2011 #GABF Session 1

Ok, so the members only line RULES!! The festival started at 5:30. I was in and had my cup collected by 5:35. As planned, I got to New Glarus early but they did not Belgium Red. Tried their Raspberry Tart instead. It was Ok. I also tried their Blacktop IPA which was fantastic. I thought it was probably my favorite beer of the night.

Pre-event #GABF Post

Ok ... it must be GABF time. My blog is seeing lots of traffic today and almost all of it is looking at GABF related content.

I think I'm ready for tonight. The GABF posted their Beers at the Festival page today. I did a quick cross-reference against my Thursday night #GABF plan. Quite a few of the beers I want to try are not going to be at the festival, but that isn't too disappointing. I'll get over it. Tonight is mostly about reconnaissance anyway. I have to be at work tomorrow, so I'll take it real easy tonight anyway.

Droid and beer

I have had severe phone envy of my wife since she got her Droid 2. But my Verizon "new every two" just came up I just got a new Droid 3. This is just a test email from the new phone as practice for the blog entries I will be making from GABF over the next few days.

The picture is of Victory brewing company's HopDevil IPA. The SheppyBrew Beer Model purchased a six pack for me while she and her mom were on their shopping weekend. Not bad at all.

Not a great photo, but ok for a blog test.

Now I really wish the GABF made a droid app instead of an iPhone app.!

Oh well, we will see how it goes.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless Phone

Thursday night #GABF plan

A couple weeks ago (it is hard to believe it has already been almost two weeks) after the GABF map came out, I started to discuss My #GABF Game Plan. I think I am ready to finalize my plan for the Thursday night session of GABF.

Flashback India Brown Ale

Here it is ... #GABF week. Aren't you excited?

5280 Magazine recently came out with a seasonal six pack. Back in March I mentioned their Colorado Best Beers, and I guess that was such a success that they followed up with a seasonal six pack. I grabbed mine a few weeks ago.

Thankyou Stouticus

You may remember that Stouticus came about because the COO of the company I work for asked me to make a beer. I ended up sharing the first batch with everyone in the company.

When the SheppyBrew beer model signed us up for the 2nd wind fund again this year, I sent out an email at work offering everyone who donated some more Stouticus. A few people took me up on the offer by donating. Today, I brewed the "Thank you" batch of Stouticus.

The recipe changed just a bit from last time. You can see the recipe on the Stouticus page on the SheppyBrew site. It is a quite a bit higher in alcohol and is not nearly as afraid of the stout roast. It also uses some flaked barely (first time I've used flaked barely).

Making cookies

My wife left us again this weekend. Her mom is visiting and they went on a "shopping weekend". Personally I have a hard time thinking of something that sounds like worse torture than a "shopping weekend". I suppose a "shopping week" or "shopping month" would be worse, but not much else. I watched a movie last night that was close, but that only lasted 2 hours give or take.

So, what did the boys want to do with the women away?

They wanted to bake cookies.

Visual Explanation of Women III

As I mentioned in Visual Explanation of Women, my sister-in-law forwarded me an email. Here is another thing that was in it.

NOTE: To get the full effect of the animated image, you have to click on it to link to the actual big picture. 

Have you ever wondered how a woman's brain works?
 Well....it's finally explained here in one, easy-to-understand illustration:

Every one of those little blue balls is a thought about something
 That needs to be done, a decision or a problem that needs to be solved.

 A man has only 2 balls and they take up all his thoughts.

Green Flash West Coast IPA

Green Flash Brewing Company is one of millions of craft breweries located in and around San Diego, CA (millions might be a slight exaggeration). Their West Coast IPA is listed as tied for #48 on my 2011 Best Beer in America poll. I saw it in my liquor store last time I was there (the same time I picked up Dogfish Head Palo Santo Marron).

West Coast IPA has an ABV of 7.3% and claims 95 IBUs. On the "Our Beers" page of the Green Flash website, it says:

A menagerie of hops is layered throughout the brewing process: Simcoe for unique fruitiness and grapefruit zest, Columbus for strong hop pungency, Centennial for pine and citrus notes and Cascade for floral aroma. A multi-dimensional hop experience.

Dogfish Head Palo Santo Marron

Last time I was in my liquor store, I grabbed a 4-pack of Dogfish Head Palo Santo Marron. This was listed as tied for #34 on the 2011 Best Beer in America poll. Of course Dogfish Head will be at GABF, but I stayed away from that huge line last year, and expect I'll stay away again this year.

Just as a little editorial interjection. I will never understand why Sam Calagione's show, Brew Masters, was not more popular on the discovery channel. Their most fatal flaw was probably that it was a show that I liked. Whenever I decide I like a show enough to DVR every episode ... that is when the show is probably in trouble. Maybe, this is a topic for another time.

Anyway... back to the regularly scheduled blog post ...

#SexistPig but not Proud Of It

The other day, I was hitting old "you might also like" links in my blog. I am probably way too Sheppy-Centric, but I do that from time to time. This blog has been around a long time and lots of the posts I had completely forgotten about. Sometimes I find something interesting or amusing. It is really fun to look through my old blog posts. It interests me much more than it probably does you, but try it sometime and let me know if you find anything interesting. (i.e., leave comments please)

One of the posts I came across was 7th Commandment. I thought it was incredibly amusing. LOL, ROFL, LMAO, perhaps not quite ROFLMAO but hilarious non-the-less. Go ahead, read it. Man, I crack myself up sometimes.

Ommegang Three Philosophers

Right after the 2011 Best Beer in America poll came out, I stopped by my local liquor store to see if I could find a beer to check off my list. I came across a bottle of Ommegang Three Philosophers, and grabbed it.

It has been sitting in my fridge since then.

Belgium beers are a bit tough for me to evaluate. I am slowly but surely developing an appreciation for the funk derived from most Belgium yeasts, but that flavor and aroma really has to be restrained for me to like a beer. To be honest, if I can detect any flavor that is obviously yeast-driven, I automatically like the beer less than something with a cleaner yeast profile. That is why SheppyBrew's Buckwheat BPA doesn't really use a Belgium yeast, and I ferment it pretty cool. Yes, I should probably stop calling it a Belgium Pale Ale.

Visual Explanation of Women II

As I mentioned in Visual Explanation of Women, my sister-in-law forwarded me an email. Here are another couple of things that were in it.

By the way ... according to my blogger stats, Visual Explanation of Women was wildly popular. I had a huge "page view" day the date that I posted it, and it is currently already #5 on the all-time viewed list. That was sort of unexpected.

Anyway ... here are a couple more. These are not as good as the first ones.

#GABF Big Friendly Guide

In the category of  "ask and you shall receive" ... I got an email from my Contact Me form today in response to my blog post "My #GABF Game Plan".

Honestly, I was a bit bummed out that GABF spent the time and effort to develop an iPhone app. I love the concept. I just don't have an iPhone. Not only don't I have an iPhone, but I will never purchase an iPhone. My wife has an Android phone, so it would be better for me if they developed an Android app. But, personally, I think it would make much more sense to develop part of their website with this sort of functionality so EVERY smart phone could take advantage of the data they are making available for iPhone users.

My #GABF Game Plan

Over the weekend, I saw that the GABF Map has been posted. This means I can start designing my plan-of-attack for the festival. There are over 450 breweries and over 2000 beers. Obviously, I cannot try every one. I have my list of beer to attempt to sample. I know which breweries are going to be there but not which beers each brewery will serve. There are a few breweries I know for sure I want to hit in addition to my list. My buddy Diane from Mr. Beer told me to be on the lookout for "killer chile beer". I will, of course, be continually seeking sour beers as I wander.

Of course, the game plan needs to be flexible, but here are some elements I am pretty sure of (in no particular order):

Brewing more Rocktoberfest

I brewed up my Rocktoberfest lager this weekend. Yes, it is a bit late to save the Rockies season. I'm certainly not going to be able to drink it while watching them in the playoffs this year. It is also not going to be ready for any traditional Oktoberfest time period. Luckily, I still have some left from last time I brewed it, which was back in January. I had a bottle the other night and it was totally fantastic. Come to think of it, maybe I'm making this batch for NEXT year. On second thought, I can drink an Oktoberfest beer in the winter. Don't worry, it will be fine.

Beer Gun

I've done 7 blog posts in GABF month, and only one of them has been about beer or brewing. Shameful. Anyone coming from the Complete List of Beer Blogs will wonder why the hell this is listed as a beer blog. I guess Root Beer and Pretzels mentions BYO magazine. Does that count?

But don't worry, beer lovers. Today's entry does have to do with beer.

I used my Blichman Beer Gun for the first time yesterday. The beer gun is SheppyBrew's newest toy. In case you do not know, the beer gun is designed to transfer kegged beer to bottles. I probably should have tried a less-expensive home-made method, but I decided to treat myself to this extravagance. Since I have never bottled from a keg before, I cannot comment on advantages over other methods. But the beer gun is pretty slick.

Visual Explanation of Women

By the way, please don't forget ... I need donations for the 2nd Wind Fund of Metro Denver (see 2nd Wind Fund of Metro Denver (2011) )  I think we have a respectable number of donations, but nothing close to what we got each of the last two years.

Anyway ...

My Sister-In-Law (one of the hundreds that I have) forwarded my an email titled "Women As Explained by Engineers". I don't usually forward this sort of thing along, but I thought it was humorous enough to at least share a couple of the things in there. There are a couple more that I may share at a later date.

2nd Wind Fund of Metro Denver (2011)

Yes, we (the Colorado Shepard Family) are trying to help raise money again for the 2nd Wind Fund of Metro Denver. If you are my facebook friend, you might have already seen me post our fund-raising page. I also personally messaged some of you. At the time I am typing this into the computer, a couple generous people have donated and I have had several more let me know that they will donate.

The mission of Second Wind Fund of Metro Denver (SWFMD) is to decrease the incidence of teen suicide by removing financial and social barriers to treatment for at-risk youth. Personally, I cannot think of anything more tragic than kids committing suicide. This year is 2nd Wind's 10th anniversary of their fund-raising festival / run / walk. If you are a Denver-area resident, it is worth coming and checking out at the Jefferson County fairgrounds on Sunday, September 18th.

If you are not participating, PLEASE consider dropping by our fund-raising page and making a donation.

http://www.runningguru.com/RunWithMe.asp?mID=Shepard2963

Last year, the family raised $1,275.
The year before, we raised $1,100.
It would obviously be nice to beat those numbers this year. If you can help out, please do.

Pictures from the 2011 Breckenridge Duck Races

If you've been following around in the recent developments on the whole Tweedle Beetle saga. (especially my last blog entry) , you know that the Colorado Shepards attended the The Summit Foundation 24th Annual Great Rubber Duck Races.

You also know that this year (for the first time EVER) we overcame the cheating efforts of the Tweedle Beetles and WON! Yes, it was only 12th place, but that was good enough to make the list of winners and get a prize.

IN YOUR FACES, Tweedle Beetles!

Here are some pictures from Race Day:

Tweedle Beetles Return Part III

So, if you've been following along with  Tweedle Beetles Return Part I and Tweedle Beetles Return Part II. you may be asking yourself "Why is Sheppy so sure that the Tweedle Beetles are involved with this mess?" If you haven't been following along, go back and read Part I and Part II.

#StoutDay is November 3rd

Hmmm... remember I told you about the social media "International #IPADay" on this blog (August 4th)? Apparently, the powers that be decided that it was such a huge success that they would go ahead and follow it up with International #StoutDay on November 3rd. I'm not sure how they defined success, but I suspect it has to do with the number of #IPADay hash tags you could see on twitter that day (http://twitter.com/#!/search/%23ipaday).

Tweedle Beetles Return Part II

picture from geocaching.com (of all places)

I know you have all been waiting with great anticipation for the exciting conclusion to Tweedle Beetles Return Part I. Ok, you probably don't care that much, but it is my blog, and this is what I'm posting today, so deal with it. If you need to catch up, go ahead and read part I. Go ahead, part II will still be here when you are done.

So, I have all these emails coming into my sheppybrew inbox. There were not so many that it was unmanageable. It was just annoying. So, what did I do? I decided to program a CAPTCHA challenge into adding comments to my site.

Root Beer and Pretzels

We have had the 2nd part of a Mr. Root Beer kit for quite some time without a whole lot of interest from the kids about making it. In fact, I think the last time we did make root beer, I think was back in June of 2009.

But, for some reason, recently Tyler has been asking to make root beer, and this past Sunday, he and I finally did.