Starting 2011 on the Right Foot

It probably sounds kinda cliche to say that I'm trying to get back in shape this time of year.  However, I'd really like to lose about 20 or 25 pounds over the next few months.  Trying to get back down my typical adult-life average weight.  So far, so good.  Haven't lost much weight yet but I haven't been eating as much crap and have been running and going for long walks with Theresa and Abby fairly consistently over the last couple weeks.  I have already noticed my energy climb a little.  I am trying to continue on this path and keep it up to incorporate it as my normal routine.  I'm also trying to do this by making a few compromises but still enjoy myself food-and-drink-wise.  For example, I'm not giving up beer.  Considering I don't drink mass quantities of beer (usually in the neighborhood of 2 - 3 beers in a night most weekend nights), and considering that beer-hunting and homebrewing are the hobbies that I am most passionate about, I think its a reasonable compromise.  I think I should get there slowly, but surely, over the next few months simply by exercising more consistently and eating better.

Now to the much more delicious and interesting portion of today's program ... BEER!

I'm pretty excited about my homebrew selection.  This Thursday will mark the two week mark on the bottle-conditioning of the Ruination and Ubu clones, which means this weekend is tasting time!  Both beers will probably get better over the next few weeks but I'm pretty amped to try the two new beers.  These two will also give a bit more variety to my homebrew selection; with the addition of these 5th and 6th volumes I will have three brews in bottle - the Tripel, Runiation, and Ubu.  Three brews is the most I have had in bottles at one time.  I am hoping to sustain this variety, if not increase it, as I continue brewing.  Its definately going to be nice to have a good variety of homebrew in the fridge.  I am hoping to get another brew or two in fermenters in February.  The next one will probably be a good session beer - maybe an ESB or something of that nature.  Sometime in March I want to get something in the can for the Spring.  I'm thinking of doing something like a blueberry wheat or something along those lines.

Equipment-wise, I'm thinking about getting some new gear.  Right now, I'm doing extract brews with a big stainless steel pot on an electric range with a beginners starter kit with a plastic fermentation bucket and bottling bucket.  I also picked up another plastic fermenter recently to use when I have two brews fermenting at once.  Next on the wish list is a glass carboy.  I want to get this mainly to use for secondary fermentations so I can do longer secondary fermentations with better quality.  For one, it will let me rack my beer onto other ingredients to age with, such as oak chips (I really want to do an oaked black IPA sometime soon).  Also, it should reduce some of the sediment that I get in my bottles (especially on bigger beers like Ruination).  Been looking into doing some other minor things too (like waxing or putting foil wraps on my bottles for better presentation for gifts).  However, I doubt I will do any other major upgrades at this point (like an all-grain setup) until I have house - I just don't have the space for the extra equipment right now.

On the beer-hunting/drinking front, it has also been a good start to the new year.  Among my favorites that I've picked up at Pinocchio's Beer Garden in the last week or so are Dogfish Head's Pangaea (a beer brewed with ingredients from every continent - even Antarctica (water)) and Samuel Smith's Imperial Stout.  Also had a chance to stop into the restaurant side of Pinocchio's and have a couple Lucky Bastards (which they had on draft) with my buddy Jim this past weekend.  It was good to have a couple solid beers with Jim and catch up.

Dogfish Head's Pangaea in one one of my Stone Brewery glasses.

Stone's Old Guardian Barleywine in my Vertical Epic glass.

That's all for now - hopefully I'll get in another update this weekend after tasting the new homebrews :-).

And I know you're dying for today's beer and song selections :-) .....

Song of the Day: "In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3" by Coheed & Cambria
Beer of the Day: Samuel Smith's Imperial Stout

Christmas, New Years, 3 More Cases of Beer, and a Few Goodies from the Beer Garden

Christmas was a lot of fun, and very relaxing this year.  I had a great time hanging out with Theresa and her family during Christmas Eve and Christmas! :)  Although I didn't make it up to Rochester around Christmas, it was pretty nice to not have to worry about traveling all over the place during the holidays.  Got some awesome new gear this year.  I added the four Saranac pint glasses from Theresa and the three Stone glasses that I ordered to my glassware collection.  Also got a couple new scarves, a new Saranac t-shirt, the Tenacious D Complete Masterworks DVD, a pack of Omaha Steaks Filets, and lots of other goodies.  All-in-all, it was another great Christmas with Theresa!

The week after Christmas, I worked from home.  There was definitely work to do, but the pace was pretty relaxed and I was able to spend another week of quality time at home with Theresa and Abby. :)

Abby and I at the park before the snow we got a week ago melted.

Last Thursday was bottling day for the two clones (my Ruination clone, and the Ubu clone that I did with my buddy Keith).  When all was said and done, the Ruination was pretty much right on the money with the final gravity and yielded about 2 cases (one in 22oz bottles, the other in 12oz bottles) plus a 4-pack of 12oz bottles.  I also had enough to draw a little out into a tasting glass and taste the Ruination in its uncarbonated form.  It tasted about what I expected - pretty much exactly what an IPA should taste like.  I am very excited to taste the finished product and to see how it ages.  I think this one should age very well and mellow out a little with age.  The 2oz of Centennial hops that were used during dry-hopping really came through in the taste.  The Ubu ale came out pretty successful too - the FG was a little off but I think the finished product will still taste like a solid English ale.  This one yielded 3 bottles shy of 2 full cases (one case fro me and one for Keith).  After getting through these two clones, I know am out of empty beer bottles and have a little over three and half cases of home-brewed beer (2+ of Ruination, 1 of Ubu, and about a half case of Tripel) conditioning in my second bedroom.

My Ruination clone in the fermenter before I transferred it over to the bottling bucket.  Definitely had a lot of sediment with this one.

Bottling bucket and empty bottles ready to be filled.

Now, onto New Years!  This was the best New Years I've ever had!  Theresa and I had a really nice dinner at the Moshulu in Philly followed by an awesome fireworks display at Penns Landing (which could be seen from the Moshulu).  The dinner was awesome - the two best dishes in mind were the tuna tar tare that Theresa had as an appetizer and the diver scallops that we both had for an entree.  This was the first time Theresa and I had done anything like this for New Years.  It was really special to be able to just relax with Theresa and have an awesome night out just the two of us! :-)

Penns Landing fireworks on New Years Eve, as viewed from the Moshulu.

With New Years marking the end of the holiday season, I am now shifting gears and enjoying one last day off (today is the day that IBM gives off as a holiday for New Years) before heading back into the normal work routine.  I have mostly just been relaxing the last couple days and I decided to run down to Pinocchio's Beer Garden and pick up a mix-a-six pack and a 22oz-er.  My favorites from this beer run has been Stone's Lucky Bastard and Left Hand's Black Jack Porter.  

Some goodies from the Beer Garden: Acme Pale Ale, Lake Placid's Ubu Ale, Stone's Oak Aged Arrogant Bastard, Left Hand's Black Jack Porter, Victory's Hop Devil, Pilsner Urquell, and Stone's Lucky Bastard.

Song of the Day: "Tribute" by Tenacious D
Beer of the Day: Lucky Bastard by Stone Brewery

First Tasting and Two New Brews in the Can

Monday marked the brewing of the first beer I have brewed on my own and the first of two clone brews that I am doing this week.  I brewed up the Ruination IPA clone and everything went pretty smoothly.  Its sitting in my fermenter in my second bedroom bubbling away as we speak.  This was probably the smoothest brew yet (process-wise) - the final temperature was right in the proper fermentation range and the OG was right on the money at 1.075.  The one thing that I realized I have to work on is the initial steep of the grains.  I usually end up overshooting the proper steeping temperature when I am heating up the brew pot on my electric range.  If I can get the steep temperature to go smoothly, I will pretty much have the process down.  After the batch is done with the initial fermentation, I am going to dry hop it with another 2oz of Centennial hops for a few days, then bottle condition it.  All in all, I think this brew will come out very solid.

Tuesday was another brew day.  My buddy Keith and I brewed up the Ubu clone and got that into a fermenter.  Similar story - the steep temperature was a bit high but everything else was very smooth.  Should be another solid brew once we get it fermented and bottle conditioned. 

We also did our first tasting of our Tripel that we brewed up towards the end of November.  I was quite pleasantly surprised with this one.  Although it seemed more like an Abbey than a Tripel, it was still a really solid Belgian ale.  Very smooth and made you feel nice and warm inside. 

All in all, Mission: Solid Week of Beer has been a great success with two new brews in the can without a hitch, and good initial results on our first tasting of the Tripel.  All I need now is for my Stone Brewery glassware to get here tomorrow! 

Now its time to shift gears a little bit and get geared up for the holidays! :-)

Song of the Day: "Pardon Me" by Incubus (the acoustic version)
Beer of the Day: Fade to Black (Porter) by Left Hand

November = Gone

So November is done - about that .....

Its been awhile since my last post - things have been pretty busy lately.  Pretty much every weekend we had something going on.  Overall, things are pretty good - just looking forward to the holidays coming up and a nice break from work.  Here's a little recap of the highlights of November.

November kicked off with a fun weekend in Philly at Theresa's cousin Stacy's wedding.  The ceremony was beautiful and the reception was a blast.  It definitely turned into the heaviest drinking night of the month haha.  Family get-togethers with Theresa's family are always a good time :-).  The day pretty much consisted of the ceremony, drink a few beers with the family before the reception, cocktail hour, dinner/drinking/dancing/cigars at the reception, some more drinks at the hotel bar with the family, and finished the night off with an always-satisfying late-night Wawa run.  It was nice to relax and do nothing the next day once we got home :-).  The only downfall to the day was that we missed another wedding the same day for our friends Aubrey and Josh.  Congratulations to both couples!

Theresa and I hanging out with the family before the reception.

The weekend after that was pretty relaxing - just hung out for a lot of the weekend and took a breather.  One of the highlights of the weekend was Theresa's brother Harry's surprise 30th birthday party.  It was a good time and seemed pretty happy/surprised about the whole thing haha.

The third weekend of the month brought a pretty fun-filled day Saturday.  My buddy Mark was in town for the weekend visiting his brother in Philly, so I went into Philly in the afternoon and hung out with him and had a couple solid beers.  Later that night, my friends Keith and Fran had their house warming party, which was also a very good time!  It was really good to see some friends that I haven't hung out with in awhile and to help Keith and Fran break in the house a little.

Thanksgiving week was very nice - worked from home Monday - Wednesday, and had Thursday and Friday off.  We had a very relaxing Thanksgiving day hanging out at Theresa's dad's house.  Lots of turkey and all the other Thanksgiving goodies.  It was very nice to have a day with Theresa and her family where we could just relax all day :-).  Thanksgiving week was overall very solid.  It was nice to hang out with Theresa all week and unwind a bit.  Even had a chance to squeeze in a decent amount of Halo: Reach.

Found a puppy all comfy cozy in the bed last week :-)

Finally, Keith and I had a chance to brew our tripel that we have been meaning to brew for awhile now.  We brewed it a couple weeks ago and bottled it this past weekend.  It will be fun pop this one open in a few weeks when it is done bottle conditioning.  Thinking about doing a clone brew next - maybe a clone of Ruination IPA or Ubu ale.

Looking forward to bustin the next couple weeks out and getting to Theresa's birthday and a two-week project shutdown!  It will be nice to be home for  a couple weeks straight to enjoy some time with Theresa and our family!

Song of the Day: "Passerby" (All Points Bulletin Live version) by Dispatch
Beer of the Day: Sawtooth by Left Hand Brewery