Dented Cap Brewing

I've been doing a lot of thinking recently, and even though people tell me I'm wrong (maybe not in so many words, though), I still feel like I'm not quite an adult. That I'm still coming up short in a few ways. And in one of those ways, I realized... I can change it.

I'm normally the kind of person that needs closure for something. I'm going through something in my life where I would normally reach out for closure from the other person, even if I don't get it. I know that, in my head, it's been somewhat resolved. And this one topic has been consuming more of my thoughts, more of my time, than it probably should - to the point where I've been walking down to the mailbox and going over the wording of different parts in my head.

And then it hit me. Why? What is doing all this going to get me? I know my perspective on everything, and I know that my perspective isn't going to matter to the other person. What good is the closure going to do? I've been having trouble walking away for a while now. And somehow, something just switched in me tonight. I don't need the closure anymore. I don't need that finality anymore. What is, is. It doesn't need to be changed, it doesn't need to be wrapped up in a tidy little bow, it doesn't need to have anything else done. So, dogs, feel free to continue to lie and sleep - I'm not about to disturb you.

If you're reading this, which you might be, I have no problems staying friends with you, I think you're a great person. I don't appreciate a couple of the things that happened (as I'm sure you don't), but no one is ever going to be treated perfectly all the time. So like I said, don't be a stranger.

However, if you'll excuse me, I have some cleaning and tech-geekery to attend to. And possibly another beer. I apologize for the somewhat disjointed nature of this post, since I know it feels that way to me, but I think it's more important that I got the thoughts out.

So, I know, I know, I need to update this more. I just haven't had the time recently. And I know that's not an excuse, but dammit, it's the reason. :-)

I'm in the process of shedding some dead weight from my life. So in a change from my normal... "policy" for this blog, I'm going to refer to different aspects of my personal life. And if you think I'm referring to you here, don't ask. Because I'm not going to tell you if I am or not. :-) There are only very certain people I will explain the meanings of these names to, though...

Pulp - if you're waiting for an apology, you're not going to get one. I didn't do anything wrong, and I'm not going to apologize when I haven't done anything wrong. If anything, I'm the one that's due an apology, but that's a completely different conversation. There's a lot more that I have to/can say here, but I'm not going to bring it up here. This is not the forum for it.

C - if you don't want to be friends with me anymore, the least you could do is be an adult and tell me. However, I'm not exactly hurt at this point about it. Normally I have a problem cut-and-running, but here, somehow, I don't see it being a problem. So, way to be passive aggressive. Based on a conversation I had at one point with a friend of yours, I'd be lying if I said you doing this surprised me. I didn't see it coming, but I'm not surprised that it did happen.

Mustang Sally - I'm not going to go into too much detail here, because it could theoretically give away who you are. But holy shit, you have more drama in your life than anyone I know. And trust me - speaking as a peer, it's a red flag the size of, approximately, Houston. Give or take a suburb. Unfortunately, because of who you are, I can't cut you from my life entirely. However, that doesn't mean I have to listen to what you're saying, even though it's hard not to sometimes.

Janey/Jen (no, not the real Janey/Jen people - however, it has to do with what they have in common) - I have no proof that you did it, but I wouldn't be surprised if you did. It falls right in line with the high class individual that you are.

Ugh. Sorry about that. I know some of you hate when I'm cryptic like this, but think about it - given the situations, I'm sure you can at least appreciate the fact that I was looking for the catharsis of just sounding off about it a bit.

So, while my musical tastes haven't changed THAT much recently, I've gotten into one band that's a little softer than what I normally listen to. The group is called Mumford and Sons, and chances are if you're familiar with anything of theirs, it's a song called Little Lion Man. Just a fun song to drive to and just listen to in general, you know? You don't find those too much anymore...

So I feel like I've had no time to myself recently, which is both a good thing and a bad thing. I mean, I've been busy - don't get me wrong. And a lot of it is good/fun stuff - beer related stuff, or dinners with friends, or things like that. (I actually just got free tickets to a Mets game in a couple of weeks - wonder if my B-i-L is free that night...) But at the same time, I wouldn't mind having time to get to the gym, say, or time to clean the apartment (not a word, Amy, not a word... I can see you smirking from here... *grin*). I could theoretically go to the gym before work, but let's be real - it's just not happening. :-) Either way, I'm still down about 20ish pounds for the year, and that's nothing to complain about, right? Just wish I had that little bit of extra time to myself - haven't ruled out taking a mental health day, sleeping in, and just cleaning until I can't clean anymore. We'll see what happens... maybe... hm. You know what? Maybe I take a personal day for the day I have the Mets tickets and get everything done that way... hopefully, it's not the busy week at work. I'll check on that tomorrow. :-)

So close to Denver this year... so so close... And this year, it's going to be a whole crew of us. I can't wait. :-) So if you're part of my normal Denver crew, and you want the details, let me know...

(also, can anyone suggest blog software that does a good job at spam comment filtering?)

...but if it's something new, a different technique, I still get nervous. But it's normal, right? Fear of the unknown and all that?

Trying a different technique tomorrow. It's called mini-mashing - instead of, in effect, making the grain tea I normally make, this time I'm... making grain oatmeal, kind of. It's a little more intensive of a process, since I have to keep an eye on my temperatures, but... it'll be an experiment. A friend of mine is paying for this batch, and he said he doesn't care if it doesn't come out well - so what do I have to lose, right? :-)

And this should come as a surprise to no one, but I miss Belgium. Certain aspects of the trip I miss more than others, but that would lead us into topics that I told myself I would never discuss here. It's just... kind of incredible to me. I still don't believe I did it. And when I was there? I fell in love with the city and the people. I just... felt so at home there. I can't even really describe what it was about the place that I liked so much - I just was able to immerse myself in it totally and completely. I'm going back at some point, hopefully next year if I can save up the money for it, and I might even be able to get a hold of some of the people I met there this year (hopefully one in particular) so we can paint the city fantastic all over again. I'll try to plan things out a bit better, though - hit some more breweries while I'm there, and get to one bar I wanted to get to this year. I didn't get there, though, because of timing. By the time the bar would've been opening, I was on the wrong side of Antwerp, I was closer to the train station than anything else, and I wanted to get back to Brussels so I could get online somewhere and find out what was going on with my flights and the volcano. So next time, Kulminator. Definitely. (And maybe a couple more old glasses from that flea market in Antwerp, if I can find it again...)

Alright - it's 2 in the morning. I'm going to collapse. Here's hoping tomorrow's brew session goes well and I get a message I'm waiting for. :-)

Believe it or not, going into this trip, I was nervous as anything. And I couldn’t even put my finger on why I was nervous – I just was. I think it might’ve been a bit of fear of the unknown, since I had never gone overseas before. Any other time I had to face a new experience, yeah, I had to do it on my own – but it was always stateside. If I got in over my head, I could call my siblings/parents/friends for help.

This time? Not so much. And little did I know how important that fact would end up being. You know, that whole exploding volcano trapping me there for most of another week thing and all. :-)

So I think I was first able to relax a little when I got past security and was at the gate. I couldn’t believe I was actually going – all the wheels had started turning, I was kind of at the point of no return. We start boarding and I’m on the plane – and once we took off, a little more relaxation. Or maybe it was just the shock of oh-holy-crap-you’re-actually-doing-this setting in, I’m not quite sure. But once I touched down in Brussels? I think then, and only then, did it become real. I was on vacation in Belgium. I had done it, I was there. So after finding my hotel, a 10 minute walk from the train station (and a 5 minute walk from the exit I SHOULD have taken at the train station), I decide to go out and start exploring. That was fun – trying a real, authentic Belgian waffle for the first time (and let me tell you, those things are like crack), drinking Belgian beers in Belgium, finding the bars and sights I had heard about – I lasted about… 4-5 hours or so. I was getting a little tired, so I decided to go back to the room and take a quick nap.


…6 hours later, I wake up. But at least I felt better, you know? So I go back out and go back to one of the bars I was at that afternoon – nice place, but the upstairs is REALLY nice. I’m enjoying myself, making friends with the bartender and a couple of other people I meet, and decide, finally, that I’m getting tired and am going to head back to the room and crash.

For another 11 hours.

Of my first 24ish hours in Belgium, I spent about two-thirds of them sleeping. Yay vacation! :-)

On a more serious level, though, this vacation was really what I needed. I’m still young and single, and I’m at the stage in my life where I can, fortunately, afford to do something like this. Every now and again, I just need to get away – like I think we all do. I decided to take this chance to follow one of my passions, and in doing so, I learned more about myself. I don’t know how to put parts of it into words, but what I do know is that I’m not the same person now that I was when I left. I’m much calmer now, and I feel a bit more… grown-up, if that makes sense. I’ve never been sure how to handle my emotions – for a lot of my life, they were kind of there and I was afraid to let them out. I’ve finally gotten to the point where I rule my emotions, they don’t rule me anymore. And in the grand scheme of things, the way I see it, there’s really not much worth getting overly worked up about. Perfect example – I was in the car with a friend of mine, and if memory serves, I was cut off by this person – I think she was on her cell phone while she was driving and not paying attention to the road or the other drivers. My friend saw me tense up for literally a second, then breathe out and let it go. I told her about how I’m not going to let myself get worked up over things, and I think she told me she was jealous – and that she’ll get worked up enough for the both of us. :-)

I can look at little things around my apartment that I brought home with me – the Mea Culpa glass (do yourself a favor and Google image search for “mea culpa glass” – this thing is BEAUTIFUL), the few euros I didn’t convert back to dollars, the tshirt, the Cantillon hoodie, the beers I brought home – each one of them represents something different to me. A different part of the trip. And they’re all things I wouldn’t trade for the world, if for no other reason than the memories that they all hold. I can look at the Cantillon glass and see Lauren, Matt, and Pat. I can look at the big bottles of beer I bought from the bar and see Natalija, the kids from Denmark, and the Chartreuse 1605 I’m going to have to find when I go back. Because, so help me, I AM going back.

I want to do more traveling – that much I know for sure. Where, however, is another story. But like I said before, I’m at the stage in my life where I can do it. All my bills are getting paid and I can still save another few cents here and there. I’m not taking care of a family, I’m not taking care of a house, it’s just me and whatever costs I choose to incur. So why not spend a little extra on myself here and there? Perfect example – there’s nothing wrong with my digital camera. It’s just old. (I mean, I’m a techie, and there are cell phones coming out with “better” digital cameras than mine.) I couldn’t find a good enough reason to justify my getting one, though, since I didn’t really need it. Then, I’m laptop shopping at Best Buy, and I see a camera that looks pretty nice for $120. I’m talking to the salesman and he tells me it’s a good camera – and if I want, they have a package deal on it. How much is the package – the camera, memory card, and case? $120. Yes, for some reason, I could either buy the camera or the camera, card, and case all for the same price. Did I need it? Like I said, no. But the value was there, and honestly, I wanted it. It’s not like I’m spoiling myself rotten – I’ve always just been very conservative with my purchases and I’m realizing I don’t quite have to be anymore. There’s nothing wrong with the occasional present.

Getting back to traveling – I’ve always enjoyed it, even if I don’t get to do too much of it. I’m going to South Carolina for the wedding of one of my best friends in July, and I’m driving down there. And I CAN’T WAIT to go. Both for the voyage and the destination. :-) But now I’m wondering – where else could I go? Where else do I want to go? I’m going back out to Denver this year, and I want to go back to Brussels/Europe, obviously. But where else? Maybe go somewhere to follow another one of my passions – go somewhere for the food. If it’s somewhere overseas, what would it be like if I didn’t speak ANY of the language? At least in Brussels, I could get by on 10 year old broken French (I’m looking at you, Mme. Reiner). But what if I know NOTHING of the language? Or what if I went to visit a friend of mine in a place where I didn’t speak the language? Same concept – I could always go to Belgrade and find out. ;-) In the states, I could always go somewhere for the beer (and depending on where I am, the food. Maybe go through NC and find out the differences between western NC and eastern NC barbecue first hand or something like that). I like the idea of going somewhere where I don’t speak the language, though – I might just have to do that. Go just to go. Go just to see. As long as they’re foreigner-friendly, why not go to Madrid? Or Lisbon? Or Naples? Or if I’m going to do it, why not go all out and go somewhere like Beijing? I love Chinese food – why not experience it first hand? The only two things I need to do it are the funds and the fortitude. And once I find the place, and book the place, the fortitude will come in time. But anyway, back to Brussels…

There’s something about that place that I just connected with. Maybe it’s the beer, maybe it’s the food, maybe it’s something else entirely. I’m not exactly sure, nor do I think it matters. All I know is that… you know what? It doesn’t matter what I know. It doesn’t really matter what I’ve learned, if you think about it. If you really want to know, reach out to me and ask, but otherwise… look at me. Learn what I’ve learned by seeing who I am. Look at who I was last month, last year, the last time you saw me – if that was 5 years ago or 15 years ago. And look at me now. I know I’m not the same person I was before this trip. That first day I woke up in my bed was kind of like the first day of the rest of my life. I’m leaving parts of me behind and doing my best to take all the good parts forward. If some of the bad parts come with me too, so be it – I’m human. But I’m not the same person anymore.


And I’m really looking forward to finding out who this person I am now is.

So, I have an entry I've been working on that was going to go up around my birthday.


This, however, is not that entry. :-) I'm still working on that one and have it on my netbook, and I just haven't had any time to work on it recently... so, sometimes, it sucks to be me. :-)

This week seemed to be harder to get through than normal. It seemed like I was getting attacked from every angle at certain times, and at other times, I just wanted to hide and leave the world behind. I feel like I've conquered it somehow, though - remember, people, you can't wrap your arms around the world. You have to break things down into parts that you can handle. If you don't do that, you're not helping anyone and CERTAINLY not helping yourself, you know? So I've been trying to handle things from a different angle. If I can do that, then maybe I can conquer the rest of it. But for right now, I'm working on putting the past in the past and not letting it affect me anymore. There's two things from my past that I'm working on in particular, but that's a story for another time. If it wasn't for my (some of) my family and my friends (including a few in particular), I don't think I'd be where I am right now - as happy in my life as I am. Yeah, I go through these times where it seems like having my own car/apartment/etc isn't really all that impressive, but to be honest? The more I think about it, it is. And so what if I'm losing a bit of money? Without going into much detail, my raise last year didn't cover my increased bills. It just took me about... 9 months to realize that fact, and now that I have, I realize why I'm down a bit this year. But I can still cover my bills every month, just need to tighten the belt a little further.

And speaking of belt tightening, in case anyone's not aware, I've been working on losing weight ever since the beginning of the year. I started the year at 220.5, and as of last Monday, I'm at 197.5 - 23 pounds down for the year so far. I'm hoping to drop another 7 pounds by my trip to Belgium in a couple of weeks (holy crap, I'm going to Belgium in a couple of weeks), but if I don't, well... I don't. All it would mean is that I'm not down 30 pounds by the time I go to Belgium. :-) The way I've been going so far, I'm just trying to figure out how to go back to the life I used to live - at least, somewhat - but still keep the weight off. I miss grabbing whatever I want for lunch, you know? I've definitely gotten a lot better about portions and the like, but there's other things I miss - something simple like my "hot dog soup". I know it's not very good for me, but dammit, I miss it. Such a good, simple, hearty soup. Good in the summer because it's a different take on a barbecue, and good in the winter because it's too cold to barbecue. There are certain things I've learned to go without and/or retime, such as my nighttime beer. Dead calories from having a beer and then immediately going to bed isn't helping me in this battle. So if I want to have a beer after work/on the weekend, have it during the evening. Have it a few hours before bed. Even though I'm not necessarily giving myself a chance to burn off the calories, it's better than having them in bed (on occasion, literally). I'm a little surprised how well I've done with all this - but I know it's important to me, it's something I've wanted, so... maybe I shouldn't be so surprised. I'm not sure. But at the end of the day, I like the feeling I'm getting from all this. I know I'm doing something good for myself. I know I'm doing the right thing and changing a LOT of my habits, and to be honest, it feels DAMN good when someone comments on the fact I've lost weight. I just have to figure out where that common ground is between weight-loss CB and weight-maintenance CB.

But now I'm realizing that there's so much more I could be doing for myself to make myself a better person. Every now and again I'll look at that pick that Bob gave me and think about trying again to teach myself to play the guitar. Or I'll look at the stuffed bear that keeps watch over my living room and think about who gave him to me. And I think about how, if that person ever came here again, I would be ashamed to have them over when the apartment looks like this. Maybe I should look into taking a course of some kind. I'm not sure if I'd want to go over to NCCC and take a philosophy class, or if I would be better suited with a one-off cooking class, or... what, exactly.


And at the same time, I think I need to figure out a bit better what I should be spending my money on. As in for myself. There's a way to make a yeast starter that involves a pressure cooker. So I went out and bought myself two pressure cookers - one $10 and one $60. The more expensive one will be much better suited to the task of making yeast starters, believe it or not, but I could probably hack it with the $10 one. So the question then becomes do I go frugal and figure out how to do it with the cheaper one, or do I do it properly with the more expensive one? I never did buy myself a formal birthday present this year like the watch last year, but at the same time, I'm trying to save money, but at the same time, I'm not so hard up that I need to start drinking water and eating saltines for every meal...


Guess I have some stuff to think about.


Now, if you'll excuse me, I need a refill on my beer. :-)

But in my defense, I was making revisions to it off and on the whole time - including scrapping an entire part of it...

So ladies and gentlemen, without further adieu (or is it ado?), my year end blog post:




I went to Baltimore for New Year’s a couple of years back, and a friend of mine took me to a party. I got to share in one of her friend’s rituals – take everything you want to forget, write it down on a piece of paper, and burn the paper. Leave the bad stuff behind in the old year and start the new year with a clean slate, so to speak. I’ve done it each year since then, and when I thought about what to write on the paper this year, it hit me almost immediately. So what am I going to write this time? Hold on and I’ll come back to that.

It’s been an up and down year in a couple of different ways – I’ve made friends, I’ve lost friends, I’ve had good times, I’ve had bad times. In a more personal way, this feels like it’s been one of the most rewarding years I’ve had in a while. I think I learned a lot about who I am in this past year, more about what I’m capable of. I know that now, I’m handling certain situations in different ways than I would’ve even just a year ago. Due to some stuff that happened at work, I now see myself as being capable of more than I ever thought I could do. And through it all, my friends have been some of the most important people. Older friends like Chris, Amy, Jenny, Mike, and newer friends like Kim, Sanj, Eliot, Donna, Stacey, Jen V; they’ve all been there at various points to celebrate with me, to laugh with me, to listen to me rant, and I like to think that I’ve been there to do the same for them. Each one of my friends, even the ones not named above (and if you weren’t named, you just weren’t in my stream of consciousness list), has helped make me into who I am today.

My family is still very important to me, too. We added a new member this year, and everyone’s still healthy, happy, and the little ones are growing and making us proud. There’s a lot to be thankful for, you know? Everywhere I turn, good things are happening – you just have to try to keep it in perspective.

But even at that – with everything good that’s happening, there are things that I’m not happy about. It took me a while – a good bit of self reflection – and I realized that these are all things I have to change. But it’s not changing the world around me – I have to change ME. Some of them are things that may have been “wrong” for a while now, others are newer, but they’re still not right. They’re still things that I can correct myself and correct within myself. So this year, enough of the bullshit. Enough of the problems that I don’t work on. There’s no reason why I can’t get back down to 210 pounds. (Note – as of the time I’m posting this, 2/2/10, I’m at a hair over 205…) There’s no reason why I can’t do more traveling, no reason why I can’t become better with my money, no reason why I can’t learn to play the guitar this year. I’m not saying all these things will happen, but instead of looking for the reasons why they can’t happen… if they’re important enough, then find a way to make them happen. Work on the more important stuff first, obviously, but carry it through to as much of my life as possible. In some ways, this is going to be a partial reinvention of myself.

So what am I going to write on the paper?


My name.

..since I wrote this entry on the plane back from Denver, but...


So I'm on my way back home from the Great American Beer Festival - once again, a DAMN good time. Made some new friends, caught back up with some old - including one couple who I kept seeing last year, then a few times this year, in the airport. I still believe beer people are some of the best people in the world, though - everyone's the same, male or female, young or old, experienced with beer or not experienced with beer.


Unless you go into the restaurant with quite possibly the best beer selection in all of downtown Denver, quite possibly already drunk, and just proceed to piss off both the staff and the patrons, so much so to the point that the patrons start moving to other parts of the bar just to get away from you. And the staff gets pissed off at you because you're asking them about pretty much all of the 60-70 beers they have on tap.


Not that I saw that happen.


Nope.



Didn't move to a different part of the bar, either. :-)



But I digress. I really like what some of the brewers were doing, what they were showing there this year - including this one small brewery from Wisconsin that I've never been disappointed by. It's called New Glarus - they have a pretty well known fruit beer that I LOVE, and when I was waiting on line at their booth, it turns out they had brought a sour beer with them this year. A sour porter. This is the first and only sour porter I've ever seen or heard of, and I have to say, it was pretty nice. I'm not sure if I'd want to try doing something with sour beers after that one, maybe a sour wheat beer or a sour stout or something, but it's put the idea in my head. It was also nice to see some of the "local" breweries winning awards - I think one or two of the ones from down near college won some awards... Allentown/Bethlehem Brew Works won a couple of awards, I think Troegs won an award, and I know that Southampton won an award. Captain Lawrence may have, also, I don't remember offhand. I know I had a list of all the winners, but for the life of me, I don't know what I did with it. Meh, doesn't matter. Also, while I think of it - you know how I just mentioned New Glarus? They took a bronze for their fruit beer. And when I was on my way home from Montreal, I found this little out of the way brewpub in Vermont called The Alchemist. As it turns out, The Alchemist took gold and Bronze for two of their gluten-free beers - go little guy. :-)


I think I'm coming back a bit more balanced, too. I'm only 28 - I'm still learning how to balance work, and life, and home, and family, and everything else. It's not easy, as I'm sure you all know - but I think the little bit of time away has really, really helped. Things aren't perfect, obviously - but if you have a perfect life, where everything happens exactly when it's supposed to and your apartment stays clean by itself and nothing ever goes wrong, I'm calling bull. :-) It doesn't happen - it just doesn't happen. I don't care who you are. :-) I'm really doing my best to not let things get to me as badly as they used to - and, in classic me fashion, I may have gone from letting EVERYTHING get to me to not really getting anything get to me. I'm not sure that either one is necessarily healthy, per se, but I'm not too worried. I'd rather become passive and just try to let everything slide off my back than let it all get to me, you know? Let me pick and choose what gets me worked up - why should I let everything have that effect? So for some people who know me, they still know that little things (like from in the game) will get me worked up here and there. But not everything. It's just not healthy.

And speaking of healthy, doctor's appointment coming up. I need to go in for the blood work this week, and I'm not quite sure what to expect. I know I haven't been eating well this year, my last attempt at joining a gym ended up petering out based on the fact I couldn't justify paying what I was paying and only going maybe once or twice a week. (But I am joining a gym that will be opening near work that will be a third of the cost...) So I'll talk to my doctor and see what he has to say - I'm sure the fact I put on about 10 pounds or so over the course of this past year can't be all that good. I also want to start taking some sort of vitamin, since I know that's one of the problems as well - when I go to the chiropractor and my leg almost cramps when he stretches it, that can't be good. So I know that overall, I'm in good health. I might just need to work on the specifics a bit - and the gym will likely help with my mood. Or at least it's supposed to, anyway.


So I'll get home, break fast with my parents (not that I've been fasting, but they're my ride to/from the airport) for the holiday, then go home and probably spend the rest of the night cleaning, straightening, and putting stuff away. I live an exciting life, I tell you what. :-)


Took some nice pictures, too - I'll either get them up here, or I'll get them up on my facebook, or both - hopefully in the not too far future.

...or next to it, anyway. :-)


Flew out to Denver yesterday - and I've had a great time out here so far. Granted, the Lubavitcher and the guy who spent time in seminary sitting in the row in front of me sitting there and talking religion the whole damn flight just irritated me a little, but at least I didn't have to sit next to them, you know? So I was able to just put my headphones on and ignore them - didn't feel bad about it at all. :-)


Coming out here has been great for me, though. Just a nice, relaxing time - and it's given me time to do some thinking. I've been working on trying to improve various parts of my life, and having SOME success - but some's better than none, I suppose, right? All things considered, though, I'm pretty happy with where my life is right now. Are things perfect? No, they're not by ANY stretch of the imagination. But I'm becoming more and more ok with the stuff that's not how I want it to be. This is all stuff that I can't really do anything about, so I can sit here and work myself up into a lather, or I can be a bit more realistic about things. Can I directly influence this stuff? No, not really. But I can at least try to do something to adapt to it, you know?


I did a lot of reading on the trip out - finished off my copy of Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman. There's something in his writing that I just LOVE - the tone, the relaxed nature, something about it.


...and, once again, it's getting a little too loud and too crowded for me to write comfortably here. I'm really not very good with people watching over my back, etc. So, I'll hopefully have the chance to write more at another point during this trip...

Sometimes I feel close to it, but I'm not quite dead yet... the past few months have just been all over the place for me recently. Good and bad reasons, and not everything I'm necessarily going to discuss here. Just suffice it to say that with everything that life has thrown at me (and at people who I care about) in the past few weeks, we're not down yet. And if we are down, we won't stay that way. Not our style - any of us.




I bought myself a new toy recently - a netbook. I figure I'm making good money at the moment, I'm only taking care of myself, why not buy myself a toy, you know? Something I want - not necessarily something I need, but something that will make me smile. So I've been playing around on there recently, and will likely take it with me when I go on vacation in a couple of weeks (keep reading for more on that). It's a nice little machine - basically, a notebook computer, but an even smaller form factor. I've been installing a couple of programs on it to get it working just how I want it, and I'm almost there - I need to do some more reading about how to configure this one program I installed. Soon enough, though, soon enough - and I won't be limited to where I'll have to worry about packing and using a notebook with a 15 inch screen. This thing isn't much bigger than a fairly large woman's wallet (the wallet is large, not the woman. Just clarifying. *grin*). I even went through and made a custom wallpaper for the netbook - a new logo for my "brewery." Not tonight, but I'll get a copy of it up soon - just want to play around with these configuration files like I mentioned and I'll post a screenshot. :-)


So yeah - I'm going on vacation in a couple of weeks. Back out to Denver for the Great American Beer Festival again. Since I've done it once already, though, I'm making a couple of changes to my trip. (Of course, this is assuming I'm going - there's a slight chance that I might have to cancel it for family reasons, which (given what the reasons are) I wouldn't be too terribly upset... but I'd still like to go in general. If that made any sense.) :-) But I'll be out there Tuesday to Sunday - and Tuesday night, I'm planning on going to a Colorado Rockies game. I don't follow baseball too terribly closely, but I've always liked the Rockies - so why not? And like I said, I have a few extra dollars in my pocket, so it may very well be a box seat at that game. And then, afterwards, I'll walk the half a block or so to the Falling Rock Tap House. Quite possibly one of the greatest bars I've ever been to. Tons of different beers on tap, and considering it's the weekend of the GABF, they'll probably have some rare kegs to tap - they did a killer business last year for the festival and I can't imagine it would be any different this year. I also need to get in touch with Avery Brewing - they had a list of different beers they were tapping over the course of the week in their tasting room ("Only 8 gallons of this beer in existence!"), and... I just looked at their website. Wow. Wow is all I can say. They're tapping some RIDICULOUS beers this time through, and I think I'm going to have to head up there just for the sour beer that they're unveiling on Wednesday. Yes, I'll likely be up there on Friday as well, but still - I WANT a bottle or 6 of this sour beer. There's nothing like a good sour beer, if you ask me. :-)


Personal life is still personal life - some ups and downs, but other than that, nothing horrible to complain about. Like the mother of a dear friend of mine says, if no one's bleeding and no one needs an organ transplant, we can handle the rest of it. (I don't think that's the EXACT quote, but it's the general idea of it.) I'm doing my best to help my friends through their trials and tribulations, and they're helping me through mine. Sometimes I feel like they're doing yeoman's work, and I don't know that I can ever express just how grateful and lucky I am to have friends like them.


(And I'd like to take this chance to specifically tell my favorite world traveler that I hope she's doing ok. I hope you find what you're looking for soon, hon, and I hope you come back stateside once you do.) :-)


So I'm still a brewing fool. :-) Remember that slightly soured pale ale I mentioned a couple of posts back? Well, it's definitely taking on more of a sour character. Not a bad thing, though - I don't know how to explain the taste, but it's nice. I think I need to get through the rest of the bottles, though, before the sourness takes over and dominates the beer - but if one can "spike" a beer, well, I'd say in this case, it worked pretty well. Unfortunately, I'm not sure it's something I'll be able to recreate - but hey, sucks to be me. :-) I've done a couple of german wheat beers this summer, I have a fresh-hop APA (think Sierra Nevada, but with hops right off the vine) in the fermenter as we speak, and next up will likely be my holiday beer for this year - so I have a little while to get it into bottles to age properly - and the Orange Blossom pale ale I mentioned below. I'm still really curious how a beer like that would come out. :-)


So hopefully, things will calm themselves down for me in the near future, and I'll be able to get up more regular updates. Ideally, anyway. :-) I know of a couple of interesting things coming down the pipe, and at least one of them will involve lots of pictures. :-)


But for now, I have a 2 year old bottle of Left Hand Oak Aged Widdershins barleywine to attend to. Be good, guys, and comment up a storm. :-)

So, I'm only a day or so late - but here's the nice long post I promised. And, knowing me, it'll be somewhat disjointed - and DEFINITELY rambling - but when you have a writing style that works for you, you go with it. :-)

Probably one of the best things I did for myself recently was go up to Montreal for Mondiale de la Biere. (And yes, I know there are accents that are supposed to go in there, but honestly, do you miss them? I mean, really? *s*) It was a 7 hour drive up to Montreal, and between Albany and the border, you're on one road. This road is called the Adirondack Northway - or just The Northway for short. I now learned that there's nothing on the Northway except for trees and troopers. It may have very well been the most boring drive I've ever made, but once I got over the border into Canada, it was just kind of... surreal. First time I've ever been there. First time I've ever "really" been in a foreign country, day trips to the Dutch Antilles over spring break my senior year of college notwithstanding. I get to the hotel, and once I'm all checked in, ask about how to get to the fest. Turns out I'm within walking distance of a metro station where 3 out of the 4 Montreal metro lines converge - think... Grand Central Station, if you've ever been to Manhattan. Not quite as big and important as Penn Station, but still a sizable station that will get you a lot of the places you want to go. Picked up a 3 day tourist pass (if they still have them, I HIGHLY recommend getting one - $17 for all the metro/bus you can ride), took the metro downtown, and when I got to the fest, I just followed the noise. Came up the stairs at Windsor Station, and once I saw the environment, once I saw all the booths and the people and the beer, I couldn't help but smile. It was a GREAT feeling. I started off at a booth for a brewpub I was familiar with by association - someone I met at GABF in Denver in October told me about it - and was impressed to see a Randall being used. I explained to a couple of people what it is, and made a couple of friends from the area who I ended up walking around the rest of the festival with that day. There's a TON of great little breweries and brewpubs from up in that direction. I'm sure some of you have seen beers from Brasserie Dieu de Ciel!, but they have even more, even better stuff north of the border. One of them was a stout with cocoa and vanilla called L'Aphrodisiaque, one is a Kolsch called Basse Messe, they have a beer brewed with hemp, one with hibiscus, one that was a highly hopped white beer... this kind of stuff is the future of brewing, if you ask me. They didn't lose touch with the traditional styles and definitions, but at the same time, they're not afraid to push those boundaries. They want to keep it interesting, keep it new and different, and I applaud them for that. (The food at their brewpub on Laurier is pretty damn good, too.)

Met up with a couple of my friends up there - M and Z. I know Z from a game I play online, so since I was in their neck of the woods already, they invited me over for dinner. Great people - and afterwards, M and I went to do some karaoke in the gay district of Montreal. In some odd way, I think that was one of the more interesting, yet enjoyable, parts of the whole trip. :-) To meet Z in person was pretty damn cool, though - when you get to know these people from different sides of a computer screen, then you actually get to meet them in person, it adds a completely different dimension to the friendship. I know all these people are real people, just like I know all of you are real people, but for those of you who I haven't met, I hope to soon so I can get a better feeling of who you are. I think what it is is that I'm very big on experience. I've always considered myself an empiricist - I find it easier to garner knowledge from actual situations than from logical extensions. I need the empirical data more than I can act the part of a rationalist and come to the intelligence by reason. I think I've always been that way, but thank you, Dr. Pawelski, for helping me put words to it. I forget which 200-level class it was, but it was called "Rationalism and Empiricism" and when we first went over the Empiricism aspect of it, I just smiled and felt like the class was about me. Might also have something to do with my interest in epistemology, but that's another story entirely. :-)

But I digress. I was able to do a little exploration while in Montreal, and saw some interesting sights - including the city-wide bike network they've deployed, called Bixi. It looks like a PHENOMENAL idea and execution.

And, I'm still brewing. Just bottled my Patersbier the other night, and had the Bottling Run From Hell.® No matter what I did, I couldn't get a good siphon started using the one piece of equipment I was trying, so I ended up (after frustration and irritation that I'm not going to go into here) going to my trusty autosiphon to get the bottling done. What's wrong with that, you ask? Well, the last time I used the autosiphon was with my sour beer. The organisms that are responsible for souring the beer were still on the autosiphon - many brewers will only use one set of equipment with their sour beers, because these organisms are so difficult to kill. So I may end up with a slightly soured Patersbier - and if it turns out that it doesn't come out well, then I'm not out too much money. If something like this happened with, say, my barleywine, I'd be much more upset. Here, since I spent about... 30-40% of the amount I spent on the barleywine, I don't mind if this one doesn't come out well. Not every beer will be good, not every beer needs to be good. Dad needs slug repellent too, you know. :-)

So I entered a couple of beers and a cider into a competition out east here on Long Island. I got my scores back - they said the cider started out perfectly, but ended up way too sour, so I'm hoping time will smooth that one out. The two beers I entered, they said I entered in the wrong categories. So I found another competition not too far from here - outside of Philadelphia - and entered the two beers in there.


One did better, one did worse.


Just goes to show you that sometimes, you should trust your instinct with these beers. The judges don't always know what they're talking about, either. But the fact of the matter still remains this: I make good beer. I may not make good beer from a critical perspective, but I make good beer. I have a LOT of respect for a Norwegian brewery called Nogne O. I decided, on a whim, to pick up a bottle of Nogne O porter and grab a bottle of my porter - do a little makeshift taste test with some friends. The friends who tried my porter were split as to which they liked better - mine or the Nogne O. And since those are more the people who are going to be drinking the beers, that meant a LOT to me to hear them say that. I wasn't expecting anyone to choose my beer. Not to mention my friend, who took a bottle of my wheat beer and a bottle of wheat beer by Weihenstephaner - and liked mine better. Like I said, these are more the kind of people who would be drinking my beer than judges.

I make good beer, just maybe not critically. :-)

So I've been thinking about taking my brewing to the next step and going all grain. From a baking perspective, this is going from buying the Betty Crocker boxes off the shelf to making my own batters. I'm not sure if I'm going to do that quite yet, but what I do know is the beer I'm going to try next. It's going to be an Orange Blossom Pale Ale - just need to work out a recipe for it. And hopefully I'll get to brew it somewhat soon - if the weather stays relatively cool, that is, because I want to have a fighting chance of this coming out the way I want it. And if it doesn't, well, then I'll just have to call into service the project Dad and I are working on right now. "Red Headed Stepchild of Fermentation Chiller" - our own twist on the Son of Fermentation Chiller design. With any luck, if this whole thing works well, I'll be able to set my own fermentation temperature and make pretty much whatever style of beer I want any time of year. Hopefully. :-)

Ok, enough rambling for one night - I doubt any of you even made it this far. So for now, I'll sign off - but I'll be back soon enough to update this post with links where appropriate...