Big Brew

Saturday was the American Homebrew Association's 'Big Brew' day. My local brewclub, RIFT (Rhode Island Fermentation Technicians) gathered at John C's house in Exeter for a monster brew.

John has gone over the top with his brew equipment; he normally makes fifteen gallon batches, for this event he broke in a new 55 gallon mash tun and we made 50 gallons of a British Dark Mild Ale.

The sheer scale of this brew was bordering on a commercial operation.  Over 70 pounds of grain went into the batch.  

On Facebook

So I've been on Facebook for a while now and have a few thoughts...

• This is a giant digital vacuum for your spare time.
  
• The 'friending' process kind of bugs me. I mean, with true friends, there are no worries. But then you get these friend requests from people that you used to work with that you aren't really friends with and what do you do? Do you let them in and let them see your most unprofessional photos and musings, or do you ignore their requests and risk future business relationships?
  
• I had to 'unfriend' a former business associate, because it turns out that she is some kind of religious wacko. I just couldn't deal with someone quoting scripture coming across my desk every week.
  
• I need better tools for creating a inner sanctum of friends that I can truly be rude with.
  
• I find myself filtering truly funny comments because I know that it will be viewed by a wider audience.
  

Death, Taxes, You know...

Procrastination is the fine art of using up all of your spare time, so that when you finally sit down to accomplish a task, you are in the proper state of panic.

I started doing the taxes and of course, I am taking time out to blog, which hasn't happened in four months. I'm only a fraction of the way through the process and am actively stalling, just to make it harder on myself.

Lots going on in the next four days, too. We may be holding a dinner party here tonight, which means cleaning the house. I've got a meeting the night of the 15th, which means there is a hard stop to the work earlier than in past years.

My favorite year involved having a printer die on the evening of the 15th, having to drive to work and loading software on a machine there, getting everything printed out and finished at 11:43pm and then flying at 90 mph down route 93 to South Station in Boston where postal carriers were collecting envelopes on the street. I got there on the dot of midnight.

I got plenty of time...maybe I'll tune in the Masters.

Christmas Rant #1

"It's coming on Christmas, they're chopping down trees, putting up angels, singing songs of joy and peace."

Mostly bad ones.

Ok, I'm no Grinch when it comes to Christmas Music; I have a large pile of it myself. My problem is that every pop star idiot of the day thinks that they can and should make one. And most of them suck. Seriously, is anyone digging out their Mariah Carey Christmas disk and playing it year after year? I doubt it.

What really galls me is when you have some dubious talent (you know who you are Billy Idol, LeeAnn Rimes, Donna Summer, etc) take on a classic like 'White Christmas'.

Come on, Bing Crosby OWNS this song. It's burned into our brains. Your lame ass cover is not adding anything to it. It is an unwritten law that if you can't add anything to the original when you cover a song, you should not cover it at all.

With that in mind, here my list of xmas tunes that are already owned:

• White Christmas - Bing Crosby
  
• Blue Christmas - Elvis
  
• The Christmas Song - Nat King Cole
  

Ok, so there are TONS of songs that can be improved upon. Pick one of those. Seriously. Ever hear a version of 'Holly and the Ivy" that really worked? I didn't think so.

Christmas Songs I Hate
Santa Baby - Ick. A paean to greed.
The 12 Days of Christmas - I hear that they use this for torture purposes down at Guantanamo.

Holiday disks that I like:


Louis Armstrong - What a Wonderful Christmas
Zat you Santa Claus?

Asylum Street Spankers - A Christmas Spanking
Good silliness.

The Chieftains - The Bells of Dublin
Worth it for 'The Saint Stephen's Day Murders' (with Elvis Costello) alone.

Vince Guaraldi - A Charlie Brown Christmas
What needs to be said?

Kristen Hersh - The Holy Single
What are the holidays without a little angst?



Aimee Mann - Another Drifter in the Snow
Aimee Mann did a Christmas album?!? Yeah, and it is surprisingly traditional and great where it isn't.

Dean Martin - Christmas with Dino
Dino has a great voice for the Xmas standards. His version of 'Baby its cold outside' is positively leacherous.

Leon Redbone - Christmas Island
The baritone is in fine form here. 'There's no place like home for the holidays' has never been done better. Hey, he even makes 'Frosty the Snowman' not suck, and that is saying something.

(various)- Blue Yule
Christmas aint all jolly; this is great when you get the blues.


[Apology to those who receive my annual e-mail based Christmas Rant - Yes, this is a retread topic.]

Throwing Beer Around

So Chris and I got together Sunday night to move 20 gallons of homebrew into kegs and secondary.

I spent a good chunk of Saturday breaking down and cleaning Corny kegs in preparation. There were a few scary ones in the batch--stuff left over from last spring turning funky at the bottom. Nothing that a long soak in B-Brite and a hit of Iodophor couldn't cure.

Because we split the last batch of stout into two (one a Chocolate Stout, the other a 'Mayan' themed one with Cinnamon, Vanilla Beans, and a Habanero pepper floating in the secondary). and we both wanted some of each, that meant cleaning and sanitizing four corny kegs.

Both tasted great going into the kegs. The Chocolate is a keeper recipe that I brew a couple of times a year. The Mayan was Samira's inspiration and was really interesting. The spices totally melded with the Chocolate malt and it was difficult to tell what was really in there. The habanero gave the slightest warming at the back of your throat. Very cool combination.

On top of the kegging, we moved the Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale Clone from Primary to Secondary and dry hopped each 5 gal carboy with 2+ ounces of a mix of Chinook, Centennial and Cascade. It tasted awesome going into the Secondary. This baby should be ready right at the Solstice. I'm getting psyched about it.

All in all, a great night, but way too much cleaning.