Manitou Incline

On May 19, 2022, Alexa told me that the temperature out side my home was 89 degrees.

Today is the 20th and I'm watching it snow. The high temperature was 39.

50 degree drop overnight. Awesome. 

We are going to get a significant amount of snow. One of the things I love about living in Colorado is these late spring snow storms ... but still ... this is crazy.

Anyway ... today I climbed the Manitou Incline.

The Manitou Incline is a popular but strenuous hike up 2744 steps over around .87 miles and climbing over 2000 vertical feet. The average grade is over 45% and the maximum is 68%.

It is a difficult hike.

Mothers' Day Kettles

This past Sunday was Mothers' Day.

My wife's parents were visiting so we had two mothers in the house.

My older son also came home from college.

The two mothers decided they wanted grilled ribeye steaks for their dinner, which at our house means I had to cook.

As I generally reverse-sear my steaks, the 6 ribeyes fit just perfectly around my vortex on the 26 inch kettle.

In order to get sides done, I needed to pull out both of my Weber Kettles, and do the sides on my 22 inch.

The main side I made was the dish I made for Easter, Pecan Smoked Potatoes Au Gratin. I also grilled some corn.

SheppyBrew Beer Names

So ... one of my favorite homebrew podcasts is the The Brülosophy Podcast.

One of their recent episodes ... Episode 232 | exBEERience: Naming Beers ... got me thinking about how I go about naming beers.

Apparently, not all homebrewers name all their beers, but I certainly do. Some of these names only make sense to me, but they all have at least some thought put them.

So ... what are some of the themes in my beer names?

Sports teams

Lots of my beers are named for my favorite sports teams ... lead, of course, by the Chicago Blackhawks.

Blackhawk Black Ale is pretty obvious. Tommy Hawk APA is named after the Blackhawks' mascot. Chelsea Dagger Pre-Prohibition Lager celebrates the Blackhawks with the song that plays after each of their goals. 

I've also celebrated the Cubs' world series with Cubs Win! Munich Dunkel. And the Colorado Rockies making it to the world series with Rocktoberfest Lager.

I even named a beer based on my hatred of a football team: Pats Disliker New England Pale Ale.

Mid-week Pork Butt

It is rare that I get to cook during the work-week. Even more rare to do a long BBQ / Smoke.

Due to the covid shutdowns, I now work at home, so there is really no reason not to do long cooks like Pork Butt and Brisket. We just mostly think of those as weekend meals.

Anyway ...

This past week, my nephew, AKD Bluefield (my sister's son), was on a post-college road-trip with 3 of his friends and stayed with us a couple of nights.

My wife worked on Tuesday, and we thought we should feed AKD and his friends. I decided to smoke a pork butt for dinner so she wouldn't have get home and try to get something cooked for a larger-than-normal group.

Colorado Vienna Lager (Batch 310)

Remember that in my post "Disappearing Beer" I shared that I didn't get to drink most of my first batch of Colorado Vienna Lager?

Heck ... I didn't even get to check it in on Untappd! (Yes, I check in most of my homebrewed beers on Untappd).

I've been wanting to brew Colorado Vienna Lager again so I could enjoy more of the beer.

Friday, I got the Root Shoot malts at my favorite homebrew shop, so that I could brew it on the weekend.

On Saturday, I prepared my water and set the timer to heat up while I was sleeping. I got up early Sunday to brew ...

 Colorado Vienna Lager

X is for Bruz Off FaX

Last week I posted W is for Wah Gwaan Brewing Company.

If you've been following along on the A to Z Denver Breweries series of posts, and are familiar with the English alphabet, you know that it is time for us to post about an "X" brewery.

Well ... according to the Colorado Brewery List ... there are no breweries in Colorado which start with the letter X.

In round 1, we took artistic license with X is for WestFaX Brewing Company.

In round 2, we shamelessly cheated with X is for Mad Jack's [JaX] Mountain Brewery.

This past Saturday, the SheppyBrew Beer Model and I had to take artistic license again with ...

X is for Bruz Off FaX

Biking update ...

Today is May 1st.

Last year by May 1st, I'd ridden 1,689 miles and climbed 104,466 feet on my bikes.

This year, I'm still behind last year, but I think I'm catching up. So far this year, I've ridden 1,627 miles and climbed 88,448.

Last time I reported my cycling numbers, I was 108 behind "plan" to reach #5000MilesIn2022. Now I'm only 30 miles behind plan.

I was 8,327 feet behind plan to get to #10EverestsIn2022. Now, I'm 7,795 feet behind.