I.Hate.Beer

I've decided to give up beer.

This morning I woke up with an over-whelming hatred of beer.

I hate the smell. I hate the taste. I hate making it. I hate drinking it. I hate looking at it. I hate thinking about it. I hate taking photos of it. I hate blogging about it.

I. Hate. Beer.

When InBev tries to brew a blueberry beer

So, last weekend my wife bought some beer. Someone had finished up the keg of T.RA.SH. Mexican Lager, there was not really any other beer to take it's place yet, and she figured she would want beer with Sunday dinner.

Usually, I will handle beer purchases, but she was going to be out buying groceries anyway, and we figured she could handle the responsibility.

When she returned, the beer she had picked for herself was an 8% abv Blueberry Lager, "Wild Blue". It was a beer I didn't recognize and I was intrigued. I was little surprised that she had picked out a beer that said 8%, but whatever. In case you didn't know, my wife likes most every blueberry beer she has ever tried.

Why Gender Matters?

A couple of weeks ago I noticed that the blog on Women Enjoying Beer, in their article Why Gender In Marketing Beer Matters linked to one of my blog posts. The author linked to Still More Sexist Beer Labels as an example of highly sexualized images on beer bottles (yes, Virginia – there’s a massive problem).

Not  surprisedly, she (I assume the author is Ginger Johnson, but the article doesn't specifically say) is not a fan of highly sexualized images used to market beer. I don't blame her. 

Hurray for #HomeBrewing in Alabama

At the beginning of 2013, there were still 2 states in which Home-brewing beer was illegal.

In March, Mississippi finally passed a bill to legalize home-brewing, leaving Alabama.

And now, the Alabama senate finally passed a bill that legalizes home-brewing beer in their ass-backwards state. As soon as the Governor of Alabama signs the bill, thousands of home-brewers will officially be legal.

See the American Homebrewers Association's Alabama Homebrew Bill Passes Senate .

Congratulations on joining the rest of the country, Alabama. It is about time.

Thank you John

EDIT ... 01/23/2013

The following "Dear John" letter is meant to be ridiculously sarcastic. Apparently, I failed miserably in conveying the sarcastic tone.

Today, I got an email from my Contact Me form asking how much of a "boatload" of money I was able to get. It sounds like the individual who emailed me got a similar email from John or someone else and was considering my "response" as validation that he might himself become wealthy from this "opportunity".

As I mentioned in Neil Zhang, the emails I got and others like them are [obvious] scams.

I do apologize for my apparent failure. If you come across this blog post because you are considering contacting John or Neil or others like them DON'T.

see

• http://www.firetrust.com/en/blog/chris/domain-name-scams?page=13
• http://www.hoax-slayer.com/domain-name-application-scam.shtml
• http://blog.ericshepard.com/2012/02/neil-zhang.html
• http://blog.eset.com/2012/07/24/asia-domain-name-scams-still-going-strong
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name_scams
• or just google Domain Name Scams.

Good thing it isn't a competition

I was dominated even worse this year than I was last year or the year before.

Sigh.

November Blogging

Here it is December already? Times flies when you are having fun.

Continuing my streak of monthly record breaking page-views, November's total page views beat October's for the new all-time record. Amazingly, the blog did it with the least number of posts of the year. I can probably thank momentum from GABF to help push me over the top.

Are you curious about which articles have been looked at the most? Sure you are. Here are this blog's top 10 viewed posts this month:

Sasquatch Hunting

If the Mayans were correct and the end of the world is December 21st, I am really going to feel stupid.

I spend most of my daylight hours in front of a computer typing in cryptic instructions. To make things worse, sometimes the computer doesn't even obey my cryptic instructions. Sometimes I don't even completely understand what it is that I am typing into the computer.

When I go outside for a few minutes at or around lunch-time, the sky is usually a gorgeous blue, and I see snow-covered mountains in the distance. I would much prefer to be hiking or biking or snowshoeing or just-about-anything-ing outside than sitting inside staring at, typing into, and arguing with a uncooperative computer.

PBR wins #GABF Gold

Pabst Brewing Company did well at this year's GABF competition.

Old Style won a Silver in the "American-Style Specialty Lager or Cream Ale or Lager" category.

Pabst Blue Ribbon won a Gold in American-Style Lager, Light Lager or Premium Lager category.

A gold and a silver in this competition is a fantastic accomplishment.

I have not tasted either of these beers in a long time, but I considered both of them cheap crappy beer back in college when all I drank were cheap crappy beers. Since college, I have made fun of people who drink PBR and Old Style. Now, I feel bad about that. If I have ridiculed you for enjoying PBR and/or Old Style, I sincerely apologize.

I doubt that my father-in-law reads this blog, so that apology probably doesn't mean much. Next time I see him, I'll be sure to say I'm sorry.

SheppyBrew and the Sour Mash

I have mentioned a couple of times on this blog that SheppyBrew Brewery wants to brew a sour beer (most recently in 2012 Q1 SheppyBrew Stats). Unfortunately, I'm not quite as confident as Scott, my buddy at SNB Brewing with his Sour Ale Project. I just don't feel ready to introduce souring bugs into my fermentation process yet.

So, my solution is to try a sour mash.

Neil Zhang

I got an email (see below) from Neil Zhang of the Asian Domain Registration Service in china.

He is trying to scam me. I doubt the emailer is actually named Neil Zhang and I am almost positive that he doesn't work for the Asian Domain Registration Service in china. He is simply a Tweedle Beetle screwing with me. It is fine. I'm used to it.

In his email, he claims that some Asian company is trying to register "sheppybrew" as its "Net Brand", and has applied for a number of domain names such as sheppybrew.asia, sheppybrew.cn, etc ... (look below for the whole list). He is concerned that as I currently own the domain name "sheppybrew.com", I may not want this Asian company to pick up all those similar domains. He is giving me the opportunity to let him know that I did not authorize this Asian company to register the domains.

Seriously? Why? (poison rationality)

I really have not been myself this past week. I think maybe the Tweedle Beetles are screwing with me again, but I can't quite figure out why or even exactly how.

Last Sunday morning (AKA Eric's Red brew day), started off with me feeling like I had come down with a minor cold. A few sniffles. Slightly sore throat. Nothing to be concerned about. Didn't keep me home from church. Didn't prevent me from brewing. No big deal.

The brew day went great (see Eric's Red brew day if you have not already). After clean-up and the AFC Championship game, I felt a little worse, but I was totally able to chalk that up to finding out that New England was going to another Superbowl (makes us all feel a bit sick, I'm sure).

Evil Corporations

I saw this on facebook awhile ago.

One of my virtual friends had commented on it, so it ended up in my news feed. I don't know the guy who posted it, and I do not know where he originally got it (I sort of doubt he did it himself). But, it amuses me.

Click on Image to view larger version

It took me so long to actually post it, because I was going to add clever and insightful commentary on that whole situation. I never got around to it, and I don't feel like it now.

The picture probably stands on its own pretty well, anyway.

Women and Beer

Remember back in March of 2010 I mentioned that I had been surprised to find two women working in my local home brew shop (LHBS)? If not, feel free to review at  "My LHBS's".

Now-a-days, I see a lot more women in the LHBS's. Not only do my two main shops employ women, but I see more that seem to be there shopping for brewing ingredients rather than just tagging along with their husbands or boyfriends. Heck, even the Beer Model has brewed a couple of batches of beer, so I see at least one female home-brewer every day.

I would also say that women make up a decent percentage of craft "Beer Geeks". I think of the beer bloggers that I follow, at least half are women. And I think that a higher percentage of women who say they are beer drinkers tend to drink craft beer than do men who say they are beer drinkers.

From 26 Highly Suggestive Beer Ads

And yet, BMC (Bud/Miller/Coors) breweries continue to act as if women don't drink beer. Worse, they act like women CANNOT like beer. Remember my blog post "Beer Ads"? I commented on sexist beer ads and how I'm not sure they actually sell beer like they should. I made this observation after reading an article in which "The Beer Wench" had been complaining about the sexist nature of beer advertisements from large breweries. Personally, as a male chauvinist pig, I have no problem with the sexist nature of the beer ads. I just don't think they are effective at selling beer. I can understand that female consumers might not be too happy about these ads. The Wench is not the only beer blogger I've seen make the same point. Unfortunately, I didn't save the links to any of the other articles. Trust me, though, most women beer geeks don't appreciate seeing sexist beer ads.

I Can't Say with Certitude if it's My Crotch

So, I cannot really say that I have been following Anthony Weiner's story all that closely. It does fascinate me that a U.S. Representative could be so incredibly stupid, but the details of the whole thing don't really interest me that much.

When I saw on my google portal the headlines that Weiner's wife is currently pregnant, I shook my head, and the guy with whom I share an office at work wondered what I was reacting to. We talked about it a little bit, and a few minutes later, he started laughing.  He had googled Weiner and saw the quote: "I can't say with certitude if it's my crotch".

Obviously, I have been aware of the story, but as I mentioned above, I have not really followed it closely. I had not seen that quote, and, it made me laugh too when my co-worker read it aloud.

It is difficult for me to imagine anyone ever having the need to say, "I can't say with certitude if it's my crotch".

I can say with 99.99% certainty that I will never need the phrase "I can't say with certitude if it's my crotch".

Call me boring, but I have never had the desire to take a picture of my own crotch. I have also never had another person with a camera close enough to my crotch to get such a shot. Additionally, if either of those two things were to happen, I am pretty sure that I would remember the event well enough to identify the picture.

Plus, I would never ever say the word "certitude".

This is a cartoon I saw in the June 9, 2011 edition of the Denver Post

Another Popular Post (Breasts)

Hey, remember awhile ago in my post "Interesting Blog Stats", I mentioned that "Missing Wife, Bottling Beer, Women wearing very little" was a very popular post?

Well, "Cider Drinking and Breast Flashing", my post from a few days ago, is doing even better than "Missing Wife, Bottling Beer, Women wearing very little" ever did. Who knew that so many people were interested in how my simple cider tastes?

For the week (May 16 - May 23), "Cider Drinking and Breast Flashing" has 10 times as many hits as the next most popular blog post (Beer Model Brew Day is #2, which seems much more interesting to me) .

For the month (Apr 23 - May 22), "Cider Drinking and Breast Flashing" has 5 times as many hits as the 2nd most popular blog post (Tweedle Beetles is #2, which always mysteriously does quite well).

All time (since May 2009), "Cider Drinking and Breast Flashing" is already ranked #3 behind only Poison Rationality and Tweedle Beetles). That is pretty impressive for only being up for 4 days. My blog has never gotten this much traffic over any 4-day period. AND, this post has not even been imported into my Facebook notes, yet.

So, I guess there is an obvious question to be asked. Why are so many people interested in reading my tasting notes on the hard cider that I brewed? I honestly have no idea. Seems odd considering that I'm not even a big fan of my cider. I am sure that the visitors have their reasons. For some reason, I'm getting a much higher rate of visits from Canada than I ever remember getting before. Maybe Canadians really like their home-made hard cider.

If I do a google search on the keywords vancouver breast flashing cider, the blog post, and my blog are the top two results. Pretty cool, hey?


Here is a photo of SheppyBrew's Gringo Cerveza Jalapeño Cream Ale, which really has nothing to do with the topic of this blog post. It is a pretty picture, though, isn't it? Not only is the beer visually attractive, but I think it tastes much better than my hard cider.

LA Dodgers

This morning, I heard on the radio that the L.A. Dodgers are in danger of being unable to make payroll this month. According to this article on MLB.com, the L.A. Times has reported that this is indeed the case. I guess MLB will have to bail out the team like they did for the Texas Rangers last year.

Obviously, Frank McCourt (owner of the Dodgers) is having problems. He's in the middle of a very public and nasty divorce, and that is expensive. Even before the divorce proceedings started, it sounds like his wife was expensive. He has an expensive mansion, an expensive private jet, and many other expensive things that he must pay for.  He has a very large debt load, which is pretty expensive as well.

But, even so, I'm not sure how the L.A. Freeking Dodgers get into so much financial trouble.

According to this article on forbes.com, the L.A. Freeking Dodgers are worth 800 million dollars.  Only the Bo-Sox ($912 million) and the Yankees ($1.7 BILLION) are worth more.  L.A. Freeking Dodgers' debt to value ratio is 54%, which is high, but not anywhere close to teams like the Chicago Cubs (75%) or the Texas Rangers (66%).  The same article says that the L.A. Freeking Dodgers have the 4th largest revenue in the league ($246 million) behind only the Cubs ($258 million), Red Sox ($272 million), and Yankees ($427 million).

According to this USA Today.com article, the 2011 salary of the L.A. Freeking Dodgers is $104,188,999.  There are 11 teams above them in total payroll.  Some teams with higher payrolls are the world-champion Giants ($118,198,333), the perennial pathetic Chicago Cubs ($125,047,329), the Phillies ($172,976,379), and of course the New York Yankees ($202,689,028).  So, the L.A. Freeking Dodgers pay a bunch in salary, but compared to the rest of the big boys in the league, not too much.

As far as operating income (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization), the L.A. Freeking Dodgers are ranked 3rd in the league at $32.8 million.  I have no idea how much profit the L.A. Freeking Dodgers make after paying off debt interest and pay their taxes, but their high operating income (compared to other teams) makes me think that the Dodgers should at least be doing OK.

If the L.A. Dodgers are in such financial difficulty that they cannot make their May payroll, some teams I would be more concerned about are:

• The Chicago Cubs: who have a 75% debt to value ratio and "only" have $23.4 million in operating income, and an annual payroll of $125,047,329.
• The Texas Rangers: who have a 66% debt to value ratio and "only" have $22.6 million in operating income, and an annual payroll of $92,299,264.
• The St. Louis Cardinals who have a 53% debt to value ratio and "only" have $19.8 million in operating income, and an annual payroll of $105,433,572.

And of course what about:

• The Boston Red Sock: who lost $1.1 million before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.  Their annual payroll is $161,762,475.
• The New York Mets: who lost $6.2 million before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization and have a real high debt to value ratio at 62% and an annual payroll of $118,847,309.
• The Detroit Tigers: who lost $29.1 million before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization and have a real high debt to value ratio at 55% and an annual payroll of $105,700,231.

One team we don't have to be worried about is the New York Yankees.  As I stated above, they are worth $1.7 BILLION.  Their debt to value ratio is a tiny 4%.  They have a ridiculously high payroll at $202,689,028, but even with that huge expense, their operating income is a pretty healthy $25.7 million.

So, I guess the point of this blog post is for all you baseball fans out there to beware.  If the L.A. Freeking Dodgers can get to the point of not making payroll, it seems like there are an awful lot of other teams that could expect the same fate. Don't forget that the MLB uses revenue sharing to help the smaller market teams survive.  According to this article on bizofbaseball.com, the total redistibution of wealth was $404 million in 2010.  If teams like the L.A. Dodgers can't pay their fair-share of that total, I'm not sure what will happen to those teams that receive that count on those dollars to remain "open for business".

But, even so, at least the MLB isn't in as much trouble as the NBA.  (according to Forbes.com, over half of the NBA teams are losing money). The MLB is also not in as much trouble as the NHL (see this article on Forbes.com more than half of those teams are losing money as well).

Sort of makes you wonder why the NFL is having such a hard time figuring out how to divide up its money ... doesn't it?

Happy Cinco De Mayo, everyone!

beer.ericshepard.com

The url http://beer.ericshepard.com is not currently working.  GoDaddy changed my web server, which meant an IP switch.  GoDaddy kindly switched the DNS entry for http://www.sheppybrew.com and the other primary domain names that were pointing to that same web server, but they didn't switch the DNS entries for any sub-domains, which meant I needed to manually switch the IP address of beer.ericshepard.com.  I thought I did switch it.  In fact, I am looking at the DNS manager right now, and it looks to me like beer.ericshepard.com should be pointing to my web server, but browsing to it gives me a not found error and pinging it points to the old IP address.

Of course, this is not really a big deal since anyone can get there by using http://www.sheppybrew.com (plus there are few people who even go to that site) , but there are quite a few old links out on the internet that point to pictures or pages with the address beer.ericshepard.com .  I probably would not have even noticed except I was looking at old posts on this blog about Buckwheat's Belgium Pale Ale and noticed that a picture was missing.  I may have to contact tech support on this one.  Bummer.

Hopefully by the time you read this post, it is taken care of.

Speaking of Buckwheat's Belgium Pale Ale.  Inventory is running low, so I think I'll be brewing another batch soon.  The Beer Model really goes through this beer fast.  You may recall that last time I brewed this, I did a double batch and fermented half with the fermentis S33 yeast (which is my standard yeast for this beer) and some of the T58 yeast (which yields more Belgium flavors).  We agreed that we both enjoy the beer better head-to-head with the S33 yeast.  This time I am going to compare S33 (the reigning champion) with US05.  I am pretty sure that it will be a little more difficult to tell a difference between these two yeasts.  My experience tells me that US05 will probably attenuate more fully with a cleaner ester profile than S33.  If she can tell the difference, my guess is that she'll still prefer S33, but until we do the taste test, there is no way to know for sure.

After this experiment, I have one more yeast I may want to use to challenge the winner.  Many of my beers ferment with a harvested version of American Ale II (Wyeast Labs #1272).  So, far, I've really enjoyed all the beers using the AAII yeast and I sort of consider it my "house yeast".  I have said before that Buckwheat is Phat & Tyred's little brother.  I suspect that if Buckwheat used the same yeast the two beers would be even closer, and maybe extremely difficult to tell apart.  Even if AAII wins, I may not use it in Buckwheat just so the beers are truly significantly different.

Anyway, we are getting ahead of ourselves a bit.  That whole thing is way down the line.

I am running dangerously low on empty bottles.  Anyone have empties they want to drop off? If not, anyone what to help me drink some beer?

Stop It!

Stop it.  Stop it.  STOP IT!

Stop typing "your" when you mean "you're".  Just stop it!  For goodness sakes, I know most of you passed 2nd grade. It drives me crazy when people get that mixed up.  I certainly am not grammatically perfect in everything I type, but I have noticed an epidemic in your / you're confusion lately.  Between facebook and twitter and various online forums, I see it all the time.  I don't usually call anyone on it, but I might start.  Please stop it so I don't have be a jerk.

"Your" is the possessive form of you.  Here is an example of how it can be used:

YOUR brain should be able to comprehend the proper use of the word.

"Your" should not be used like this:

YOUR so funny LOL.

or

YOUR so funny.  LMAO.

or even

YOUR so funny.  ROFLMAO.

"You're" is a contraction for "You are".  Here is an example of how it can be used:

YOU'RE an idiot if you use your when you mean you are.

or

YOU'RE so funny. LOL.

or

YOU'RE so funny.  LMAO.

or

YOU'RE so funny.  ROFLMAO.

I suppose some of the problem is that we live in a world of text messages and twitter where the number of characters you type are limited.  But, quite honestly, I would rather you type UR to mean "You are" than "your".

While you're at it.  Please stop typing "their" when you mean "there" or "they're".  Stop typing "to" when you mean "too" or "two".  Stop.

And, I really would prefer you stop typing i.e. or e.g. unless you actually know the difference.  It doesn't bother me so much that people don't know that difference, but if you choose to use one or the other, at least look it up so you know which means which.

And, while I'm at it, irregardless is not a word at all.  Don't use it.  You really mean regardless, so just say regardless.

Thanks for letting me get that all off my chest.

I'm not changing

I have always put two spaces at the end of my typed sentences.  I know for sure that my typing teacher in high school told me to double space after every sentence, and I've always done as she taught.  Apparently, a single space is correct, and I have been doing it wrong.

My facebook friend Elizabeth shared a link to this article:  Space Invaders Why you should never, ever use two spaces after a period. By Farhad Manjoo.  For those of you too lazy to follow the link, it basically just says:

"Shep, you are completely wrong for putting two spaces after your periods.  Man, you're an idiot!"

I paraphrased there.  You can read it yourself if you want a more complete understanding of the article.

I didn't believe Farhad Majoo, but I checked a couple of books and magazines.  I looked at his references, and I googled the subject.  Apparently, he is right.  I have been wrong all these years.  I am an idiot, just like he said.

I also went and checked a bunch of blogs.  Apparently, most bloggers know the rule, because the majority of the blogs that I checked seem to be following the correct format.  It was just barely a majority in my admittedly limited poll of blogs.  It was indeed a majority none-the-less.

You know what, though?  I am not going to change.  I've decided that it is not worth the effort.  The faq at the Modern Language Association (which is probably the most official reference I found) even says:

"As a practical matter, however, there is nothing wrong with using two spaces after concluding punctuation marks unless an instructor or editor requests that you do otherwise."

So, Farhad's claim that I'm an idiot is a bit harsh, and you might even say unfair. 

Elizabeth says that she is trying to change.  I'm not going to.  I refuse to.  Maybe when I eliminate all my other imperfections, I'll work on the correct end-of-sentence spacing, but until then, I'm not going to worry about it.

Just for the record, though, if you say "your" when you really mean "you're", I still think that you are (you're) an idiot.