I posted last week about being asked to appear on Drink Michigan as a guest blogger/beer reviewer.
My first review is up today; go see it.
Also, too, Bob put a new link up at the top of our site, linking you to this and future Drink Michigan reviews.
Slainte!
Ooh Heaven is a place on Earth:
The 2011 Boston Bacon and Beer Festival will be Saturday, April 30th from 1 PM to 3:30 PM at the The Royale. Restaurants and purveyors from all over will be preparing their tastiest bacon based dishes for you to sample paired with beers from New England's greatest breweries. If that's not a good enough way to spend a Saturday afternoon, you should know that it's all to benefit the local hunger relief organizations Lovin' Spoonfuls, Community Servings, and Share our Strength.Tickets for the 2011 Boston Bacon and Beer Festival will go on sale Friday, April 1 at 1 PM. Keep checking this page for additional festival information.The breweries who are bringing beer:
The following story speaks for itself:
One Vagina Can Hold 54 Bags of Heroin, Plus $51.22
If you bought heroin from this woman, you are very dedicated.
This question hasn't gotten a lot of coverage in the media. There has been some partisan whining and arguments, but it is hard to take them seriously when the GOP is also saying that Obama didn't asct fast enough. Those aside, there have been calls from Democrats, including Dennis Kucinich, Maxine Waters, and John Larson, calling into question the Constitutionality of the actions in Libya. There is also Obama's statement from 2007:
The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.
Hoo boy. We've got a lot of gro und to cover, so let's get started.
First, brewing. Time to re-focus on brewing and up the sophistication of my process. I have relied on some brewing buddies for eauipment for my all-grain batches and for ease and laziness, I have done a lot of extract-plus-specialty grain brews. In the dead of Michigan's winters, I have gone that way because my garage, where I brew big batches, is often well below freezing.
Well, no more excuses. I am scrapping my hodge-podge of equipment and going with a brand new All Grain System along with a brand new brew kettle with a focus on stepping-up the quality of my beers.
Speaking of brewing, my World- Lansing-famous maple syrup porter is in the fermenter. I tried to move it to the secondary this weekend, a week after I initially put it in the primary fermenter, but the fermentation was still way too active for me to be comfortable with that move. In about 2-3 more weeks, though, I'll keg that badboy up in just enough time for maple syrup fests around the Mitten State.
And finally, I have been asked to be a Guest Blogger over at Drink Michigan! It's the destination on the web to celebrate all of Michigan's fermented products and is quickly carving its niche as the one single place to stop for anything you want to know about Michigan beer, wine and liquor. THey want me to start doing Michigan Beer reviews for them! I am thrilled and excited!
Please observe ATK's official Highest Holy Day of the Most Extreme Magnitude as wildly as possible, with as much abandon as you can.
Please be safe. Don't be a douche. And if you drink green beer, you will be kicked off the site.
Happy St. Patrick's Day!
Way back in November of 2007, Smitty announced not only his incoming twins, but the impending purchase of a …gasp...minivan.
I reflected back on this post to see what crap I wrote about minivans and to see how much shit I gave Smitty about buying the darn thing. At the time, I said:
“You have to hand it to a guy who has enough confidence in his manhood to drive a minivan.Eat my words indeed. Tonight I pick up the glorious minivan.
I just couldn't handle a mini being my daily driver. I am sure they ride and handle much better today, but the last one I drove made my pick-up feel sporty.
Oh, I will have to eat my words one day as a growing family will make the usefulness of the minivan unavoidable...dammit.”
With all the recent news item to get pissed about, the treatment of WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning caught my attention. This was probably due to the fact that it is getting almost zero attention. The NYT has covered it and Glenn Greenwald had a scathing op ed on the subject. Manning, among other things, has been charged with 27+ violations, some of which carry the death penalty, and is being subjected to the following conditions:
Let's review Manning's detention over the last nine straight months: 23-hour/day solitary confinement; barred even from exercising in his cell; one hour total outside his cell per day where he's allowed to walk around in circles in a room alone while shackled, and is returned to his cell the minute he stops walking; forced to respond to guards' inquiries literally every 5 minutes, all day, everyday; and awakened at night each time he is curled up in the corner of his bed or otherwise outside the guards' full view. Is there anyone who doubts that these measures -- and especially this prolonged forced nudity -- are punitive and designed to further erode his mental health, physical health and will? As The Guardian reported last year, forced nudity is almost certainly a breach of the Geneva Conventions; the Conventions do not technically apply to Manning, as he is not a prisoner of war, but they certainly establish the minimal protections to which all detainees -- let alone citizens convicted of nothing -- are entitled.
UCLA Professor Mark Kleiman -- who last year hailed Barack Obama as, and I quote, "the greatest moral leader of our lifetime" -- wrote last night:
The United States Army is so concerned about Bradley Manning’s health that it is subjecting him to a regime designed to drive him insane. . . . This is a total disgrace. It shouldn't be happening in this country. You can't be unaware of this, Mr. President. Silence gives consent.
just fathom the contrived, shrieking uproar from opportunistic Democratic politicians and their loyalists if it had been George Bush and Dick Cheney -- on U.S. soil -- subjecting a whistle-blowing member of the U.S. military to these repressive conditions without being convicted of anything, charging him with a capital offense that statutorily carries the death penalty, and then forcing him to remain nude every night and stand naked for inspection outside his cell. Feigning concern over detainee abuse for partisan gain is only slightly less repellent than the treatment to which Manning is being subjected.
A friend of mine sent me this article about searching for subtlety in a brewing world full of extreme beers.
I'm not exactly weary of the Extreme Beers that brewers are doing, but am glad that the gimmick of massive beers is subsiding just a little. Gobs of craft brewers for some time were in a sort of beer-fueled version of an arms race, constantly being the first one to push past the 18% ABV and the 100 IBU (bitterness measurement) mark. Some brewers do it well and artfully (think Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA or Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout), but many are simply hop bombs (think Arcadia's Hop Rocket); fine enough to drink one, but you're left with a tongue that can't taste anything else.
Lost in the race to brew the next Double Imperial Black Coffee Chocolate IPA (actually, I wonder if I could pull that off...) are the beers that started it all. The "session" beers, the clean, brewed-just-right beers, the refreshing beers, the simple beers. I'm not talking about some Japanese minimalist crap where "less is everything." I think that in some cases, "less is more."
From the article:
According to Portland brewing consultant Hans Gauger, the high-hops and high-alcohol trend grew out of four factors: First, the American craft-brewing movement originally came about as a reaction to the thin flavors of the mass-produced beers (think Coors, Miller and Budweiser) that dominate the market. Second, Americans love everything -- especially their beverages -- supersized; we're a nation with a "bigger is better" mentality. Third, getting higher alcohol and more hops for the same price as a beverage that's lower in alcohol and more subtle in flavor looks to consumers like more bang for the buck.I agree in some respects, though a "clunky English-style ale," done well, is subtle and perfect in its roasty, grainy, plummy perfection.
And finally, it's difficult to brew a clean and delicate golden or blonde ale; and the cool fermentation cycle required for lager-making is time-consuming and highly technical. For mom-and-pop craft brewers, it's much easier to brew big, clunky English-style ales like IPAs (India Pale Ales) than it is to make something light and refreshing.
...
"An IPA is a tsunami of sweet, citrus and floral flavor that someone raised on Coca-Cola and Gatorade can get into," Gauger says.
This past weekend, I finally got another batch of beer in the fermenter: my World** Famous Maple Syrup Porter!
This recipe is so easy it's silly. I start with a beginner-basic Brown Porter recipe (the lightest and least-roasty of the porters; just a single step darker and more "dark toast" than a British Brown Ale like Newcastle or MBC Nut Brown); munich, crystal 60L and some pale malt for the base malts, some chocolate male for color and toastiness, cascade hops at bittering and aromatic. So simple as to be boring and unremarkable. This is important.
The real magic is when I crash my hour-long boil by turning off the flame and adding a generous quart of freshly-drawn maple syrup. A friend of mine taps his own trees, and in return for a quart of the fresh stuff, he gets a couple of the beers.
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| Look at the yeast cake on THAT one!! |
I am surprised that Smitty did not find this first.
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| Charles Dharapak/AP via NPR |
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| From: Obamafoodorama |
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