A night at the 'bones

So, I know I haven't posted in a while, but that's only because I haven't really been doing awesome stuff lately. However, I never did fill ya'll in on the most recent awesome thing I did...which happened almost two weeks ago now and has ALREADY been mentioned here by 'Wrence. SO...I drove back from NYC pretty early on the Saturday after Christmas and hollered at 'Wrence on the way. It was decided that we would eat and drink things while sitting near each other that night. The venue was to be determined, but the intent was clear. On this night, awesomeness would be given free reign. It was eventually decided, after not too much deliberation, that we would be spending our time at RedBones BBQ in Davis Square...this place puts nipples on the proverbial Tits. 'Wrence and I have taken our frustrations out on this place before and had decided that it was once again time to let shit fly.

After a very successful execution of the trick*, 'Wrence and I took the T to Davis and promptly arrived to Redbies to find the place not-too-packed. Despite some upstairs availability, we opted to examine the downstairs, dubbed UnderBones by some. Dimly lit and pretty wide-open...UnderBones feels a bit cavernous and homey...just the place for eating massive quantities of meat and drinking far-too much booze. On to the action...the beverables were duly noted by myself on my phone for posterity's sake...there is no way, under other circumstances that I would be able to recall them all. Or even one of them for that matter. They are as follows:

Ry

1. Bear Republic Racer 5 IPA
2. Lagunitas Brown Sugga
3. Rogue Mocha Porter
4. Smutty IPA
5. Stoudt's Pils

'Wrence

1. Six Point Bengali Tiger IPA
2. Weihenstephaner (which, after ordered, provided a good 5 minutes of conversation)
3. Founder's Backwoods Bastard
4. Goulden Draak
5. Sierra Nevada Celebration
6. Clipper City Winter

Now, I admit, things got hazy at the end, and I may have misattributed a couple of those, but you get the idea. Not included was the goddamn shot of tequila 'Wrence made me have somewhere in the middle.

As far as mangibles, we started things off with some collards and catfingers, both old standards. 'Wrence attempted to have the brisket, but that was out for the night, and was forced to change his order to ribs of some type (i think). As for myself, I had a full order of Memphis ribs...I think. See I usually get a combo of Memphis and St. Louis and then always like one more than the other and have to do it all over again the next time. This time I threw caution to the wind and just ordered one type...and it turned out to be the one I like better. I now I still can't fucking remember which one it is for sure. Oh well, I have never been opposed to experimentation by eating.

The night got hazy and we rode the T home. However, we thought it might be a good idea to take some pictures of each other on the T. We probably looked like a real happy couple of gay dudes. See for yourself.

Just another night for the dudes (that was the name on our tab this time I think).

&Ry

July 4th weekend in Massachusetts

After finding out at the last minute that I actually had Friday the 3rd off from work, I decided to take up the Bones & Amanda on their invite to 4th at their new place for the weekend.

I caught them somewhat off-guard by showing up Thursday night instead of Friday (the day of the actual invite) and they were still finishing up unpacking and setting stuff up for a party they had planned the following night. I thought the place looked amazing, but they were visibly stressed about the condition of things. Hell, I would have slept on a pile of rusty pipes in the basement, but they seemed to think that I required an actual bed (which they just bought new) complete with sheets AND a pillow. I must say, I was put up extremely well. The house is unpretentious, 19th century New England perfection; good size, detached garage, front & back yards, nice front porch and a huge back deck. I am officially jealous as I type this in my stupid faux-modern yuppie hut in the Northern Liberties. But I digress.

I also was excited to discover that the house is a 20 minute drive to Walden Pond, one of my favorite places on earth. I got there both Friday AND Saturday morning, and the early summer water was perfect. Score. We also grilled the hell out of all sorts of stuff on Kevbones' new Weber charcoal model. Add to that a shit-ton of his homebrew and my Jerseybrew and you have a yourself a classic summer weekend. I could see myself heading up there a lot were I not so busy for the rest of the summer, and the drive not so unbearably sucky.
Happy July from Philly,

-Wrence

January 3rd ramblings

Holiday Re-cap aXesome `09!!!!!

Sorry, I'm not entirely confident that this post will actually live up to that title, but here she goes:

AwseomeMas was pretty cool. My flight back east from San Fran was deeeelllllaaayyyyyed -like you read about; I ended up landing at 3:30am on the morning of the 25th. It was pretty dope actually, once it was all over. V, bless her Greek heart, was super-cool enough to set her alarm and drive out to the airport in the middle of the night for the pickup (and this only a day after her mother arrived for a 2 week visit). A Solid.

After a few hours sleep I commuter-rallied to my Mom's house in the suburbs....upon exiting the train and looking 200 yards down to the parking lot, I spotted some idiot in a full-on Santa suit. The Idiot turned out to be none other than The 'Bones himself, one of my All-time favorite idiots, waiting to pick me up at the station. Another Solid.

What then followed was about 3 or 4 days of eating & drinking. RyToy & I had a fond re-unionizing at the venerable Redbones BBQ, Toy's favorite place for stuffing beer & food into his craw. He had his new camera with him and we took about 100 pictures, most of which feature us pretending to be a gay couple for some reason. Hopefully he will post a few choice ones up here at some point. Toy & I also hit the brewstore a few days later; We met a nice lesbian homebrewer; Ry ended up brewing something and I got some yeast ready for hopefully a quick brew sesh while I'm still hanging around Boston. Will keep you posted.

I hit CBC on new year's eve to catch up with those guys. Brought Ben a bottle of Pliny the Elder, which I don't think he was expecting at all. Good times. Will gifted me a bottle of the 2008 Blunderbuss, which they bottled for limited release at their NYE party and possibly sales at the bar later this year. Very Solid. I'll be back over there next week to talk to Will about my future & hopefully come up with some more concrete ideas as to what I'm doing next. Will keep you posted.

OH: also the Balazs clan was in town for 3 days around the year's end. The typical insanity ensued. I havent seen drinking like that in a long time. And my January 1st hangover was one of my worst, All-time. They kept it going an extra day, though, mind-blowingly.

Cheers to you, readers; wishing you all the beast for Twenty o-nine.

-Wrence

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