NightWoundsTime

Drink four for me boys, I gotta catch up from last year still. Ran across a Tallahassee beer blogger's angry rant about BeerAdvocate and, using Pliny the Elder as an example, how nearly every review mentions The Younger without even a direct comparison except to view The Elder as some inferior copy. Thus is the state of beer. Think I need to meet this blogger though.

Of course.

if I get around to one more batch next week I'll have 6 varieties to share. 3 IPA's, the scotch ale, and the crazy stouts.

Loved the Nascar bit. A few months ago I walked into the "saloon" next my friend's house on a Sunday afternoon. Nothing but shitty beer to be found but they had a special going. One raffle ticket per beer, one raffle ticket pulled per flag. Ended up staying till the end of the race cheering with the drunk toothless rednecks every time they'd go four wide through a corner.

Where is episode 2? Lazy rippers and seeders and whatnots need to stop watching the stupid game and post my Top Gear already. Slightly holding me over, that OK Go Chevy ad is pretty sweet and TG friendly. http://www.youtube.c.../Chevrolet/home Just found an NZB, using the obvious sources. Duh.

Got a taste of my first real attempt at an IPA last night, it's not fully finished yet but I think another week in the keg will make it passable. I expect it will take a handful of attempts to nail a perfect IPA recipe. My methodology is sound, fermented from a 1.073 OG all the way down to 1.010, apparently the secret to any decent Pliny clone attempt. For all the hops I added, I think I could go bigger next time. We'll see what proper carbonation does for this one regarding the hop aroma. If it pans out in a week I'll pull a few bottles for our gathering. Tomorrow I'm finally brewing the hopefully 11%ABV Tripel IPA, and I'll make no mistakes in underhopping. Using one relative unknown variety, Sorachi Ace, new Japanese bred strain designed for Belgian style beer. I've got 2 ounces of that to throw at this beer, probably split between late and dry hop. Another 8 ounces or so of good whole hops and an ounce of Simcoe pellets since that's such a bitch to find fresh. Going on a quick production schedule, a week in primary, two in secondary on the dry hops, and just under two in the bottle before H day. The hops should be well preserved, at least. I expect it to be extremely boozy at that point but we shall see.

Dates ASAP. It probably won't happen but I need a fucking vacation.

Aimed for 6 gallons, somehow only got 5 1/4 in the end, so just over a case of each. I'll probably do a total of 20 12 oz bottles fo share, and bombers to share at H day. The rest goes in the cellar. Going to be a while before I summon the energy to do that again. Actually I am planning just as much work in a few months on a DoppelSchwartzBock. Aging 3 gallons of that on sour and black cherries, and oak. Will be October before I taste it but I already know it will be excellent.

Just got the tiniest first taste of Mostly, while transferring to secondary. It worked! Crazy heavy rye bomb exactly like i wanted. Finished out at 10.9%. Had my oak spiral in a plastic bag with a cup of redemption rye for a week, smelled incredible when I added it to one of the three gallon secondaries. Seriously is born.

Chapeau Winter Gueuze (aka Xmas Gueuze). Bad ratings but I kinda like it. It's super sweet and reminds me of a christmas candy type concoction. Eating some Cowgirl Mt Tam cheese with it, and a little leftover smoked turkey. Thoroughly great.

A lot of eggnog last night and a bottle of Chouffe N'ice, still my favorite Christmas beer. Now I've got to beat the hangover so I can drive the 88 backroad miles to my cousin's place in Georgia.

Ken, my friend Ray is going to be stationed at Vandenberg in a few months, and will have a few months of downtime once he's there before he starts training. I'll mostly likely come out there around that time, guessing March/April or so, will have to meet up for a beer.

Grats Shelly! Drinking Abita 25th Anniversary Vanilla Doubledog. Turbodog has always been a cheap available fave of mine so this is nice. Still very much the same style just refined in some ways, and stronger.

Things always break for me in threes, so maybe it's finished. Right now it's drives, two HDD's getting noisy and sluggish and a DVDRDL burner that doesn't anymore.

No tickets or general distribution system has been announced yet. Last year they handed out 1000 armbands (day of sale) with an allotment of 4 per band, and opened it up at the end with quite a bit of inventory. Recently Mike, John, Raffy and I went for a limited Barrel Aged Hunahpus release that turned into chaos on a hot September day, and resulted in very little beer in our hands. I saw the Redners looking a bit shocked at the turnout, so I'll give them one more chance to handle their shit.

No official announcement yet but the 10th is my best guess. Should be a huge event this year.

Sorry, just didn't notice it. Love the name, just changed it on my iBrewMaster recipe. I have had the Bell's rye and it was nice. Aiming for Hunahpus levels of sticky oily high alcohol swill. I want to have to start this shit out of the bottle with a knife. Still haven't brewed it, weather was bad all weekend. It's happening Saturday. I have a brewschedule set through Hunahpus day, and will have Dunlop Hill Scotch Ale, The Younger Tripel IPA, and Mostly/Seriously Rye Stouts bottled and ready. Going to start pulling a few bottles from each keg so those will make the scene as well. You need to be there, Uncle Al.

Excellent little chunk of Sweet Grass Dairy Farms 'Black Swan', their Arrogant Bastard washed cheese. Just joined the local hippie co-op for access to this kind of thing, nevermind that the hippie co-op is bigger than most Whole Foods. Sweet Grass is right up the road but that's the best retail presence for the rare stuff.

First taste of the finished 'Chocodile Brown Ale' and fuck me, it's a porter. Total hubris I'm sure to consider it one of my favorite porters ever, but it really is that spot on. Today's the big day for the rye oat stoat. My recipe in the end involves 7 pounds of raw grains in the cereal mash and 16 1/2 in the main mash for an OG of 1.115, 11.5 ABV I hope. Loaded up on high tech additives, like the 5.2 PH buffer from Five Star and White Labs Servomyces yeast nutrient. Throwing a hail mary pass at this one, won't get a final verdict till at least Feb 19th, and might save the first taste for Hunahpus day.

I dunno MVGroup just posted them and they're usually pretty quick.

Just glad the guy didn't turn the camera around, with that much beer geekdom he has to be hideous. Creepy silent slow pans of beer collections are my new least favorite porn on youtube.

James May's Man Lab Series 2 is currently running and the first 2 episodes are available. Watching the first one right now and there's a much welcome Oz Clarke appearance involved.

Stone Vertical Epic 11.11.11 - "Meh" for me, as was the 10. Earliest one I got was the 9 I remember being nice. Anyway they could all be great next year, I could see this one calming down a lot by then. ON the back of the bottle they slowly spell out exactly how they fucked it up, doing a chili/cinnamon treatment on a belgian yeast strain known for "banana and clove" aromas. It's all in there, but none of it is playing nice.

Missed the "for science" bit and that it was chicken fried. I just despise plain old fried bacon. I tip my hat to your awesomeness.

I thought that was a bowl of melted chocolate. Made cuban bread with bacon grease a few weeks ago, forgot to post it. Lard is in the traditional recipe for real cuban bread, so I used what was on hand. Added a slice of crumbled bacon to the dough. Best roast pork sandwich ever. Also G you gotta get into baking your bacon buddy. Frying just never gets it done.