Book Review: "A Pint of Plain" by Bill Barich

"A Pint of Plain" is Bill Barich's journey through an Ireland increasingly plagued by the steely gray skies of change, homogenization, and a helpless sense of loss. At the end of of the book, as he sits in the warm, boisterous Gogarty's amongst the artists and the students of Trinity College, Dublin, he still gives the impression of looking out a mental window at a fading, mist-shrouded portrait of "the figures in Martin Gale's paintings, often portrayed in a field, (who) look confused and unsure of themselves, as if a purpose they'd once grasped firmly had slipped through their fingers."

Barich's tale of his quest to find the archetypal pub of what he identifies as "Fairytale Ireland" rapidly becomes the story of a man clinging to the dreams of a place made famous by its own writers and poets. He searches Dublin and the countryside for a place with no television or recorded music, where comfort and conversation rule over a simple, naturally evolved gathering space. Disappointment, inevitably, greets both Barich and his readers at every new location, until we are dragging our feet along with him through the conclusion of his hopeless quest. Not only does Barich never find his archetypal Irish Pub, but he never finds a space that he is satisfied in for its own merit. He comes off as a man who would be more pleased in a museum exhibit than in the reality of a world that will always be changing.

Some points that Barich brings up are legitimate, especially when he contrasts the growing global popularity of the Irish Pub Concept, an invention of Diageo-Guinness USA that aims to "facilitate the development of authentic, high quality Irish pubs outside of Ireland" to the rapid decline and evolution of traditional pubs within Ireland. His chapters on the history of drink in Ireland and the phenomenon of craic, the legendary and wandering Irish "good times", are fascinating and well done. They help to sustain the reader, as they seem to have sustained Barich himself, through the dreary marches from broken-down farm pub to mirrored Dublin trophy pub, and back and forth. Despite his musings and wanderings, however, Barich never seems to address the important point that the depth he seeks in a local can only be found after time and familiarity are invested. Craic is fickle, and so is he.

The seemingly aimless modernization of Ireland is a dangerous thing to be sure, especially in a country that has been so immortalized in the minds of the rest of the world. As American flock to the IPC Irish Pubs, seeking that sense of deep, serene familiarity, that anchor of history, legend, and literature that every Irish-American cherishes, the Irish are throwing off the shackles of a long history of pain and struggle and reaching for something else. It is sad that many in Ireland will only realize what they have lost when it is already gone, but for many of them, the option to live a convenient and cosmopolitan life supersedes a devotion to history. History can only be preserved once it has become history, and Barich's search for an authentic pub in a changing Ireland seems to have become a fools errand. It is likely that he will not find his dream until all possibility of authenticity has disappeared, and only then will the historians and the dreamers be able to satiate his thirst for a great fantasy.

Magic Hat and Dirty Box: Gumshoe All-Grain Brewing

I finished my first two all-grain batches about six weeks ago on my homemade system, starting with a clone of Magic Hat #9, roughly described as an "Apricot Pale Ale", and a smoky Scottish Ale that we decided, in the grand tradition of homebrewing and double entendres, to name "Dirty Box". Both of these have now been kegged, carbonated, and poured, and, like Bud Light, they give a new meaning to the work "drinkable". Namely, they often require the modifier "merely".

My engineering background and general inability to think about more than one thing at a time led to a long "research" period on the techniques and problems associated with All-Grain homebrewing, and I got absolutely nothing out of that research period except a set of equipment that generally sufficed. I made the decision that the only way I would ever actually brew would be if I actually...brewed. The steepest learning curve occured with the first two batches that I did, so over the next week I'll describe those two batches in detail, including the problems I ran into and the solutions that we came up with. After those first two, I'll just post my recipes and results, once the beers have been kegged and sampled. In the meantime, however, I will set up, in true Homerian fashion, the epic tale for you of a novice's first two all-grain brewing experiences:

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The Epic of The Magic Hat #9 Clone

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The date was 30 August 2009. The temperature was a balmy 70ish degrees Fahrenheit, a clear morning. Gabe and Shannon began their quest by washing and sanitizing the two keggles, the cooler-lauter tun, and the thermometers and tubes. Then...disaster struck!

Mash in was too low, with the mash temp falling immediately to 142 degrees Fahrenheit. Heat was then frantically applied from the propane burner, with the floating thermometer reading a temperature of 166 Fahrenheir after only eight minutes! We know now that this is an unheard of, unprecendented (except that this particular first instance set the precedent) rate of temperature rise. In a panic, our heroes poured in 3/4 of a quart of ice cold sink water to the mash, which fell again to a lowly 150 degrees Fahrenheit, where the dastardly mash languished for another 25 minutes until it dropped to 148 degrees Fahrenheit, where heat was once again applied for twelve minutes from the propane burner. After turning off the heat and stirring the pot, they discovered that the heat had risen to over 160 degrees! This dropped rapidly to 145, and for the next ten minutes the mash temperature appeared to vacillate randomly between 145 and 162 degrees, reaching 170 degrees F (oh no!) after a short burst of heat. This was impossible! Surely something must be wrong...

But our heroes were not to know.





A mash out temperature was reached after a total mash of just over two hours, at temperatures unknown. No tincture was done, and our heroes, as they transferred the grain to the lauter tun with a hose and saucepan-sized scoops, were nearly at their wits end. Luckly, these plucky protagonists had just enough wit left to deal with that ultimate of enemies...the stuck mash!



Arms and hands were washed and plunged into the wallowing lauter tun, where they braved the heat of the mash to reconfigure the stainless steel braid that served as the lone filter. Grains were stirred continuously, and all hope was nearly abandoned.

A ninety minute boil, twenty minute chill, and the pitching of yeast happened without further incident, allowing tempers also to chill. The demon was racked into secondary after two weeks, at which point it was drowned with the copious apricot extract of shame, and then kegged and carbonated after a further three weeks. Finally, our heroes could taste their first fruits...

And yea, it was moderately drinkable.

(No actual statistics are available for this beer, as it was a total clusterfuck. The recipe as it should be followed is from the Szamatulsky's "Clone Brews" book)

Next week: The beginning of the long and fruitful tale of the DIRTY BOX!



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We learned a lot from this initial all-grain brewing experience:

1) Uninsulated stainless steel keggles don't really hold heat very well.

2) Floating thermometers are not very reliable when one is trying to hit a small temperature range. This is especially true if one is unsure of the finickiness of her equipment.

3) Always keep an eye on the sparge water level when fly-sparging.

4) Fly-sparging is a pain in the ass, especially when done manually.

5) Water boils at about 194 degrees Fahrenheit in Lone Tree, Colorado.

6) Always, always, always have a plan written out, especially one that reminds you of when to take the yeast out.

-- Only about one of these discoveries was actually acted on.

Back in Business!!

It's been a while since I posted anything, due to the distractions provided by the Colorado wilderness, bears, giardia, and moving back with my parents. Whilst I have been gone here is what has happened:

1) I hiked 200 miles of the Colorado Trail, and did my first week-long solo backpacking trip.

2) I have finished my all-grain setup and brewed 25 gallons, composed of five gallons each of...Magic Hat 9 clone, "Dirty Box" Scottish Ale (my first all-grain recipe), Avery IPA clone (modified for a more floral hop vibe), "Roggen Rover" Red Irish Rye Ale, and a spiced pumpkin ale that will probably be named after my friend Julia in some way or another.

3) I have moved into my parents' house and begun devising a plan to develop an inside/outside, steam-powered basement brewery, tentatively named "Defenestration".

4) Dry Dock Brewing won Small Brewery of the Year at GABF!!!

5) The Denver Broncos are undefeated, thanks to the return of a DEFENSE!

Updates will occur, from this point on, every Wednesday, and possibly more frequently depending on motivation, and will include:

THRILLING TALES OF DRILLING AND GRINDING!

THE EPIC STORY OF A DEVELOPING YOUNG BREWER!

SLIGHTLY-LESS-THAN-COPIOUS (but only slightly) CLEAVAGE!

BEER: SOMETHING YOU AND I BOTH LIKE!

and more.





Stay tuned.

Shannon

All-Grain System Adventures Strike Back!

In the month since my last update, I have done some things. I learned how to use an angle grinder to cut a nice hole in the top of a keg. I learned that using an inch-diameter auger bit on a hand drill is scary and difficult for the weak-of-arm. I learned that sanding Stainless Steel takes a really long time. The most important lesson that I learned is that if I am ever going to get this done, I am just going to have to keep pushing on, instead of trying to improve the system while I'm in the middle of it.

The temptation to make a difficult task "easier" by streamlining or changing the system is extremely high, especially when you are making the system up as you go. I admit, the angle grinder is fantastic now that I have the skillz down, but I was about to give up on it simply because I just didn't know how to use the damn thing. It's important to keep new projects in perspective by realizing that the first time you do something it is going to be imperfect, difficult, and more expensive than any time you do it afterward. This is especially true if you are learning how to use equipment while you are using it, and if you are going for the cheapest options you can. The cheapest options often make up for themselves in time, and sometimes in damage caused by misuse. This is something to keep in mind, folks.

I didn't damage anything particularly badly, and the worst thing I have to show for myself at this point is a sloppy hole in one of my keggles, but I learned a lot about the need for persistence and an open mind.

In the next installment: Fitting fittings and coiling copper!

Drinking Beer from the Rockyard in High School and Using Childhood Movie Metaphors

I was in Castle Rock the other day, making the requisite trip to my old high school to catch up with the teachers who influenced me far more than any professor I've had in the five years of patchwork university education since. Seeing as I was hungry and on an adventure, I decided to to to the Rockyard to get some lunch and wait until 2:35, when I no longer needed a badge and a cavity search to enter the national treasure Douglas County High School.

Sitting at the bar and reading the Rocky Mountain Brewing Newsletter, or whatever that is, I looked over the beer menu and decided to try the saison, the belgian blonde, and the stout, in that order. Given that they're everywhere and that I was thirsty and feeling a bit feisty, I tried the saison first.

I am a fan of a good Saison, almost despite myself. Despite myself because it seems to be difficult to find a good one. This particular specimen was like the science fair plant that you grew with the medium amount of light and the styrofoam-infused soil, without the Mozart. It was indeed short, a little bit wilty and significantly uninspired, but still recognizable as an attempt at a saison. I ordered a full size pint glass before realizing that the beers were offered in 5 oz taster glasses, and I had a hard time finishing it. The desire to move onto other, more interesting tastes was difficult to suppress, but I did it anyway because I don't like to waste beer. This sucker came out of the tap nice and cloudy with a very small head that quickly dispersed to become a ring of foam around the top of the beer. There was some minor, saggy lacing on the side of the glass. The nose existed, but it was more Michael Jackson (yes, the singer) than Jennifer Grey. After a few sips, I realized that the beer tasted like the Starbucks version of a Belgian style pale, if I ordered the venti, no foam, with a pump of honey and three dashes of cardamom. The spices tasted like an afterthought, and the beer was too cloying and nowhere close to sharp, tart or anywhere in my face. As it warmed, the flavor spread more throughout my mouth, but it never reached a point where I would want another one. At that point, I was too busy just trying to make it to the end and wash it down with the most powerfully delicious green chile I've thrown at my digestive system in a long time.

My second adventure at the Rockyard involved a 5 oz taster glass full of the No Brainer belgian blonde, a clear, rich golden beer with a nice 7.0% abv. The beer poured clear with a nice, moderate, churney head and, after the first few sips, the lacing that came down the sides of the glass chunked together and reminded me of the type of cave paintings done in blood on limestone of hunters attacking lepoards (and possibly of the opening scene in Watership Down). The flavor was not too heavily syrupy like some belgians and, like the 1000 Enemies, dangerously light on its feet. The scent rose up as a bell curve, hitting every part of my nose and mouth and then fading away, but not enough that I didn't have something to remember it by. This beer tasted like the jolly, free-spirited older brother of the Saison, who the Saison is jealous of so she wears too much eye makeup and ends up in the police station with Charlie Sheen. I couldn't detect any alcohol taste despite the acceptable ABV, and as I was downing this beer I wished I had gotten it in the pint glass instead. This would have been a bad idea, because I would have probably ordered another pint glass afterward and not been able to go home for an hour.

After giving the Bueller kids a try, I moved on to their inestimable friend, Lightning Strike Stout, with whom I am going to drop the Ferris metaphor because it reminds me more of one of those weird 80's movies with the goblins. I got this 6.2% ABV sucker in the 5 oz tasting glass as well, and it showed up boasting a nice high head, which nonetheless dispersed like cotton candy in a rainstorm, leaving a thick, blobby white residue like a ring of clouds on the side of the glass. The scent hid until I opened my mouth to take a sip, at which point it rushed through both my nose and my mouth like the dark little demon it is, possessing me totally, sweetly, filling my entire mouth and nose with a recirculating richness. The taste was not chocolate, and had no hint of bitterness, but reminded me of perhaps what I would get if I carmelized one of those jars of whipped cinnamon honey and stored it in an earthenware jug under my cloak. It complemented the spicy, complex chile fantastically, and left me trailing a little bit of gold fairy dust and with an insatiable desire to come back for more.

And then I went back to my high school. That was slightly less exciting.

Great Divide Yeti Espresso Barrel-Aged Stout Review

Okay folks and folk-dancers, I know I am a little bit late to the raving about the Espresso Yeti train, but it is a big and delicious train, so I am going to jump into the boxcar with the rest of the bums.

This review begins with a bit of the nostalgia that washed through my mind while I savored my first sip of this outstanding beer. A few years ago, before I decided to stop trying to drown myself, I went up to the kayak park in Lyons, CO. We stopped at a malt shop in the little downtown area after an exhausting day of rescuing boats after I bailed out of them, and I got a raspberry chocolate milkshake. This thing was serious. It had the type of chocolate foam on top that takes four kids blowing into a glass of chocolate milk to make. The first sip wasn't even cold, because the bubble crown cushioned my tongue against the onslaught of the chill with gently settling layers of chocolate, milk, and a hint of raspberry. The dear little cherubs just kept landing on my tongue, and then giggling as they popped and disappeared into a rich and playful netherworld. This is how I describe the aftertaste of the Espresso Yeti.

Drink this beer slowly. Not only does it have a high alcohol content, the lingering and changing tastes are worth every bit as much attention as the initial sip. I've found that most coffee or espresso infused beers tend to taste more like a cold, watery coffee than a beer, but this one bucked the trend. The stout carried the coffee so that it never tasted bitter, but felt more like a piece of silk running along my tongue. Most of the taste settled right in the middle third of my mouth, with very little front-of-tongue and the back of my mouth remembering little of the flavor but a lot of the texture.

To tell the truth, I don't often look at the beer enough to take any kind of exhausive look at the head, the lacing, the color, and all that crap. With a beer that I enjoy, I'm usually too busy having a Harry Met Sally moment over in the corner to even be able to remember anything more than "it was dark" "it was foamy", "it was orangey", or something similar. It was dark, with a decent frothy head on it. That's about all I got. The whole beer reminded me of froth. It was like getting slowly consumed by a delicious bubble bath.

I know that I'm not the first one to recommend that anyone who has the means goes out and tries some of this, and I have no problem adding to the chorus of its supporters. Get some. Do it. Before it's gone. Because I will be drinking more.

Great Divide Saison/Dunkel Weiss Release Party

I went to the Great Divide release party for their new 2009 Saison and Dunkel Weiss, and these are the things that I would like to say regarding that lovely event.

First, I was very impressed at the turnout, considering the horrific weather. I was the only one of up to eight people I knew who managed to make it, and that was after an hour-and-a-half commute from Boulder. Cars were sliding all over the road, and my boots got wet up to the calf because every time all day I got out of my car to do something, two inches of slush had ganged up on my windshield, preventing my wipers from doing their dang job. It seemed that a lot of the people who ended up attending the party lived within walking distance of the brewery, which was awesome. The less cars on the road, and the less drinking and slush and cars and drinking and cars on the road, the better. This is what I say.

The second thing I would like to say, although the first (or possibly second) thing in importance, was that I really enjoyed the party. A spread of pretzels, bread, and cheeses chosen to match the two beer styles (and labeled clearly as such), was put out for those who came within the first hour or so. The brewery, being essentially a warehouse, was cold but everyone came prepared with jackets and after about an hour the place was packed to the point that it was plenty warm with laughter and body heat and that little pilot light of alcohol glow. A little bit of cross-dressing and some Authentic German Costuming added to the general festivity. An accordion would have been favorite, but if I got everything I wanted, well… Oh wait! Beer! Yes, there was beer there, and it was delicious. The Saison was, amongst the folks I spoke with, the clear star of the evening, with the Dunkel Weiss feeling relatively bland in comparison.

I felt that both of the beers were served very cold, which with the chill in the warehouse made for a bit of a sodden-girl-scout singalong-in-October feel that I don’t feel did either beer justice. Both being traditionally spring/summer styles, they are supposed to be cold, but given how cold it already was, the Saison felt thin and the Dunkel Weiss tasted like almost nothing at all until I let it warm up a bit.

The Saison hit the front part of my tongue immediately, and I think that the feeling of effervescence was augmented by the jumpy, bright, kiwis-with-honey feel that the beer left on the insides of my cheeks. I wouldn’t say it tasted like kiwis with honey, but it left the same illusion of tart fruit flash bulbs, spread across my mouth like a momentary Munch painting. It lingered with a taste like a sharp apple pie, especially when paired immediately with the cheese provided (no, I don’t remember what each cheese was, so anyone please feel free to refresh my memory). Despite the unfortunate chill, the taste that this beer offered was pretty astounding overall, and I would definitely come back on a hot day for a short Saison session.

As I said before, I noticed that I couldn’t taste much out of the Dunkel Weiss. I don’t know if it was just too cold, or if the Saison’s piccolo solo was just too much for me to focus on the other woodwinds in the band. When paired with its chosen cheese the beer did begin to let out a bit of its character, but I can’t honestly make an opinion one way or the other. My unfamiliarity with the style may have contributed to my inability to identify any particular traits, as I was running without a track. Despite this, I do look forward to a taste of the Dunkel Weiss at the Denver Tweetup this Friday. Given the fantastic track record of Great Divide with turning pretty much everything they brew into liquid gold, I am sure I will be impressed.

Beer Wars!

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away (or so it felt, because I always imagine that I'm making the jump to hyperspace when I'm driving through snow)...

BEER WARS!

Yes, I'm sure that plenty of people have used the Star Wars intro cliche, but I've been burning bio-oil for three hours now and the furfural fumes are putting the kibosh on my creativity right now. As such, I thought it would be a perfect time to do a film review!

I went to watch this movie in Golden, Colorado. Anyone who doesn't know what Golden is famous for, just walk into your local liquor store, go to the beer aisle and look at that monolithic, silver block of Coors cases. That Rocky Mountain water comes from an aquifer that lies partly beneath my house. The theater was about half full, which seems like a pretty good turnout from anywhere other than the sold out place in Boston. Everyone knew the answer to every brewing trivia question showed before the film. Everyone knew everyone else. Everyone was a Coors employee. I think there were a few isolated craft brewing fans up in the top of the theater, where the cool kids used to sit and drink their smuggled in cans of Keystone Light and make out during middle school. I could tell because they were the lonely cheering voices during the frequent microbrew coups set up in the film. I was hunched up in the front with my feet on the back of the seat in front of me. You could describe it as the fetal position, I guess.

Everyone was very respectful, there was no "booing" or anything like that (which frankly impressed me, after some of the big bad wolf images that Anat created relative to the monolithic multinationals), but if Golden is anything besides Coorstown, it is also a notorious haven of capitalists. I go to a school that often feels like it's owned by the oil companies. People cheered every time it was asserted that the point of a corporation is to make money for its shareholders. I think that perhaps these people missed the point that for the primarily employee-owned microbreweries, the point of the brewery is to do what they want to do. And they want to follow a vision of artistic expression through beer. They are the primary stakeholders in those businesses, and that's what they want to do. That's how businesses work.

It's obvious that Beer Wars was not meant to be a balanced documentary. Anat masterfully told a story of a struggle of art against advertising, of craft against commercialism. She tapped a different type of American dream. In the end, her own words gave the most succinct explanation of her vision: we, the consumers, vote with our wallets. We are choosing craft beer not because it's a gimmick that we're buying into, and not because, like Starbucks, it has become a part of a lifestyle that we identify with. We drink craft beer because it's an art form that we can appreciate and support. Most people that I know can't afford to do much to support passion and skill, especially these days, but we can choose to give our time and our money to an industry that promotes individualism, artistic vision, and a social, open existence. This is the new American dream. There is no more land to take and settle, industry has built up and crashed down and built back up again, but we will always be behind the concept of Manifest Destiny. Our destiny, now, is another type of fulfillment. There is no point in a dreary existence, and for many, the "finer things" in life are out of reach. Craft beer is available, low key, and delicious, and it gives poor college students and rich foodies alike the ability to bring something fine and something real into their lives.

I understand Maureen Ogle's contention, at the end, that the bigger, growing craft brewers will eventually try to get bigger. She is a historian. That's human nature, and that's what history is all about. History chronicles big things: big successes and big failures. The smaller things, and the things that are less easy to write down, don't get written down, and that is the case with labors of love. Perhaps Stone or Dogfish Head or New Belgium or any of the other regional microbreweries may indeed continue to grow and become a multinational company. Things change. The point remains, though, that the reason consumers put their wallets and their words forward to support craft brewing is not because those breweries are big, or because they have successful gimmicks or advertising campaigns. They like good beer that is made by people who get excited about good beer. History may be about money, but history doesn't take into account the entire human experience. If it did, history books would read like James Joyce's Ulysses, which took even me three years to finish, and it was fiction.

Craft brewers may never make it into the larger scope of history, of economic gain, because they love what they do, and because when artists are doing everything right, they are often overlooked except by those who really appreciate their work. And there are enough of us who do that this group of artists has been able to expand and provide us with better and better products made by an increasingly diverse group of hearts and minds.

Russian River Consecration Review

Tradition and propriety insist that in the event I visit Aunt Lois and Uncle Gene's house, I bring a bottle of wine. This particular gift is especially appropriate on Easter Sunday. I am a great fan of wine, of course, but I wanted to bring something a little bit different, something that I felt would be more a part of myself than a representation of the materialized blood of Christ. I brought Russian River Consecration.

I first tried this beer at the Big Beers, Belgians, and Barleywines Festival in Vail a few months ago, and my dad and I both agreed that it was one of the best we tried there. The fact that I remembered drinking it, having been the last person to get a sample before they ran out, was quite recommendation enough. As soon as it went on sale in Colorado, I bought a bottle and have been keeping it in the Beer Closet ever since, awaiting an appropriate occasion. Given my sense of humor and the need to bring something of approximately 750 mL volume and greater than or equal to 10.0% ABV to Gene and Lo's, I chose this particular jewel.

Backstory end.

We broke this baby out about two Old Fashioneds, a bloody mary, and two strawberry-filled mimosas into the day, which was (on a slightly more easily understood timescale) about an hour after dinner. Appropriately sized and shaped tasting vessels could not be procured, so wide shotglasses were used for the weak of heart. I used a tumbler. The assembled crowd was one that does not drink much more than Busch Light (which I don't personally really consider beer) or Guinness on a special day. It's always interesting to note the reactions of people who aren't ready for what they're about to be saluted for, so I will record those reactions first, and then my own personal review:

Everyone described it as "different". Nothing about this beer matched the majority expectation of beer, even though I told them that they would not know what to expect. It is similar in character to many other cask-aged beers I have tried, with that sour lactobacillus edge and the slight sharp alcohol blade.

Uncle Gene, the Busch Light man, actually came back for another taste, saying that he wasn't sure if he liked it or if he hated it. I think that the shock and the forwardness of the beer was too overwhelming for him to actually be able to judge any of the unique characteristics of the brew. It is not for the faint of heart.

Mom and Aunt Lois, the box-wine drinkers, did not like it. Each took a sip and made a face. Given the description of the beer as reminiscent of a pinot noir, I thought that it may be an avenue into the world of delicious brews for them, but I had forgotten the immediacy of cheeky effervescence that the tongue feels with this type of beer, as opposed to a wine. They will be converted, but possibly with something slightly less bold. Again, they couldn't describe anything of the taste or the mouthfeel. They were shellshocked.

Miles and his friend whose name I can't remember but who is friends with the founders of Huebert Brewing Company in Oklahoma (for which the website seems to have become defunct), each took two generous tastes, and looked pensive. This is a thought-provoking, very complex beer with a number of different dimensions. It gives a diversified sensory experience.

My dad and I, having always had similar tastes, discussed our experiences with Consecration and came to a general consensus.

The beer was probably poured at a temperature slightly colder than ideal, as it was allowed to warm at room temperature for only fifteen minutes after being taken out of the fridge. Because the proper glasses weren't used, it was hard to judge the head. All I can say is that the first two sampling glasses were mostly foam, but after a good pour got going, there was only a very thin head of foam, and sometimes hardly any at all.

The sour sharpness hits your tongue and the bottom parts of your cheeks (where you imagine squirrels hiding their nuts or, as a more human definition, where you might keep your chew if you don't have a big lip). This particular sourness is more embracing than the standard sour beer, though. It leaves almost immediately, and washes the tongue with a smooth, indeed wine-like flavor that stays on the back on the tongue and the uvula while the tip of the tongue still remembers the carbonation. The aftertaste changes over time, so I found that I wanted to wait at least a few minutes before taking an additional sip. When I was finished, I could continue to taste and breathe the changing profile for an hour. I felt the way that a high schooler feels when her crush brushes against her in the hallway and she vows never to wash that shirt again so she will always be able to smell him on it. I wanted to put this stuff under my pillow at night, hang pictures above my bed. As I mentioned before, the tastes were relatively difficult to describe (and I have a very, very limited taste vocabulary), but the ear-rushing, ultimately empowering feeling was definite and clear.

Holiday Boozing and the Social Contract

I started writing this blog on Good Friday.

I know what Good Friday is...it's the day that Jesus died on the cross...right? Now I never went to Sunday school, but I do watch the History Channel. The other day they had a special on Bigfoot.

Enough flirting with my good-lookin' colleague Blasphemy and his friend I Am An Atheist (his parents wanted him to grow up strong). The point is that I have been struggling with the American Alcoholic's approach to the celebration of holidays, especially religious-themed holidays. By this I mean of course the normal person's tendency to celebrate with or without alcohol. In my experience it either goes very far in one direction or the other but then again, like Billy Joel, I go to extremes.

I grew up in a family that celebrates with alcohol. We celebrate the sunset with Tuaca and thunderstorms with Guinness. We do a champagne brunch on St. Swigglesworth day and a bloody mary lunch the day after St. Patrick's Day, and we always set out a glass of Bailey's for St. Nick. I grew up with this, and when I started drinking, I naturally transitioned into the culture. It's not about getting hammered in order to tolerate your relatives, it's about celebrating life by cliff diving with your all of your senses in slow motion, holding hands with your mom.

Alcohol, in my opinion, it at its best when it is helping people be at their best, in a type of communal ritual. For much of history it was reserved for this purpose (well, and for preparing for battle, but that is a communal ritual in sense). As large-scale production replaced the need for local, homebrewed alcohol, the nature of alcohol also expanded to encompass both a familial, celebratory atmosphere and a lonely, trudging existance. Despite what I may say when I sing my favorite karaoke song, I never drink alone. I know some people that do, and given that I live in Golden, Colorado, I know very few people that don't drink at all. For the purposes of this discussion those people have all been exiled to Utah, across which a high speed monorail ferry has been built on stilts.

Many people do use alcohol for celebration and most of these people tend to be moderate, social drinkers who know when to say "when", or "no, fuck that, I have to work tomorrow, seriously guys." It seems that those who drink in appropriate celebratory atmospheres are often the healthiest and most agreeable drinkers. They don't get too rowdy, and they drink well, savoring good quality spirits and creating an air of good spirit.

I have been exposed to a contrary opinion which holds that alcohol promotes drunkenness and is inappropriate for celebration. Beyond the fact that some people choose, as individuals, to abstain for their own valid and respected reasons, my best guess is that according to this opinion, intoxication is disrespectful to the person or event being celebrated and as such alcohol should not even be considered as any part of the situation. This is a valid point, especially because there's always that one cousin who parks their truck in the yard and hauls in a case of Bud Light, all of which end up getting put on the fencepost and shot at. Different versions of this person exist, but everybody has one. Sometimes he brings a bottle of gin, or she insists on a round of Amaretto Sours (for herself). By prohibiting alcohol, all behavior is more easily controlled, creating a benign and vaguely pleasant atmosphere.

People will always behave erratically, especially on holidays when they are forced to upset their own routines to play family politics with the in-laws. An appropriate atmosphere can allow the enjoyment of one of the greatest, most powerful, and most delicious triumphs of civilization, that of alcohol, without creating a situation that quickly becomes uncomfortable. Holiday drinking requires a social contract in which the enjoyment of all increased by ensuring that no one individual takes advantage of the situation. This is nearly the same social contract used by those who would ban alcohol in full. The primary difference is that in the former, there is a sense of mutual responsibility as well as heightened sensory and bodily experience, while in the latter, everything is scrubbed sterile in order to absolve those who wish not to engage in the spirit of the social gathering. It is an issue of shared responsibility versus the abolition of social responsibility, and it seems pretty clear to me which one is the more civilized.

I Am Going To Reformat My Blog

Okay, I know that it's ugly as shit, really, with corn pieces. There are no pictures, no side columns, and big long blocks of text. The background color is Rabo Karabekian's particular shade of baby shit brown. I am working on making it nice, but it's E-Days, guys. It's E-Days, and I have a keg race to win.

The Humble Beginnings of Shannon’s Poverty Bar (better name possibly forthcoming)

I love that giddy, empty feeling that I feel when I’ve been on a juice fast for two weeks, or when I am up on a rock face and I feel something slither onto the last two fingers connected to the rock. When I’m on a knife edge ridge and I can hear the scream of the wind coming up from two thousand sheer feet down. This feeling is also common to those who have a penchant for making possibly unadvised purchases, utilizing the dregs of their bank account, of items that they haven’t seen. I feel that this is probably one of those internet-related phenomena, like the dissolution of society and the downfall of the British pub (which are basically the same thing).

This feeling rose in me at about 5 pm last Tuesday, while I was at work, trolling Craigslist for homebrewing equipment. My difficulties in finding an empty 15.5 gallon keg shell for conversion into a brewing kettle have been well documented, of course, and the frustrations that this fruitless quest gave me were only augmented by the fact that use of the keywords “keg” “beer” “homebrew” and any number of related terms give results of about 70% kegerators. None of the kegerators come with full-sized keg shells, and they’re all giant, smelly, crappy old refrigerators that somebody took from their mom’s house and drilled a hole through.

Well, well. Well! Imagine my surprise when I find a brand new, beautiful, black, bar quality and four foot tall kegerator complete with full CO2 tank, regulator, valves and tubes, and a tower with two taps. And a keg shell. Up until this moment, I was going to use what I had in an effort to eat more than ramen noodles for the next two months. That is, I was going to do my primary fermentations in my glass carboys and then bottle condition. Bottles can always be found in a college town, I figured. Even if it’s a small college, in a small town. Then I had a vision.

I was standing outside my house, at my outdoor bar, complete with Thai monkey head on a stick sculpture. I had four different homebrews in Cornelius-style five gallon kegs on tap in the kegerator, and nubile young men were feeding me beer and little pieces of cheese on sticks and bread with olives in it. My brewing sculpture was in the corner, gleaming in silver and black. It hummed and smiled at me, and I realized that to make this dream come true, I had to buy this kegerator and convert it into this draft system.

Three hours and some Benjamins later I brought it into my house, and now it sits in my living room, glimmering and grinning, and waiting to make my dreams come true. I am now recruiting both nubile young men and different hard and soft cheeses, and after E-Days, I will be holding personal interviews with both. Simultaneously. I’ll take care of the beer.

The Keggle Conundrum

A large number of posts on a number of forums promote the effectiveness of old beer kegs when converted to a number of brewing vessels, especially brew kettles. These sites all suggested tactics to acquire these kegs, ranging from the morally questionable to the, well, totally legit, to the unnecessarily expensive. The best sites also showed pictures and videos detailing keg converstion with the use of either a plasma torch or a Sawzall, a drill, and a welding rig. This thread on the homebrewtalk.com forum has good videos, and also leads the reader to other demonstrations of the "keggle" conversion technique.

I was led to believe by the authors of these posts that the hardest part about the keggle conversion process would be conning someone into welding a ball valve onto the damn thing. I was mistaken. Further research dropped me into a whimsical world built of stainless steel, where the rivers flowed with light beer and people in diapers made of Keystone Light cases and duct tape braved the currents in red plastic cups. These are the things I learned there:

1. Kegs are expensive. Sources varied, but the average quoted price was $150 per standard 15.5 gallon keg shell to the brewery. This means that when you appropriate a keg shell by eating the deposit after hosting a party, you are basically stealing. But who are you stealing from?

2. Liquor stores do not own the kegs they give you. The breweries do. This means that every keg that doesn't get returned loses over $100 worth of product for the brewery. This particular revelation may cause the anarchists in the crowd to decide that if beer (and therefore the keg) comes from a multinational macrobrewery, then they should make the effort to fuck the man and take what they must from the living room at the frat party/trunk of the car at the hockey game/loving embrace of the devotee passed out face down on the couch with his hand on the tap. Come on guys. This is weak. You drank that beer. You already get free product every day at 3 from Coors Lab. Take it to the man by contributing to developing your local economy or something.

If the keg came from a microbrewery, then don't steal it. Their profit margins are thin enough as it is, and if you take product from them, they have to work harder at being accountants and don't get to have fun and make delicious beer for you to drink.

3. Breweries don't have a lot of old kegs. I don't live in what we would call a beer-poor environment. This is Golden, Colorado for fuck's sake. I contacted every microbrewery I could think of in the Denver/Boulder area to see if they had any decommissioned kegs that I would be able to buy or take off their hands, and came up with the following responses:

From Jeff at Golden City Brewery: "Shannon, we don't have any decomissioned kegs. They can be hard to find. You should check kegs.com and also auction sites like ebay, craigslist. You could even check with some bigger micros that keg like Lefthand."

From Adam Avery, of Avery Brewing: "Shannon,
We do not have any kegs for sale and not sure where to get them. Maybe a
homebrew shop?"

From Patrick of Great Divide: "Hi Shannon, thanks for getting in touch. Unfortunately we can't sell any of our kegs here. Stomp Them Grapes, a homebrew shop in the Highlands might be able to help out. Sorry about that, let me know if you need anything else. See you
Friday! Cheers!"

and etc. ad nauseum and such on.

4. Kegs are also expensive to get secondhand. Romps through the jungle of online sales and auction got me an average price of about $80 for a cleaned, used keg shell. This is a bit more than I want to spend at this point, although this is much less than the $250 price tag for a 15 gallon, stainless steel brewpot without a valve or thermomether.

I called a few scrapyards, but didn't receive any calls back with positive results for kegs. I will call a few more, as I will be able to use as many of these as I can get my hands on to improve my system, but the prospects, they are not looking good. And yes, I called Coors. I think that we are still not on speaking terms.

I Bought A Turkey Fryer Brew Kettle!

The poor man's (lady's) all-grain system is about to get its first infusion of material. Today I bought a turkey frying kit with a propane burner and a 30 or 32 quart (7.5-8 gallon) capacity, coated aluminum kettle for $45 on Craigslist. This also includes the turkey stand and fry basket, in case I get the urge to try something like deep-frying snickers bars and selling them and hand-rolled cigarettes outside bars at 2 am. Or, you know, frying turkeys.

I did days worth on research on the best investment choices in starting an all-grain homebrewing system, and came to the conclusion that I don't have enough money to do anything less than the absolute minimum. I would rather make beer now with a turkey fryer than wait a month to have enough money to make it in a stainless steel pot. With the addition of a ball valve and thermometer (which I will install thanks to the fact that I live in Golden and have a bunch of friends who will frankenstein anything just for a few beers, if not just for the hell of it), this setup can eventually transform into another element of a larger system.

I found a few articles and fora especially helpful in doing the research on brew kettles and in deciding that the turkey fryer route is an acceptable way to go at this point.

1. Paul's Brewing Page: This is a page set up by a guy who just loves to homebrew, and is learning along with the rest of us. I found his explanations of extract, partial mash, and all-grain brewing to be really easy to follow and complete with pictures, which is a must for me. With sites that just offer explanations, I found myself having to draw pictures just to really internalize what was being said.
2. "Greenethumb" Johnathan Greene has a number of articles describing his homebrewing adventures, and also has lots of often-beautiful pictures.
3. The Northern Brewer Forum and HomeBrew Talk Forum are both excellent resources with a number of knowledgable and respectful people.
   

In - blog - ural Post

This is the inaugural post of my blog! I don't know if that was evident by the fact that there is probably a number (1) on it somewhere, or that until I put up a new one it will be the only one, or by the cleverly rendered title (clever!), so I thought I would point it out. Subtlety is not my strong point. A good writer would have implied that.

The purpose of this blog is to share my love of beer and brewing and such things with the wide world of my readers. This world will be minimally populated with roving hipster vigilantes and the onetime curious, as well as people who are converted from the onetime to the manytime curious, and eventually into loyal and diehard readers. Once this level has been reached, I will request tasks be done. Beware!

I am drinking a 471 Small Batch Double Hopped IPA from Breckenridge Brewery (one of my consistent favorite breweries, of late--Pandora's Bock was incredible) as I write this, so bear with me while I stop using grammar and wander down the bright and swirling world of "Grammer". Grammer is like the Yellow Submarine version of grammar. If the blue meanies ended up taking over for good. Grammer happens when one drinks 9.2% ABV beer after a twelve hour workday on an empty stomach. Grammer is a versatile concept. Like "fuck". I'm assuming that we're all adults here, and I can say fuck, by the way. If you're not an adult, then good on you for developing an appreciation for beer that is sophisticated enough that you're reading beer blogs. You get a free pass to read the word fuck.

This blog was precipitated when I combined the dregs of a Colorado School of Mines education with the realization that I hate the Colorado School of Mines, don't really care about making enough money to buy a new truck the year I graduate, and pretty much just care about beer. And world peace. Serious. And maybe cartoons and the wilderness and friends and stuff.

From this nonexplosive combination of circumstances rose the solid form which, when treated with loquaciousness, gave rise to this diatribe.

And so will be chronicled my adventures in making enough money to live by, designing and utilizing an effective homebrewing system, and immersing myself in the rich and malty brewing culture. I have $230.72 in my bank account, a broom closet full of aging bottles, and I hate wearing sunglasses.