I Love Brisket

I made my third brisket a couple weekends ago.

My first brisket was about 10 pounds choice and turned out really good.

The second one was almost 13 pounds prime and turned out better.

This third one was my best so far. I appear to be getting better at this, although I'm not sure what I'm doing differently each time.

This one was about 12 pounds when I bought it from Sam's Club, and I went with a prime cut again.

To be honest, 10 to 11 pounds is really about as big as I think fits on the smoker, and I think this would have been even better if I were able to find a 10 pound brisket.

But, it is hard to find one under 15 pounds at my Sam's club. Especially when the price per pound is reasonable.

Stone Soup IDA

Remember my post "Homebrew Colorado 6 pack"?

Well ... I'm starting off the project by brewing a beer that represents TommyKnocker's Hop Strike Black IPA.

Back in 2013, when I made my Colorado 6 Pack list, Black IPA's (or Cascadian Dark Ales) were much more popular, and Hop Strike was the Black IPA to which I compared all others.

For quite some time, it was my favorite Tommyknocker beer.

At some point, Black IPA's / Cascadian Dark Ales went out of favor among the masses. I don't know when, but it looks like Tommyknocker stopped brewing Hop Strike.

Still, I have fond memories of the Black IPA style in general and Hop Strike specifically.

I'm going to brew a Black IPA.

Stone Soup IDA

Cheesy Bacon Wrapped Meatballs

At some point, I came across this recipe for Cheesy Jalapeno Bacon Wrapped Meatballs.

Cheesy. Jalapeno. Bacon Wrapped. Meatballs.

Sounded good, so I decided to make some.

Sort of.

I actually made Cheesy Bacon Wrapped Meatballs without Jalapenos in them.

Why?

Because I forgot to buy jalapenos when I went to the grocery store.

Oh well.

Of course, I switched up the recipe a bit. As you know if you read this blog very much, I'm not very good at following recipes.

Homebrew Colorado 6 pack

I've noticed recently that my May 2013 post "Colorado 6 pack" has been getting some traffic.

Unless you just followed the link, you probably don't remember much about "Colorado 6 pack", but it was basically a blogging collaboration that @BryanDRoth at This Is Why I'm Drunk. set up.

He wanted to get 6 different bloggers from six different states to each come up with a 6-pack of beers that "best represent your state and/or state's beer culture".

So I did that back in 2013 for Colorado. The blog post seems to have been fairly popular over the past month or so. It has been getting more traffic than my more recent posts. 

It got me thinking ... wouldn't it be fun to brew up beers inspired by this "Colorado 6 pack"?

My answer to myself was "Yes".

So ... here are the beers I picked:

50

I recently had a birthday.

This birthday brought my age to 50. Not sure I feel a day over 49.

My wife (aka the Beer Model) is a saint. Not only does she put up with me, but she also does a great job making me feel special.

This year for my birthday, we coordinated with the kids to come up with a birthday weekend getaway for us to do in the Mountains.

We went Snowmobiling.

We did go snowmobiling once before, and it was a blast.

This time was awesome too.

Here are some pictures from the snowmobile ride:

Progress on #5000MilesIn2020

As you may remember from earlier in the month, I've decided to try to ride my bike 5000 miles this year.

See #5000MilesIn2020 if you want to catch up. Go ahead. I'll wait.

Here it is, February, so I thought I would let y'all know how it is going.

Q is for LiQuid Mechanics Brewing Company

So..... do you know about my "A to Z Denver Breweries Project"?

Real quick in case you are new to this blog ...

Back in February of 2015, I was embarrassed by the huge number of Denver Breweries that I had never visited.

I decided to make an effort to hit more of them.

As I started to look at the list, it struck me that I could go down the list alphabetically and find Denver-area breweries that started with just about every letter.

I went through the alphabet once, and now am on my 2nd time through.

From the beginning, I understood that "Q" would be a challenging letter. The first time through, I didn't even find a brewery, and went with a meadery instead. (Q is for Queen Bee Brews)

In my reference list, I don't see anything else for the letter Q unless I cheat a little bit. It's my game, so I can change the rules ...

Q is for LiQuid Mechanics Brewing Company