Today’s Groupon was for a local place called The Laboratory, which was described as having a rotating selection of 30 craft beers and meaty sandwiches. So we talked our daughter in to going there for lunch, but they weren’t opening until 3pm. So much for that…
Category Archives: Beer
Boxing Day Brew
Today was seeming quiet enough, so decided to brew a batch of beer. This time around I wanted to make my new favorite type: a Scotch ale (also called “Wee Heavy”, strong and malty). We have a mini-mash recipe that’s supposed to be like Pike’s Kilt Lifter, though I’ve never had it, so I’ll have to take their word for it.
The mash went fine, but I was using dry extract which gunked up because I couldn’t open four bags and stir at the same time. If only I had three hands… By the time I had that mostly sorted out, it nearly boiled over. After that was taken care of and the last chunks of malt goo broken up, it was clear sailing. Well, filtering out the hops was a pain, but it’s always a pain and I’m going to do a secondary fermentation anyway so what’s a little extra muck in the primary?
My wort chiller (which is worth it’s weight in, well, copper) brought the wort temp down pretty quickly, but I misjudged and stopped at 80° instead of 70°. Luckily, it’s unusually cold today, so our walk-out freezer (the garage) got it cool enough to pitch the yeast in about an hour.
So assuming everything goes according to plan, it’ll be ready to bottle by the end of January and I can bring a few bottles with me to a conference in February to share.
Epic Beer Tasting
I’m not much help with the knitting, so I’ll have to help keep the beer quotient up around here.
Luckily my boss took me out to an epic beer tasting, appropriately titled “Epic Beer Tasting”, with 67 bottles to pick from. The list was dominated by porters and stouts (which I have to be in the mood for), but I found a dozen or so that looked good. They ranged from pretty good (like Cigar City‘s Sea Bass) to basically undrinkable (Drake‘s Jolly Rodger).
Most of them were more “interesting” than enjoyable, but at least they got me motivated to start another batch of homebrew. We’re going to make a strong Scotch Ale this time around, and I just stopped by our local homebrew shop for supplies this afternoon.
Learning to knit, 25 years later
When I was a kid, my mom tried valiantly to teach me how to knit. Repeatedly. Then, when I was a college student we tried again. First grandchild? Again. Second grandchild? Once more into the breach.
Still nothing.
But, this time is going to be different.*
My friend and I are going to learn together… So here is the chronicle of our attempts and trying this one more time.
Oh, and my husband Redbeard and I brew beer. We certainly find it entertaining (especially when drinking beer is also involved) and so thought, what are two good things that go good together? Knitting. And beer. So, here we go.
*No, really.