I've been up all night; I might sleep all day (The Dunes)

October 3, 2007 - Wednesday

If you never have; stay up all night at least once Current mood: cynical Category: Jobs, Work, Careers I vividly remember the last time I stayed up all night. I was at the tail-end of grad school and didn't have anything better to do so I thought it would be fun to see the sun come up. I called a friend and drank my way through two-thirds of a case of low alcohol beer while shooting the shit (ah, free nights and weekends) and just watched the sky turn colors. It was fun. When you have to work from dusk 'til dawn, though, it loses some of the quaintness. A few days ago I spent the night with my boss watching over 1000 bicyclists spending the night at our park while working their way from one end of NC to the other (hell of a vacation, eh?) This time around it was much less spectacular. I tried to sleep in my desk chair at one point and failed miserably; I grew strangly itchy all over my body, and I was expected to be uber-cheery at 6 am when the bikers wanted breakfast. It was not fun. Do I recommend staying up all night and watching the sky go from midnight to rose to bright as day? Yes; at least once a decade. It's a beautiful and rare thing that should be treated with as much reverence and intoxication as plausible and not bastardized by work requirements. If you haven't, do; If you haven't in a while, plan to, and to those of you recent revelers, cheers! Currently listening : Language. Sex. Violence. Other? By Stereophonics Release date: 29 March, 2005 9:02 PM - 0 Comments

Beers On Tap

Beers on Tap
Current mood: awake

I've been asked recently what beers I have available and have taken stock. Here are the results:

Juniper Red- Lil' bit

Apricot Wheat - Shit-ton

Make Mine a Double IPA- Lil' bit

Bell's Two-Hearted- Private Stock

Garden Wedding Cream Ale- A Good Amount

Sweet Wheat - Shit-ton

Ken's Pale Ale- Shit-ton

Red Headed Ale- Shit-ton

Bourbon Barrel Old Ale - Ready in December

Pumpkin Ale - Ready in two weeks

Black and Blue Wheat - Ready in three weeks

Bell's Best Brown and Little Brother Brown are fermenting now; a stout and/or Barleywine is on-deck!!!

Currently listening : Shine: The Best of the Early Years By David Gray Release date: 03 April, 2007

Chugging along in All-Grain Land

I just made my third (and consequentially fourth) all-grain batch and I am loving this method. I made a Bell's Best Brown Clone and had such a thick wort going even after I got my 6.5 gallons for the boil I decided to keep three gallons of it and boil up a second batch (called Little Brother Brown; a Northern Brown Ale) on the stove while the original beer cooled. Long story short, I now have ten gallons of beer fermenting in my beer fridge, a 5.9% American Brown Ale and a 4.2% Northern Brown Ale. It only took an extra hour (out of an already 6 hour day) to make a weaker, session beer at the same time as my original recipe. I will probably do this a lot more when making barleywines or Imperial anything. I still have a ton of beer left over from the wedding, but I can't stop brewing. My Pumpkin Ale will be bottled on Sunday and a Black and Blue Berry wheat the next week. My Porter is at its peak flavor and in another week my first all-grain, the American Pale Ale, will be fully carbonated. That beer is by far the most commercial tasting beer I've ever made, so if it's any indication of what All grain can do, I can't wait to have a few batches to let people try!!!

The Dust Has Almost Settled

We got through the wedding, the honeymoon, and our only problem now is that we have a ton of beer. There are about six cases of macro-brew left, maybe four cases of my own, and a few cases of top shelf Texas micro as well as stuff from Anchor and Sam Adams. Let's not forget the hundred dollars or so that I dropped local California beer on the honeymoon [they all made it back in my suitcases safe and sound] I'm brewing either a Belgian Strong Ale or a Cherry Pale Ale tomorrow, but I can't even justify doing it. Oh well.

By the way, the picture to the right is my wedding present from Natalie. It plugs into my fridge and keeps the temp to within a degree of what I need. Right now I've got a porter I'm keeping at 60 degrees and it's working like a champ.

Wedding Beers A Go-Go

Wedding Beers a go-go
Current mood: lethargic

Well, I've finished all the beers that I made for the wedding [even the apricot is carbonated now] and here's the list-

Garden Wedding Cream Ale
HopESB
Apricot Wheat
Black and Blue Wheat
Child-Sized Cherry Wheat
Juniper Red Ale
Brown Ale
Bell's Two-Hearted Clone
Make Mine A Double IPA
Sweet Wheat

It was not easy saving some for this long [the Brown, HopESB, and Black and Blue Wheat are at least three months old] but now there's 10 homebrew selections available. There are some gripes, of course; the Juniper and Apricot have some diacytel issues, but some surprises, too. The Sweet Wheat was awful when I tasted it; over the top cloying sweetness, but it really mellowed out in the bottle and now it's quite unadventurous but enjoyable as a lawnmoweer beer. All in all, it's been great fun and when I get back, I'm going to get an all-grain system and perfect the HopESB, as I think that's the soon-to-be flagship beer in my stable.

Just made my first porter a few days ago and it's now bubbling away in the airlock. I was very careful to keep this one in the fridge set on low, so it's maintained a 62 degree ferment the whole time. I liked the looks of this recipe because it called for a whole bunch of things that I needed to use up anyways, and the secondary fermentation takes 20 days, so I don't hav to mess with it until well after the honeymoon. Up next is that HopESB, a Cherry Stout, and a Maple Brown Ale.