Bier en modder

As of 7 am this morning, there was a little squall moving in.  Looking out my window at work now (7:45), it looks like it’s here.  The forecast for the next week on NOAA has better than 50% chance of rain.  For those of you who were considering planting your tomatoes and basil this weekend, I’d reconsider.

Ingrid was barfy the past couple days, so it was my turn to stay home with her.  Apparently a bug has been going around her preschool.  Great.  I think I washed the top 3 layers of skin off my hands throughout the day.  She was mostly better yesterday so with the nice weather we went out to do some errands.

We ended up at River City to look for a tire for this weekend (Hornings).  I checked Fat Tire Farm earlier in the week.  They had a decent selection but nothing just right.  They had plenty of UST (which I don’t have), huge DH tires, and a small selection of 29′ers.  They had a bunch of straight 26″ but like I said, nothing really grabbed my eye.

Bike Gallery had maybe 8-10 tires total for anything resembling XC racing or training.  River City had a fair selection.  After a few minutes of comparing, I ended up with the Michelin A/T.  I was hoping for the Mud but they didn’t carry it.

Kris Schamp noted earlier in the week that the course wasn’t that muddy so I’m hoping the A/T’s work.  With rain in the forecast, who knows.  FR1 in Forest Park was fairly soft and loose on Tuesday.  I’ll bring a couple of my extras.  I’ve got a front Velociraptor lying around.  Not the fastest tire in the world but it works.  I forget the others.  Anyway, I’m going to try to get there early and look at the course.

So to finalize my prep for Sunday, I made sure my excuses were in order:

1. Significant recent component change (switch from grip shifters to new SRAM X.9 trigger shifters): Check
2. Erratic and slightly disorganized early-season training schedule: Check.
3. First race of the year: Check.
4. Upgrade to new category (sport to expert): Check.

I’d say everything is in order.  I’ll check back in Sunday or Monday with the details.

I thought about riding this weekend.  Then I just sat quietly and after a couple minutes it went away.  Whew.  That was a relief.

The long-awaited (feared) beer increase will be heading our way very shortly.  Word on the street is that $5 pints aren’t that far off in the future.

The hype over Deschutes Abyss seems to have subsided.  Bottles were going for $40 to 50 on Craigslist and E-Bay.  Some jackass had a case for $600.  Yes, that’s a 400+% markup.

There’s a couple ways to approach this.  First – it’s just beer.  I mean, come on.  Second – since the start of the microbrew revolution 15-odd years ago, beer nerds have been clamoring for ‘respect’ from the general beverage industry, particularly the wine nerds.  It’s an uphill battle at best.

Personally, I don’t think that a vast majority of beer has the year-to-year variance in taste and quality that wine does.  Brewers, at least in the US, strive for consistency, year in and year out.  Wineries get their grapes and make the best wine out of it they can, regardless of whether its a good year or a bad year.  Beer, on the other hand, doesn’t suffer as much from the random, seasonal fluctuations in growing conditions.  The Bridgeport IPA I drink tomorrow will probably taste pretty close to the first one I had when I moved to town 10 years ago.  Not exact but close.

I appreciate the direction that some breweries are going in to make distinctly unique products.  The Bourbon-barrel craze of late is one.  Take an extra strong beer, preferably one that isn’t regularly available, age it in barrels and then package it as a limited edition.  Great.  You’ve created a one-time product that people will now realize that once it’s gone, it’s gone.

Anyway, I’ve added my case of Abyss to the cellar along with all the others.  My tentative plan is 1 or 2/year.

Struggling a little with being a little tired. I’m sitting in front of my second, and last, cuppa for the day. Thought I’d share the excerpt from the Lagunitas Cappucino Stout bottle:

Coffee is my shepherd; I shall not doze.
It maketh me to wake in green pastures, It leadeth me beyond the sleeping masses.
It restoreth my brain, It leadeth me in the paths of consciousness for it’s name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of sleep,
I will fear no artificial sweetener for thou art with me; Thy cream and thy sugar they comfort me.
Thou preparest a carafe before me in the presence of my zzz’s, Thou anointest my day with sunlight;
My cup runneth over.
Surely richness and flavor shall follow me all the days of my life:

and I will dwell in the house of Cappuccino forever…

Let us sip… or whatever…

Random News:

• 3 days until the release of the Deschutes Abyss. That’s exciting. I’m still up in the air on exactly how much I’ll get. Note to self – don’t drink them all right away.

• Burton is offering a $5k reward to the snowboarder who can poach on the remaining ski areas that still ban snowboarders: Mad River, Alta, and a couple others. Do you ever wonder why snowboarders were banned in the first place?

• The Belgian Dubbel is still bubbling away in the garage, but it’s tapered off considerably. The temperature controller is hitting the heating element more frequently meaning fermentation is slowing down. I’ll have to watch it over the weekend. Once it slows to one fart through the airlock every 30 sec, I’ll test it and see where we’re at.

• There’s a recipe in Zymurgy for a ridiculously strong Imperial Stout, reportedly clocking in at 17-18% abv.  It uses something like 30 pounds of grain per 5 gallon batch (typical strength batches take 8 to 11#’s).  I have the recipe entered into ProMash but I’m on the fence if I’ll make it or not.  Brewing a monster like that which actually turns out drinkable will take every bit of mojo I can muster.  I need to mull this one over some more.

Had a delightful brewing day yesterday. I haven’t done a Belgian Dubbel before but I came across an old recipe that a homebrew club in Belgium (where else) put together to clone Roquefort 8. It’s an outstanding beer and since its’ in their backyard, I figured if anyone could put together a credible recipe, it’d be them.
So what makes a good brewing day? Excellent question.

First, not rushing around. Rushing around and excessive multitasking are my biggest faults here. If I don’t get stuff organized the day/night before, I’m in trouble. Getting ready basically involves weighing and crushing the grain, weighing and sorting the hops, measuring water & adding whatever salts are needed, and getting the equipment where it needs to be with any hoses and LP tanks connected.

Ideally, I just like to wake up and start the burner under the hot water tank. If I don’t get this stuff ready, I feel like I’m behind the 8 ball the rest of the day. It turns what should be a really fun day into a chore.
Second, have the yeast ready. You can get the best ingredients and spend hours brewing a fantastic beer. But if the yeast isn’t ready to do it’s job, you’ve just wasted your time. I’d say yeast management is arguably the number one culprit behind that ‘homebrewey’ taste that a lot of beginners get. The final effects behind not adding enough yeast and the subsequent care and feeding of that yeast are enormous: off-flavors, increased esters, increased chance of infection, and premature end of fermentation are just the start.

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Happy New Year. It’s time to get back to work. With 34°F and rain on the ride in early this morning, it was a pretty rude welcome. With the beginning of each month though, I get the added bonus of flipping to a new page on the calendar. This month? Teamwork.

I’m not sure about you but I’ll be writing ‘2007′ or ‘07′ on all my checks and logs until April or so…as usual. This happens every year. I’ve learned to just accept it and move on.

Deschutes Abyss will be released in February according to the Belmont Station blog.  I only picked up a couple last year and stupidly drank them both within a  few months.  While the price is projected to be near $10 a 22-oz bottle, I’m thinking about getting a few to cellar for a while.  I distinctly remember thinking that they needed time to settle down.

Hopworks is starting dock sales now.  Erik picked up a keg of the winter beer for the Turkeyday weekend.  The keg ended up not working well but we squeezed a few pints out of it before he brought it back for a replacement.  The winter beer was pretty good.  A bit more in the body and sweetness than I was expecting but good nonetheless.  My immediate impression was that I’d probably only have a pint, maybe two at a time…which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

The Winter beer festival downtown is next weekend. (the home page is a dead end.  Try here for more info).  There’s a big list of pretty strong winter beers there.  I usually limit myself to 3, maybe 4 different tastes and then return to my favorite for the finale.  Here’s my projected list (in no particular order):

•  Alameda Brewhouse – Papa Noels Olde Ale.  I thought I heard a while ago that the Alameda brewer came up from Lagunitas.  Whoever he/she is, their beers have improved substantially from years back.
• Tucks Brewery – Gluteus Maximus.  I don’t get out to Tuck’s as often as I should.  I really like their stuff.
• Walking Man Brewing – Webfoot Winter Ale.  Walking Man beers are always worth a try.

Hmmm, that’s all that’s really jumping out at me right now.  The rest either mildly interests me, I’ve had before, or is easily available on tap around town.  I’m sure that there will be some other Brew Crewers there so I’ll see what others are thinking.

My parents are in town visiting from CT which has kept me busy.  It’s a good visit but with I have a growing list of junk to take care of which has added to the stress level.  Luckily, a lot of the stuff I have going on will be over soon.

Spent the morning in line at the Hair of the Dog dock sale.  Got there 5 minutes early only to find a line winding around the block.  Took about 80 minutes to get up to the front.  90 seconds later I’m out the door $210 poorer but 2 cases of beer richer.  Got the usual case of Doggie Claws to throw in the cellar plus a last-minute addition of case of Fred from the Wood.  $130 a case.  F___, that’s expensive.  I’ll need to s-l-o-w-l-y drink these.

The rain was a delightful sound last night.  I was hoping it would continue through the day to loosen up the race course tomorrow but no luck.  On the other hand, I’d be a fool to complain about upper 50’s and sunny in mid-November.  I need to remind myself of the pre-school rule: “You get what you get and you don’t throw a fit”.

Picked up some Barge Cement and fixed the rear wheel.  Looks good.  I hope it holds together but I have no reason to think it won’t so far.  I also took a few minutes to straighten out a chainring tooth that probably got bent out during the chainsuck I had at Barton.  A final re-toe of the front pads finished out the pre-race tune.

I’d also mentioned recently that the sandbagger discussions had been heating up which, having a win, I wasn’t immune to.  Historically, I have a fairly consistent pattern of progressing up through a category and then self-upgrading.  I made the same goal this year even before the season started.  I’ll admit it bothers me a little because I’ve always tried to have some reasonable moral standards when it comes to self-placement.  You should have some gut feeling deep down inside when you know you’re done with a category so I don’t believe in sticking around in a category after you’ve had some success.  But the grey area is – what defines success?  One win?  Two 2nd places?  7 or 8 top 10’s over a couple years?  I don’t know.  OBRA has tried to address this with their “3 top 3’s and/or 5 top 5’s”.  To me that seems reasonable.

Anyway, I’ve written more about this than I’d planned.  I hope to give it more thought after tomorrow – perhaps Tuesday after my parents leave.  I’m off to Russel St. BBQ for a Meatapalooza.