Happy Halloween

So it's Halloween, and we have only one piece of candy left after I gave all the early kids 2 or 3 pieces each. Godammit.

While Vanessa & I are trying to come up with some decent costume ideas, we are listening to a kick-awesome spooky playlist that I put together on iTunes:

Thriller - Michael Jackson
This is Halloween - Nightmare Before Christmas
Walkin with a Ghost - The White Stripes
Ghost - Phish
People Are Strange - The Doors
Psycho Killer - Talking Heads
Bad Moon Rising - Creedence
Monster Mash - Boris Pickett
Midnight in a Perfect World - DJ Shadow
Ghost World - Aimee Mann
Vampire Forest Fire - Arcade Fire
It's Dark, Is it always this Dark? - The Flaming Lips
Superstition - Stevie Wonder
Great Pumpkin Waltz - Vince Guaraldi Trio

And I think we are just about shutting down the candy train. Anyway, the doorbell has sort of stopped ringing, and we are trying on costumes & piling on serious empty stomach buzzes. Off to CBC for the pumpkin festival!

And here are some shots from the pumpkin-slaying last night - enjoy


-'Wrence

Autumn in Boston

It wouldn't be a week without another crappy cellphone camera image....here we go.

This was taken after I was suddenly inspired during a walk back to work from the North End.

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Not much else to add. Trying to finish up my exam this week. Also will be carving some pumpkins tonight in prep for Halloween tomorrow. There is a pumpkin party happening at CBC, which I think I will be attending. Potential costume ideas are still in the conceptual phase at present. Updates to follow.

Peace

-Wrence

Sunday in Northampton

Took a drive out west on what could have been the nicest day of the Fall.....truly remarkable.

With a few of the Greeks on board, we toured the Mass Pike and the picaresque town of Northampton, the liberal's liberal. We hit the Northampton Brewery, a decent pub. It looked like they are brewing 7 or 10bbl batches. They were pouring 8 offerings so we got two sets of samplers, getting one of each beer on the table, which was a nice way to do it. All the beers were solid, especially their "lighter" ones. When progressing to the hoppier Pale Ales or the Brown and the Porter, the beers became less than inspiring, but solid, none-the-less. The two critiques I have regarding the beers were: 1) they were all basically the same color. THIS COLOR...for reals. I mean, make your blondes blonde and make your browns brown, for shit's sake. 2) All of the beer styles were very.....umm...traditional in nature (read: generic). I would have liked to have seen at least ONE beer with some interesting ingredients or a new take on a style. In other words, I didn't get the sense of any personality coming from the brewer with this basic a lineup.

The highlight was the Dirty Truth, a beautiful, somewhat new beer bar on Main street. I'd been wanting to try this place since they first opened, and I was definitely impressed. Lots of room, cool lighting, great colors & design in general, and about 40 taps or so. The mac & cheese was straight dope.

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Today I gave notice at my job of the last 7 years...here we go

-'Wrence

Heat, Greeks, and..........IPA

So a few weeks ago it started to get REALLY fucking cold in Boston. For reals. I thought to myself, goddamit, we're going to have to start running the heat in this piece. The "piece" is our apartment. "We" is me and the Greeks. I was trying to guess which one of them would break and turn the heat on first...it was a tough call. About a week later, heat still not turned on, I mentioned to Vanessa that I wasn't going to be the one to break. Vanessa is a tough little competitor and assured me that it would not be her either. Once Gena found out about this (and that we had both placed heavy odds on her to be the first one to break) it turned into a sort of tough-guy contest, complete with psychological mind-games and much taunting. I woke up every morning this week to a 56-degree house....unreal.
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So anyway, we'll get back to that a little later.

Last night I brewed what is almost definitely the last batch of beer for 2008 (I'll be away most of the time until after Christmas) and what could possibly be the last beer I ever brew at 46 Tremont. (tear drips down face) Anyway, I figured I should go out with guns blazing. Also I figured I might want to actually USE some of that POUND of fresh 2008 hops I have in the feeezer. Do you smell Double IPA? -I do!

Here's what we did

Grains
12.5# Pale Malt (domestic)
1# Munich Malt
.5# Cara-pils
.5# Cara-malt (UK)

yeast was a slurry of wyeast 1272 from the stout I brewed a few weeks back.

Hops....deep breath, here we go:

First, here are the alpha numbers (all hops are whole flowers, 2008 harvest)
Chinook, 13%
Amarillo, 9.3%
Centennial, 9%

Bittered the beer with 1.25 ounces of Chinook for 60 minutes

3 late additions went in during the end of the boil; one at 15 minutes, at 5 minutes, and at knock-out. Each charge was the same: a sort of hop BOMB consisting of a half-ounce of each variety; Chinook, Amarillo, and Centennial. The BOMBS weighed 1.5 ounces each, so when all was said and done there was nearly 6 ounces of hop flowers in the kettle. And oh yea, I will dry-hop with another one of these same additions. (Note: each time I dropped a BOMB into the kettle, the whole house exploded with amazing aromas)

If that last paragraph did not make you want to drink beer, please stop reading this and go turn yourself into the police immediately, sicko.

The gravity ended up around 1.077 - with a good fermentation* we might hit 9% booze-by-volume, which would be perfect in my book. And my book kicks ass. When I get back from the apprenticeship at the end of December, the first thing I am going to do will be to open up one of these bros and drink the shit out of it.
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*Ah, yes -this is where we bring it all together. In regards to a "good fermentation," I like to start off at around 63 degrees and slowly let it warm up to about 67 to finish off...in my experience, and with my taste in Pale Ales, this is what gets me the best results. This morning I once again woke up to a 56-degree house....the beer had a meek Krausen going and was struggling to fight at 60 degrees. I sighed, sighed again louldly, sighed loudlier, and reluctantly turned the heat on.

You hear that, you Goddam GREEKS?! I BROKE! I TURNED THE FUCKING HEAT ON!!

Go ahead.....do your worst. I'm prepared to live with the consequences of my actions. You'll thank me this weekend when you're sitting on MY GODDAM COUCH enjoying the toasty apartment drinking my Goddam beer which I work so hard to make. But I broke, and there's no denying it.

-Wrence

Annoying Phrase Overheard at Work

No matter how old, how senile, how confused/disoriented/forgetful I may get someday, I swear I will never use the phrase "having a senior moment" or any of its derivatives.

Redbones, Stainless Steel, &....IPA

Ah, so what's happening......let's see

Last Friday Kevbones came over and hung out with the Greeks & I. We got a bit sauced at my place and then hit Redbones for some food and some of the Pacific Northwest beers they bring in to town every year around this time. It was great, though I wish I could remember more about what I drank (typical...).

Also this weekend I cowboy'd up and bought an alkali cleaning detergent for my 10 gallon stainless steel brew kettle. In the 3+ years I've been using it, it's gotten nary more than a hot water rinse & a green scrub attack at the end of each use. This has kept it mostly clean, but over time some organic deposits start to cook on to the bottom & sides, and beer stone will begin to build up as well. It also happened to be the week where we went over this stuff in brew school so I thought the time was ripe for me to tackle this project.

I used this stuff called B-Brite, giving the kettle a soak overnight and then a good scrubbing. This took off almost every trace of soil from the kettle. (TIP: use and alkali cleaner to remove organic deposits, and use and acid cleaner to remove stone build-up.) I then gave it a rinse, let it dry, then filled the thing up with a Star-San solution. I had hoped that the acidity of the Star-San would knick the remaining stone residue, and also help to re-passivate the stainless. All I know, is that now my kettle is GLEAMING like new.
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Also this weekend I watched like 20 episodes of LOST.
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So, this week is another standard week with school/work/crap. Next week is our 2nd big exam so I'll be quite busy again I'm sure. (scan back to the first week of September on Bros11 to hear about the previous exam). School will be wrapping up shortly, and while I still have not gotten final word on where I'll be apprenticing, I'm still wicked psyched and a little anxious - but in a good way.
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Heading to the brewstore tonight for grain. I'm thinking of a big, beautiful IPA for my potentially last homebrew at 46 Tremont. Anyway, I should be able to have this thing bottled by the time I head to Vermont on Nov 17th, and it will be the first beer I open at the end of 2008 when I get back from the apprenticeship.

More to come on all these fronts...stay tuned

-Wrence

Pumpkin Soup/Columbus Day

So the Stout turned up at 1.063.....that's about 16 Plato for you geeks out there. Nice indeed.

Today is the quintessentially perfect fall day, made all the more so by the fact that my hands are now stained "Oompa-Loompa Orange" and reek of pumpkin. I plan to use up some of the hundred or so gallons of chicken stock I have laying around as a result of last weeks' Chicken Carcasses: The Stockening, in which I went nuts and simmered up all the random carcasses & bones which had been piling up in my freezer. Seriously, what the shit am I going to do with all this stock?

Anyway, the pumpkin soup should be good...imagine a nice, creamy, savory soup with a touch of nutmeg hidden away...and then imagine yourself sprinkling some crispy bacon on top of it. Yea, that's how we do Columbus day at 46 Tremont.

-Wrence

Jonny Greenwood - Stout

Right now I am finishing up on a stout brew day, and listening to the Bodysong soundtrack by Jonny Greenwood. It is typically twisted and crazy...and it's somehow just perfect. Could be my hangover, or general lack of attention span, I'm not entirely sure. Right now it's on that jazzed up track that sounds like something from Coltrane, mid-sixties era. Awesome. Some of these songs ended up as part of Greenwood's score for There Will Be Blood as well. But, I digest...

Anyway, about this beer. I was thinking for about a month that I needed to try a stout again. It has been years since I made one, and I've never been super stoked with my past results. So I considered taking myself to school, so to speak, by brewing your basic Irish Dry Stout. You know the kind; Pale Malt, Flaked Barley, and Roasted Barley. Simple and to the point. BUT: then I started thinking about all the 2008 hops I just got in the mail and then also remembered "Oh yea, I generally enjoy more than 4% alcohol in my beers, especially during the freaking winter." The decision made itself.

Behold, your average kick-awesome American Stout (partially inspired by the Sierra Nevada stout)

7# Pale Malt (U.K.)
1.5# Munich Malt
.75# Cara-Munich I
.5# Flaked Barley
.5# Roasted Barley
.5# Black Malt

Pacific Gems were used for the bittering charge, shooting for 44 IBUs
1.5 oz Amarillo - 10 mins
1 oz Centennial -knock out

Fermenting with my old favorite, Wyeast 1272. God, 1272, I missed you so! I swear those belgian girls over the summer meant nothing to me! NOTHING, I SAY!

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Tomorrow is Columbus day. Even though Cristobal Colon was a dick, I am still going to enjoy the day off. I think pumpkin soup will be on the agenda...

-Wrence