make pretty much whatever style of beer I want any time of year. Hopefully. :-)
Ok, enough rambling for one night - I doubt any of you even made it this far. So for now, I'll sign off - but I'll be back soon enough to update this post with links where appropriate...
06/12: I know, I know...
I owe you guys an update. Just... have been a bit crazy recently - but I'm going to do my best to get one up this weekend. :-)
The title quote being from one of my favorite songs of late, by a band called Okkervil RIver. Great stuff, highly recommended.
And, in some sort of irony, that's not even the song I'm listening to right now. The song I'm listening to is Dondante, by My Morning Jacket - a nice, slow-burn kind of song. Kind of reflects my mood at the moment.
Got an email from a friend of mine earlier in the week about a new beer bar that's opening "near" me. I wanted to send the guy an email about it, since he's looking for wait staff, bartenders, and possibly a resident beer geek, and I just never sent it.
Well, guess who I happened to run into at a beer tasting today? So the two of us get to talking, and he seems to be a pretty nice guy - I wrote down his email address in front of him, just to make sure I have it, and emailed him tonight. He said when I was speaking to him that they were in their second round of interviews already - so I tried to sell myself in the email as if it was my initial interview. Could be a good strategy, could be a bad one - but the guy even mentioned to me when I was talking to him that he can see I know my beer stuff. That I love the topic - it comes across in how I talk. So that's a good thing... right?
After talking with some people who know more about this than I do, I've found out that the best way for me to do the beer I have in the fermenter right now is to let it sit and ferment out for a couple of weeks, then move it to the secondary fermenter for the 18 or so months. At least I have the beer to tide me over until then. *looks around* yep. Definitely have the beer to tide me over until then. All sorts of commercial beers, plus the american wheat beer I bottled last week, the vanilla porter I bottled a month or so ago, the "kitchen sink" porter I did a while ago that came out really well, and a few other odds and ends I have laying around. I really need to go through the beer I have here. I need to clean this place, also. I think it gets to me a little, maybe, when the place gets cluttered/dirty/messy. But the problem is, when that happens, I know I also get less inspired to clean it. So it's kind of a double edged sword - I don't want to have a messy apartment, but when it gets messy, I don't want to clean it and pretty much need to force myself to.
I've been sleeping like crap recently. A few different reasons for that, though - some self-imposed, but not all. In some ways, I think I'm like my grandfathers. The personality of the maternal one, the sleep patterns of the paternal one. Apparently, according to Dad, Grandpa used to be fully rested on 4-5 hours of sleep. When I sleep a lot during the week, I get about 6 hours of sleep. I'm sure it takes its toll on me in some ways, maybe some I just don't want to admit to, but... by now, I kind of feel like it's just who I am.
Meh, whatever. :-)
I'm trying to decide if I treat myself well enough or not. Whether I should buy myself more things or not. Example - I built myself a spare computer a few years back - I had the extra money, the extra time, and the knowledge. Bought myself a spare hard drive for it a couple of years ago. It turns out that hard drive has since gone bad, and I'm probably going to buy myself a replacement HD tomorrow. But the issue I find myself having is justifying the purchase to myself - convincing myself that either a) this is something I need or b) screw needing it, this is something I want. Ironically, though, I have no problem doing that with beer. I've been known to spend almost $100 at a distributor when I don't really need anything.
Which reminds me, I should really open that growler of Ommegang Rouge...
So the great culinary experiment is in the slow cooker. Making "Drunken Baked Beans" for the Mother's Day barbecue tomorrow - taking a recipe I found online but tweaking it a little. We'll see how it comes out - maybe I'll even take/post some pictures, if I think of it.
Oh, and before I forget completely - I entered 3 of my recent concoctions into a homebrewing competition. I don't expect to win by any stretch of the imagination, but we'll see how I do - I'm especially curious to see what they think of the hard cider I did. It's still a little on the young side, but it tastes like a slightly apple-y somewhat acidic wine. I'm not a wine person, so I don't know if there's a better way to describe it or if it tastes like a particular style. If you're in the area, let me know and I'll crack one of them open for you. :-)
Alright, time for me to stop rambling here and look over some beer recipes so I can decide if I want to photocopy any of them... as always, leave me a comment - I'm always curious to see who's actually reading this thing - and I'll catch up with all of you soon.
And, in some sort of irony, that's not even the song I'm listening to right now. The song I'm listening to is Dondante, by My Morning Jacket - a nice, slow-burn kind of song. Kind of reflects my mood at the moment.
Got an email from a friend of mine earlier in the week about a new beer bar that's opening "near" me. I wanted to send the guy an email about it, since he's looking for wait staff, bartenders, and possibly a resident beer geek, and I just never sent it.
Well, guess who I happened to run into at a beer tasting today? So the two of us get to talking, and he seems to be a pretty nice guy - I wrote down his email address in front of him, just to make sure I have it, and emailed him tonight. He said when I was speaking to him that they were in their second round of interviews already - so I tried to sell myself in the email as if it was my initial interview. Could be a good strategy, could be a bad one - but the guy even mentioned to me when I was talking to him that he can see I know my beer stuff. That I love the topic - it comes across in how I talk. So that's a good thing... right?
After talking with some people who know more about this than I do, I've found out that the best way for me to do the beer I have in the fermenter right now is to let it sit and ferment out for a couple of weeks, then move it to the secondary fermenter for the 18 or so months. At least I have the beer to tide me over until then. *looks around* yep. Definitely have the beer to tide me over until then. All sorts of commercial beers, plus the american wheat beer I bottled last week, the vanilla porter I bottled a month or so ago, the "kitchen sink" porter I did a while ago that came out really well, and a few other odds and ends I have laying around. I really need to go through the beer I have here. I need to clean this place, also. I think it gets to me a little, maybe, when the place gets cluttered/dirty/messy. But the problem is, when that happens, I know I also get less inspired to clean it. So it's kind of a double edged sword - I don't want to have a messy apartment, but when it gets messy, I don't want to clean it and pretty much need to force myself to.
I've been sleeping like crap recently. A few different reasons for that, though - some self-imposed, but not all. In some ways, I think I'm like my grandfathers. The personality of the maternal one, the sleep patterns of the paternal one. Apparently, according to Dad, Grandpa used to be fully rested on 4-5 hours of sleep. When I sleep a lot during the week, I get about 6 hours of sleep. I'm sure it takes its toll on me in some ways, maybe some I just don't want to admit to, but... by now, I kind of feel like it's just who I am.
Meh, whatever. :-)
I'm trying to decide if I treat myself well enough or not. Whether I should buy myself more things or not. Example - I built myself a spare computer a few years back - I had the extra money, the extra time, and the knowledge. Bought myself a spare hard drive for it a couple of years ago. It turns out that hard drive has since gone bad, and I'm probably going to buy myself a replacement HD tomorrow. But the issue I find myself having is justifying the purchase to myself - convincing myself that either a) this is something I need or b) screw needing it, this is something I want. Ironically, though, I have no problem doing that with beer. I've been known to spend almost $100 at a distributor when I don't really need anything.
Which reminds me, I should really open that growler of Ommegang Rouge...
So the great culinary experiment is in the slow cooker. Making "Drunken Baked Beans" for the Mother's Day barbecue tomorrow - taking a recipe I found online but tweaking it a little. We'll see how it comes out - maybe I'll even take/post some pictures, if I think of it.
Oh, and before I forget completely - I entered 3 of my recent concoctions into a homebrewing competition. I don't expect to win by any stretch of the imagination, but we'll see how I do - I'm especially curious to see what they think of the hard cider I did. It's still a little on the young side, but it tastes like a slightly apple-y somewhat acidic wine. I'm not a wine person, so I don't know if there's a better way to describe it or if it tastes like a particular style. If you're in the area, let me know and I'll crack one of them open for you. :-)
Alright, time for me to stop rambling here and look over some beer recipes so I can decide if I want to photocopy any of them... as always, leave me a comment - I'm always curious to see who's actually reading this thing - and I'll catch up with all of you soon.
So.
It's been a rough few days for a couple of reasons - nothing worth discussing here. But tonight, right now, I'm sitting back with a bottle of Monk's Cafe and just... trying to relax a bit. And sometimes, the beer makes all the difference.
Sour beers are an animal unto themselves - but I happen to love them, and will actually be attempting to brew my first one in the near future. There are a few different types of sour beers, and the one I'll be attempting is known as an Oud Bruin. I figure if I have the opportunity to (since one of the places I get my ingredients from is offering an Oud Bruin kit), then I might as well take advantage of it, right?
So some of my friends have tried sour beers, and have told me they just can't drink them. It took me a few years to be able to drink IPAs, and I've heard sour beers are kind of the same. But to find a beer that's just purely good, nothing hidden in the beer, nothing hidden in the flavor, it's just a wonderful thing. (I'm actually pretty tired as I'm writing this, so parts may sound/flow better in my head than they do in the post...)
The thing is, though, that Oud Bruins take a while. Literally. Like I'll hopefully be brewing this one in the next month or so, and once I move it to the secondary fermenter, I'll be leaving it there until approximately January 2011. I figure that if I do this now, it'll make a nice little 30th birthday present to myself. Of course, who knows where the next couple of years will lead me - but just like a good friend, a good beer is a wonderful thing to have by my side. It will never steer me wrong - which is more than I can say about some people I know.
And before I forget - like I said, it's been a rough few days for me. But, someone said something to me before they left to go on vacation in Lake Placid for the weekend today. I'm not going to say who it is or what they said - this person knows who they are - but two words (the last two words) just made me smile. It's hard to explain why those words made me smile, but they did - so you-know-who, I'm taking your advice. :-) And everyone else, try to extend this to your own life - take a few seconds and let someone know you're thinking about them. Couple of seconds, real quick, you can even do it over email - I bet that the fact someone knows they were in your thoughts for no reason other than you wanted them there will make their day. :-)
It's been a rough few days for a couple of reasons - nothing worth discussing here. But tonight, right now, I'm sitting back with a bottle of Monk's Cafe and just... trying to relax a bit. And sometimes, the beer makes all the difference.
Sour beers are an animal unto themselves - but I happen to love them, and will actually be attempting to brew my first one in the near future. There are a few different types of sour beers, and the one I'll be attempting is known as an Oud Bruin. I figure if I have the opportunity to (since one of the places I get my ingredients from is offering an Oud Bruin kit), then I might as well take advantage of it, right?
So some of my friends have tried sour beers, and have told me they just can't drink them. It took me a few years to be able to drink IPAs, and I've heard sour beers are kind of the same. But to find a beer that's just purely good, nothing hidden in the beer, nothing hidden in the flavor, it's just a wonderful thing. (I'm actually pretty tired as I'm writing this, so parts may sound/flow better in my head than they do in the post...)
The thing is, though, that Oud Bruins take a while. Literally. Like I'll hopefully be brewing this one in the next month or so, and once I move it to the secondary fermenter, I'll be leaving it there until approximately January 2011. I figure that if I do this now, it'll make a nice little 30th birthday present to myself. Of course, who knows where the next couple of years will lead me - but just like a good friend, a good beer is a wonderful thing to have by my side. It will never steer me wrong - which is more than I can say about some people I know.
And before I forget - like I said, it's been a rough few days for me. But, someone said something to me before they left to go on vacation in Lake Placid for the weekend today. I'm not going to say who it is or what they said - this person knows who they are - but two words (the last two words) just made me smile. It's hard to explain why those words made me smile, but they did - so you-know-who, I'm taking your advice. :-) And everyone else, try to extend this to your own life - take a few seconds and let someone know you're thinking about them. Couple of seconds, real quick, you can even do it over email - I bet that the fact someone knows they were in your thoughts for no reason other than you wanted them there will make their day. :-)
04/17: So, with any luck...
...I'll have time to get a nice, long entry in this weekend. I have a brewday coming up on Saturday - this year's wheat beer, but with a couple of tweaks to last year's recipe.
However, via a couple of conversations tonight, I think I have an idea for an experimental beer for this year. (Keep your mouth shut, Jean...) ;-)
All I'm going to say is that I need to do a little research in how honey is used in brewing. This one could have the potential to be REAL nice. :-)
So I've also thought about writing a book about beer. I think I need to flesh that idea out a bit more, though. I have the REALLY rough idea of what I'd do, but like I said, it's a rough idea. Something to think about, though...
Bottled my vanilla porter recently - if it comes out well, I'll think about entering it into the BEER competition out east next month. I also think I'll enter the hard cider in there - considering it's so cheap to enter them, it doesn't make any sense for me not to, you know?
...and now, since someone who I don't want to talk to right now is trying to get a hold of me, I'm going to call it a night.
However, via a couple of conversations tonight, I think I have an idea for an experimental beer for this year. (Keep your mouth shut, Jean...) ;-)
All I'm going to say is that I need to do a little research in how honey is used in brewing. This one could have the potential to be REAL nice. :-)
So I've also thought about writing a book about beer. I think I need to flesh that idea out a bit more, though. I have the REALLY rough idea of what I'd do, but like I said, it's a rough idea. Something to think about, though...
Bottled my vanilla porter recently - if it comes out well, I'll think about entering it into the BEER competition out east next month. I also think I'll enter the hard cider in there - considering it's so cheap to enter them, it doesn't make any sense for me not to, you know?
...and now, since someone who I don't want to talk to right now is trying to get a hold of me, I'm going to call it a night.
04/04: Thoughts?
Latest beer label idea - thoughts? Opinions?
03/14: A little beer porn...
Sorry, but it's not often that I pour a beer as nice as this. (And forgive me the clutter in the background of the picture...)
It's a homebrew - my fresh hop American Pale Ale from last fall, so it's been around for a bit, but it's still every bit as hoppy and delicious. The clarity on this beer is incredible, though, and the head is a nice off white, hung around for a while, and is lacing the glass as I drink it. If I have access to the fresh hops every year, I'll make this beer every year... :-) And I can see myself doing my barleywine again - I'm not sure when, but that one came out VERY well. Only problem was that it's undercarbonated, but I'd rather have it undercarbonated than overcarbonated.
And this time, I'll write down the recipe, not just the hop schedule. ;-)
03/14: Enough said. :-)
03/03: And one more quick note...
...this is what my sister made for me for my birthday. She told me she needed the 6 pack holders to make something for her husband. Little did I know... :-)
