Christmas: A Year In Review

Getting older is usually something that happens overnight.  One day you wake up fresh-faced and ready to take on the world, and the next day you are shitting down a tube wondering who that old man in the mirror is and if he's here to touch you or not.  Sometimes though, you get little glimpses of your mental state and it's shifting around on you, and for me that was Christmas this year.

In years past, Christmas wasn't a big deal for me, beyond getting presents and stuff.  My family was never really close so I don't have traditions as such during the holidays, except maybe for going to friends houses and eating their food while their families all smile at each other.  It hard for me even now to make time with my family.  I look at them as strangers sometimes, and I need to get over that.

This year was a small turning point - one of those that makes you realize that yes you are 35 and yes you are getting older.  It's the realization that Christmas really is about the people you are with and not just what you get.  I know that sounds like the most obvious thing in the world ever to everyone, but it's really easy to say, harder to actually feel.  This year I had more fun giving gifts and watching what everyone else got than I did opening my gifts.  Not that I used to be selfish, but yesterday I thought that if I hadn't gotten a single gift, it would still have been a great Christmas because I got to watch people I care about having fun and being happy.  As it happens I got some rad gifts so thats all good, but ...

Anyway, just sitting here in my empty house, reflecting on yesterday and this whole last month in general, and it's been good.  Scary, because I am growing up (I have always thought of myself as a 25 year old for some reason), and that's not as dreadful as I once had thought.  It's a good feeling to have the friends I do and to share time with them.  It's always been easier to be with friends than family, and changing that will be my focus for the coming year.

Cheers!

This post brought to you by some nasty funk!

Dear Craft Beer, I Stopped Giving A Shit. Love, Me.

Dear Sweet Craft Beer:

This posting will be hard for you to read, I can tell already.  But I have some things I have to get off of my chest (mainly your calf-high brewing boots), and it's only after I recently read an article about how big breweries are making a push into craft beer that I had the proper amount of frustration with you to adress this.  Please bear with me.

The topic is nothing new.  Like the latest Hollywood release or prime time TV show, its a re-hash of things that have been talked about for years in the proper circles.  Meaning, by dorks on forums and people who sell craft beer.  Yes, we all know how large breweries like ABInBev, MillerCoors, etc., are trying to draft (no pun intended) on your success by pushing brands not affiliated with their larger chain of ownership.  Example, Tenth and Blake, the "craft" arm of MillerCoors and their library of non-MillerCoors brands, like Blue Moon.  Is it clear that the larger companies are hiding the fact that they control these brands?  Yes. Is that ok?  Of course it is.

What got me thinking about our relationships though, were some quotes in that article about these new brands from the Evil Big Breweries.

"There are two types of consumers," says Anat Baron, the director of the documentary Beer Wars, which explores the battle between micro- and macro-breweries. "Consumers who shop by price and just don't care who makes the stuff that they buy, and other consumers, which are a minority, but I think a growing minority, that actually care about who makes what they buy."

I never realized it before, but it's this exact line of thinking that made me stop being so in love with you.  The idea that there are only two types of consumer - one that cares and one that doesn't - is the exact source behind the Beer Snob label that has been cast down on myself and others like me.  I call the loudest "bullshit" at this quote.  You know me, Craft Beer.  I love you!  I run in your fields and climb your trees.  I celebrate you at any chance I can find and I bring others to lay at your feet in some bizarre and possibly pseudo-sexual ritual, but I am also broke as a joke.  As a result, I cannot afford your higher-priced gifts.  So I shop according to price because I have to, but also because I WANT to.  What I have noticed is a trend of breweries selling your wares at insane prices simply because the product was aged in a barrel for 6 months.  And sure, the brewery has to account for some of that, but there is a point where someone has to say enough is enough.  No, I won't buy your high prices any more!  I love you, but there is a point where you can be too full of yourself and you need to be brought back down to Earth, to your humble beginnings of IPAs, Pale Ales, and Stouts, sans bourbon aging.  I shop for craft beer by price, and I don't care who brewed it.  If they make good beer, well ... that's the bottom line.  I also drink Coors and PBR.  Does that make me someone who simply doesn't care about you, or who made you?  No.  It makes me a thirsty man who, at the moment, is drinking a Coors.  And if other lovers of craft beer could just try a little harder not to snob it up, maybe they could enjoy it, too. 

There is a misnomer about you, craft beer, arguably started by craft brewers, and that is beer made by large brewers is a bad thing.  It's bad!  Regardless that it's over 50% of the market and has been for a number of years.  Regardless that those beers are the hardest to brew.  Don't even look over there, focus  on craft and how artisanal we are - look, we have beards!  And these things - they are hands!  That we use to pick up malt with!  That white stuff, actual grain dust!  See?  We ARE different!  What craft brewers fail to see is this is the same marketing their "evil" large breweries have engaged in for years.  In fact, it's the same type of marketing that businesses  engage in.  This attitude that all craft brewers are buddies and there is no competition like there is in Big Beer is bullshit. Everyone is selling you, Craft Beer.  This is a business and they are out for my money just as much as Coors is.  Some brewers even say they don't advertise, because that's what big beer does ... again I say Bullshit!  If you print flyers for pint nights, you are advertising.  If you sponsor homebrew functions, you are advertising.  Print coasters?  Advertising.   Sell shirts?  Still advertising!  The idea that one is better than the other is a poison in the craft industry.  

Well, Craft Beer, that's all I had to say.  I felt I had to tell you why I stopped really caring so much about you and decided to just drink what I want to, regardless of who makes it.  In the end, it doesn't really matter much.  We are all going to die with failed livers, pissing into a bag in a hospital bed, so why not do what you enjoy now.  And for me it's not buying into your marketing that you are better because you care, or because you don't use corn in your beer.  If you really wanted to be better than Big Beer, Craft, you'd stop worrying about what Big Beer is doing and worry about what you aren't.  

Love, 

JP

Some Days It Pays Not to Leave The Couch

Today was the day, folks.  The day that I re-open my little shitty beer brewery and start brewing again. I usually stop in the Summer months because I hate sitting in the heat, and I cannot get my conical fermenter down much past 25 degrees below ambient.  And since I typically ferment in the low 60's, I figure it's just time to give my house a rest from the homebrew, you know?  Sure you do ...

Brewing a beer for Can You Brew It is always a treat, as it means free ingredients from the best homebrew shop around, Northern Brewer.  Since they sponsor the show and have practically every ingredient known to man, they are kind enough to ship us CYBI brewers whatever we need.  For poor folks like myself, this is the only way I can really afford to even have beer on tap as of late.  Todays beer is Turbodog, from Abita Brewing.  A malty brown ale, it's one of my favorites and perhaps THE best brown ale I have ever had!

I start at about 11am, get the PBW recirculation going, heating the mash water, etc.  Shoot down the block to swap propane tanks at 7-11, then back an ready to dough in.  Perfect, all is well - the smell is amazing already, smells just like the beer does!  BeepBeep - my alarm tells me it's time to recirc my mash.  Which on normal days is easy, right?

Snap!  I hook up my hosing, everything is going well so far.  I pop open the ball valve to the mash tun and see the tube fill with sweet wort - oh it smells so good!  Grab the plug to the pump, jam it home and  ... whirrrrrrr-grrrrr!  Stoppage!  It's ok, this pump has sucked for years anyway and just needs a restart.  Nothing.  Nothing again and again.  I open the bleeder valve at the bottom of the pump and watch as blobs of grain come oozing out.  Thinking back over my steps, I wonder what ... the FALSE BOTTOM!  Yes, this fat, bald asshole - who rags on homebrewers all the time, forgot to put the false bottom into the mash tun prior to graining in.  Perfect, I know.

So I grab a pot and start scooping out grain-laden wort and dumping it into the empty boil kettle so I can insert the false bottom and transfer the grain back.  "I can salvage this day!", I told myself - and I almost did.  Everything went smoothly and within 10 min and about .75 gallons lost, I was back at the pump controls, jamming away.  The nothing laughed at me.  The pump struggled, but there was no output.  I took apart the ball valve leading to the sparge arm, cleaned out the grain clog, and tried again. Still nothing.  So I investigated further and found a two-inch long clog inside my sparge hose to the ring.  Ok, fine.  Flushed that out and ...

Hot wort shot out of the only unclogged hole in my sparge ring, spraying my garage door like some alien porn star.  Shutting the pump down and controlling my urge to knock everything over and cry, I once more grabbed the sparge ring and flushed it out good.  All ports were open and water flowed freely.  Again, back to the mash tun, again to the pump and with a burst - wort flowed freely!

After the first of two spray downs ... 

For about 4 seconds.  Then another massive shot of hot steamy wort to the garage door - the fucking thing clogged on me again!  Pump off, I surveyed the day:  About 3 gallons of wort on the floor/garage/me, grain in every loop in the system, wort in the burners, wort in the sparge water ... it just wasn't happening.  So I tossed a hose out into the driveway and opened the mash tun ball valve, bleeding it out like some freshly shot pig or something.  There was just no saving this brew day.  I worked on it for about 45 min, aerating the wort, clogging and unclogging ports.  I called it quits, friends.  I just didn't have it in me, and even if I had saved some, I'd be adding water and DME and the beer would have been not what it should have been.

The first 3/4 gallon.  

Drainage.

Tell me I'm not the only one this has happened to.  Please?  It would make my two-hour clean up go by so much faster.

This post written under the influence of Steel Panther and anger. 

The Shakoolie: A Review

There are very few moments over the age of say, 12, when you are asked to not only re-examine your showering habits but to adjust them and add steps to them.  Pretty much if you have showered 5 times ever, you have it locked down, right?

Enter ... The Shakoolie.  Drinking beer in the shower is a new idea for me.  I'm not one to crave beer so much that I can't wait the 3 minutes it takes me to shower (having a bald head has its advantages).  Some of you out there weren't blessed with the ability to say "No", so I can see where a product like The Shakoolie can add to your X-Games-like showering production.

The Shakoolie is a beer koozy with velcro on the back.  That's it.  You stick the fuzzy side of the velcro on your shower wall, and pop a beer into the koozy, then smash that koozy onto your tile and BLAMO - instant beer holder.  Again, I'm not some raging beer head.  I can wait for a beer.  Plus, I don't like being naked for any length of time so I want to get in and get out, no time for enjoying a cold beverage.

Reservations aside, I "installed" The Shakoolie in my shower and asked my roommates to each have a go with it.  The overall opinion in the house is that The Shakoolie works as advertised, and quite well.  The velcro was able to hold the beer while I was busy with my undercarriage, and was easy enough to pull off the wall and steal a sip while rinsing.  I can't say it revolutionized the way I shower or anything, but the roommates with hair, and who as a result do shower longer, seemed to enjoy the option of taking their beer into the shower with them and having instant access to it.

The Shakoolie.  It holds your beer so you don't have to!

Shakoolie - Installed, loaded, and ready for  action!

Another Death on the Farm

Georgia: March - August, 2012

We found Georgia dead this evening, laying in a heap in the corner of the coop.  There were no apparent marks on her that indicated an animal had gotten to her like Lucretia did, rather, Georgia just looked like she was asleep in the dirt.  The birds did that some times, just sat in the dirt, trying to keep cool or whatever.  I banged the coop wall with my fist a few times, hoping she would wake up and go scurrying out into the run to peck at the ground with her friends.  Instead, she just lay there.

Pulling her out with the shovel, she was stiff already.  Her eyelids closed, and all the color from her waddle had drained back into her body, leaving it a faded rose color.  I looked her over as best I could, what with her being stiff already, and found nothing wrong.  No peck marks, no bites.  She wasn't eggbound (eggs can actually get stuck in the bird's vent sometimes, causing a backup and death).  She just looked to have simply ... died.  Which was odd because I had seen her about 3-4 hours ago that day running around and being a chicken.  Not standing still out of illness or having trouble breathing.  I think she either got scared by one of the other birds and smacked her head on the top of the coop, breaking her neck, or she had a heart attack.  And that kicks up so much anxiety for me, because that is how I always imagined someone finding me - curled up in a heap, eyes closed, color drained from my face.  

After Lucretia, I told myself that I shouldn't get too attached to the birds, because their lifespans are shorter than most pets, and with the raccoon and possum population the way it is around here, it would only be a matter of time before one works its way into the coop again.  Recently, the girls had been doing very well in the mornings as far as squawking went, and we had just bought them some scratch treats to feed them, too.  Our little farm family was finally coming together - we were getting about 14 or so eggs a week, the birds were calming down, and I was sleeping in longer.  With all that, it's hard not to be attached.  

Butter and Daisy leaving a spot for Georgia on the perch tonight ... 

Anyway, that's the update around here.  I wish I could find out what really happened to her, but a necropsy test is over $100 plus shipping, and I just can't swing that.  So I'm going to stick with some random act of fate (whatever it was), and move on.  Georgia's resting place is in the yard, near the maple tree, right next to Lucretia.  The clay fox that was her marker has now been shifted, pulling double duty.  

You were a good bird, Georgia.  The best we had.


You will be missed. 

The Avengers

I just got a chance to viddy The Avengers movie, and this post might have some spoilers, so if you haven't yet had the opportunity to spend money on this thing, I suggest you find another post to disagree with.

Going into this film, I knew it was going to be more about effects than storyline.  The comic book movies to come out in the last 10 years have been more flash than substance, and The Avengers didn't disappoint.  In fact, I hesitate to call it The Avengers movie, singular, as it felt more like some mash-up of Thor 2 and the ending of The Dark Knight Rises.  Which kind of makes my point that superhero films are all about violence.  They stumble and try to build a story, but as in The Dark Knight Rises, they fail miserably.  A love story I can understand - a film needs people to root for beyond the basic Hero model, but the job the writers did in The Avengers, putting Scarlett Johanson and that dude from the equally abismal Hurt Locker in some stubbly, irritating banter just made me care less about them both, and had me rooting for their jet to go down in flames.

I never liked Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, either.  He's too cocky, where Fury is traditionally cold but not sarcastic.  So that bugged me going into this whole thing.  I know I'm being picky, and I know some of you are going "oh it's just a fun movie" and all that, but movies can still be fun AND made well.  Look at Citizen Kane.  And yes, the effects were good, it was believable and the CGI looked great.  But since when do we judge a house on the window dressing?

I did like The Hulk though.

Chickens Are Odd Ducks

When a chicken first begins to lay, you are supposed to move the egg and put it in the nesting box (which is just a section of the coop with a hinged door to it), in order to train the bird to lay where you can have easy access to the eggs.  I never did that with Butterworth, because, since Lucretia died, Butter was the only bird we had.  No point in making her learn new tricks, right?  Well, now that we have three birds laying, they all want to be in Butter's spot - right behind the perch, and I think this is a reason Daisy freaks out at times, because she wants to lay, but if one of the other birds is laying in the spot - her spot - she flips.

So today, after cleaning the coop out and filling it back up with nice, clean bedding, all three idiots layed their eggs within an hour.  All in one spot, right behind the perch.  For whatever reason, I decided to make today the day I start making them use the nesting boxes.  I carefully shifted Butter's egg and Georgia's egg to both sections of the box, leaving Daisy's egg behind the perch.

Look carefully and you can see all three eggs ... 

45 min later I go out and check on the birds, which is really just an excuse to get up and walk around for a bit.  Working from home is nice, but sometimes you just sit all day long.  Daisy has a habit of moving eggs around the coop, so I lift the nesting box lid and find that someone had moved all three eggs back to their original spot, right behind the perch. 

All three back together again.

Chickens are such weird animals - they have strange habits and funny ways of moving around that they keep me entertained all the time.  This is just one part of it.