The Tweedle Beetles Return Part I

picture from geocaching.com (of all places)

I finally figured it out! Those sneaky little Tweedle Beetles are back! Well, I don't suppose they ever really left, but they have been quiet for quite some time. For whatever reason, they have decided to passive-aggressively attack me over the past several days. Sadly, it took me over a week to discover the identity of the attackers. Damn Tweedle Beetles!

Psycho Dark and Bitter

I brewed another batch of beer last night. I call this recipe Psychotically Dark and Bitter IDA (follow the link to see the recipe). It is another batch of beer designed to use up Mr. Beer ingredients that were given to me (ie free!) last year at GABF.

Of course, India Dark Ale (IDA) is what I like to call the Black IPA / Cascadian Dark Ale / American-Style India Black Ale / whatever-else-people-call-it. I just hate the Cascadian Dark Ale name simply because it implies that is a regional beer style exclusively created in and for the Pacific Northwest. I like (and have used) the name "Black IPA", but calling a beer "Black" and "Pale Ale" just seems too oxymoronish. I like "American-Style India Black Ale", but it seems a bit long for the name of a style. Here are some of the articles in this blog in which I have mentioned the style: "Black IPA / IDA", "Cascadian Dark Ale", "Stone Soup IDA".

Fermentedly Challenged and other misc blog stuff

Dave, the author of "Fermentedly Challenged" has commented on my blog a fair amount recently. I appreciate it enough that I feel that I should point out his blog to my other readers. I am not sure doing so will help his blog traffic. Probably not, but I don't think it can hurt either.

"Fermentedly Challenged" is a relatively new addition to the "Blogs I Read" section on the right side of my blog. He is a great source for Colorado-related news. In fact, he gives Colorado Beer News just about every day. That is one of my favorite parts of "Fermentedly Challenged". It is a great place to get Colorado-centric beer information.

Buckwheat BPA Brew Day

So, I brewed Buckwheat's BPA today. I got started before church by printing out the brew sheet from Beer Smith. Then, I heated up 8 gallons of water and put it in my 10 gallon cooler. I let it sit in there until I got home from church.

2011 #GABF Attending Breweries

Image from GABF Site

I just noticed that GABF has posted the attending breweries (Breweries at the Festival). I think this is a recent posting, but I just may have missed it up until now. I am not sure this is a final list. It might not be, but I don't think the final list would be much different than this one.

Of course, I have mentioned the GABF on this blog quite a bit: http://blog.ericshepard.com/search/label/GABF .

Part of the reason that this list is interesting to me is that I will be attending the festival and will use it to try to find beers on the Zymurgy Best Beers in America list that I don't get a chance to try elsewhere.

Here are the beers on the list that I have not had (or at least I don't know for sure that I've had):

Brewing Wetta Blonde with Mr. Beer

Until tonight, I have not brewed a Mr. Beer batch of beer in awhile. According to my records, I brewed "Eric's Red" on 12/21/2010 (see Brewing Eric's Red). I kept telling myself that I'm going to brew something with the HME's / UME's that I got Peter after GABF, but I just have not done it (until tonight).

Looking through ingredients in stock at the SheppyBrew nano-brewery, I had some Mr. Beer Classic American Blonde Ale HME and some Mr. Beer Pale Export UME. I also had some East Kent Goldings hops, some SafeAle American Ale (US05), and some honey. It just so happens that those ingredients are all I need to make my Wetta Blonde Ale. So, I decided to brew up some Wetta Blonde.

Just the Boys Camping

For most of the summer the boys have been saying that they wanted to go "just the boys" camping (this means without Mom ... in case you were not able to figure that out). This weekend was finally the time we did it. We decided to go to Buffalo Creek Campground, which was the place Tyler and I did our first "Just me and My Dad" trip. It isn't the greatest campground in the world, but it takes reservations and it certainly is not the worst place either.

Another taste of Cider (without the breast flashing)

Had another bottle of my homemade hard cider tonight. Check out "Simple Hard Cider", "Bottled Cider", and "Cider Drinking and Breast Flashing" as a reminder about the cider.

I think it is better than it was. It probably needed that little bit of age. I even had this bottle warm. I think it would be even better cold. I went ahead and put the rest of the bottles in the fridge so that next time I try it, it will be nice and cold. I'm not sure how long this will last, but I'll try to report back as it is in the bottle longer.

Little Lion Man

When I work too late into the night, I have a hard time getting to sleep.

It doesn't really help to be at the computer after. At this point, I really should be sleeping.

I do really like this song ... I wish the beer model could play it on the guitar. I suppose it probably is not nearly as good with one musician, though.

click to show lyrics

Weep for yourself, my man,
You'll never be what is in your heart
Weep Little Lion Man,
You're not as brave as you were at the start
Rate yourself and rake yourself,
Take all the courage you have left
Wasted on fixing all the problems
That you made in your own head

But it was not your fault but mine
And it was your heart on the line
I really fucked it up this time
Didn't I, my dear?
Didn't I, my...

Tremble for yourself, my man,
You know that you have seen this all before
Tremble Little Lion Man,
You'll never settle any of your scores
Your grace is wasted in your face,
Your boldness stands alone among the wreck
Now learn from your mother or else spend your days Biting your own neck

But it was not your fault but mine
And it was your heart on the line
I really fucked it up this time
Didn't I, my dear? (x2)

Didn't I, my dear?

Ahhhhh......

But it was not your fault but mine
And it was your heart on the line
I really fucked it up this time
Didn't I, my dear? (x2)

Didn't I, my dear?

SNB Brewing Blog

SNB Brewing

Recently, I discovered that another one of my Mr. Beer forum virtual brewing buddies has a blog. Actually, I didn't so much discover it. He told me about it.

I like it when my virtual brewing friends have web-sites or blogs because when they keep them up to date, I can see what they are up to. I don't pay attention to the forums as much as I used to and even when I did, I missed a majority of what was going on. I do pay attention to various blogs, though. If you are on the "blogs I read" section of my blog, I read all your posts within a day or two (usually) of the time the rss feed updates the information over there. I have several other blogs that I follow through rss feeds and catch most of what goes on in those blogs.

Hot Chelle Rae

click to show song

It’s been a really really messed up week Seven days of torture, seven days of bitter And my girlfriend went and cheated on me She’s a California dime but it’s time for me to quit her
La la la, whatever, la la la, it doesn’t matter, la la la, oh well, la la la
We’re going at it tonight tonight There’s a party on the rooftop top of the world Tonight tonight and were dancing on the edge of the Hollywood sign I don’t know if I’ll make it but watch how good I’ll fake it Its all right, all right, tonight, tonight
I woke up with a strange tattoo Not sure how I got it, not a dollar in my pocket
And it kinda looks just like you Mixed with Zach Galifianakis
La la la, whatever, la la la, it doesn’t matter, la la la, oh well, la la la
We’re going at it tonight tonight There’s a party on the rooftop top of the world Tonight tonight and were dancing on the edge of the Hollywood sign I don’t know if I’ll make it but watch how good I’ll fake it Its all right, all right, tonight, tonight
You got me singing like Woah, come on, ohh, it doesn’t matter, woah, everybody now, ohh
Just don’t stop let’s keep the beat pumpin’ Keep the beat up, lets drop the beat down It’s my party dance if I want to We can get crazy let it all out
Just don’t stop let’s keep the beat pumpin’ Keep the beat up, lets drop the beat down It’s my party dance if I want to We can get crazy let it all out
Its you and me and were runnin this town And its me and you and were shakin the ground And ain’t nobody gonna tell us to go cause this is our show
Everybody Woah, come on, ohh, all you animals Woah, let me hear you now, ohh
Tonight tonight there’s a party on the rooftop top of the world Tonight tonight and were dancing on the edge of the Hollywood sign I don’t know if I’ll make it but watch how good I’ll fake it Its all right, all right, tonight, tonight Its all right, all right, tonight, tonight Yeah its all right, all right, tonight, tonight
Just singing like Woah, come on, ohh, all you party people Woah, all you singletons, ohh, even the white kids
Just don’t stop lets keep the beat pumpin’ Keep the beat up, lets drop the beat down Its my party dance if I want to We can get crazy let it all out
Just don’t stop lets keep the beat pumpin’ Keep the beat up, lets drop the beat down Its my party dance if I want to We can get crazy let it all out

Guitar Lady Goofy Kid

Well, believe it or not, there are a couple more videos to post from the Laser Camping in the Salt trip.

I still have not told you why I call it "Laser Camping in the Salt". Does anyone want to take a guess? Do you? Do you?

You could win fabulous prizes if you come up with the best (one that entertains me the most) answer. Double points if it is the right answer too.

Videos from Laser Camping in the Salt

As promised, here are some videos from our "Laser Camping in the Salt" trip.

Laser Camping in the Salt

We went to the Great Sand Dunes National Park last weekend. It is only about 4.5 hours south west of us, but the Colorado Shepards have not been there since the summer after we first moved to Colorado. Of course that was before we had kids, so the youngest members of our family have never been.

I should apologize (especially for those of you with dial-up internet connections) for the number of pictures here. It was hard to cut down the selection (although this is not even close to all of the ones we have).

Hoppy #IPADay and @IntlBeerDay

Almost a month ago The Beer Wench announced that August 4 is "International #IPADay". It is designed to be a social media phenomenon to promote the popularity of craft beer. The hash tag is a twitter-specific thing, and when the announcement went out, I noticed quite a bit of reaction at http://twitter.com/#!/search/%23ipaday . Most of it was positive. Some of it was negative. Some of it was almost make-personal-attacks-at-Ashley-kind-of-negative. I suppose that is a function of twitter. Can't please everyone I guess. The very next day, the Wench made another post about the event to answer questions she apparently got (mostly from twitter, I'm sure).

SheppyBrew Zazzle Store

Quite some time ago, I noticed a that the Bearded Brewer (Bearded Brewing Blog listed in the "Blogs I Follow" section at the right of this page) had a link to his very own "Zazzle Shop". Basically, Zazzle allows you to create all kinds of customized products. You can upload pictures to place on all kinds of things to brand them however you want. You can order straight from Zazzle. Even cooler, you can show your custom products on your own online-store. Zazzle takes care of everything and will give you a royalty on anything bought through your store. At the time, I thought it was really cool. I thought I might like to have SheppyBrew products available in something similar.

Then, I forgot about it for awhile. But, recently, I've been playing around with creating SheppyBrew branded products on Zazzle. Then a couple of days ago, I made my own Zazzle Shop at http://www.zazzle.com/sheppybrew to share these products. Now, I am finally sharing the shop with the world.