#StoutDay Week

This week on Thursday is International #StoutDay.

What is International #StoutDay? I'm not sure I really know. The best way to describe it is #IPADay only instead of celebrating boring old IPA's, we are celebrating the rich and diverse style of Stouts.

I realize that if you don't know about #IPADay, my description doesn't make much sense. If you are a twitter tweeter and a beer geek, you know about #IPADay. If you are not, you don't really care and won't care about #StoutDay either. At least I don't think so.

Female vs. Male Brain

Here it is Friday again. Time to share some more humor, I guess. We are back to the spirit of the wildly popular "Visual Explanation of Women" series of posts.

Analyze and enjoy. Let me know if you LOL or ROFL.

Free the Glutens!

Image from Papazian's article

Glutens are nasty little creatures which hide in wheat (and wheat related) grains and attack an unsuspecting tribe of people know as the Celiacs. The Glutens perform bio-attacks on the Celiacs causing auto-immune reactions which are very unpleasant. Glutens are evil!

Actually, personally, I have nothing against glutens. I probably can't even begin to list the things that I enjoy eating and drinking that have lots of gluten in them. I doubt there is a day that goes by in which I don't consume multiple glutens. They are yummy. I'm glad I don't have to avoid foods that contain gluten.

One of my favorite sources of gluten is beer. Barley is full of gluten. So is wheat and rye. There are gluten-free beers out there, but they are sort of hard to find. I am told they don't really taste all that good either.

Bottling Hoptoberfest

So, I've mentioned that I bribed the people I work with in an attempt to get them to donate to the 2nd Wind Fund. It worked, so I had to brew up more Stouticus American Stout (darn!). I also brewed up a beer that I called Hoptoberfest , which is a Vienna Lager with much more late addition Hallertauer and Crystal hops than you would traditionally get in a Vienna Lager. You could almost call it a love-child between my 15 Year Anniversary Amber Ale and my Rocktoberfest Lager. It was designed with lots of Munich and Vienna malts, fermented with lager yeast at (mostly) lager temperatures, but hopped like the 15 year. Sounds absolutely yummy ... doesn't it? The sample I had certainly tasted like it would be good.

Beer Motivation

A few weeks ago, I started posting "Friday Humor" on my favorite online forum.  It started with the wildly popular post "Visual Explanation of Women" and continued for a few weeks in that same sort of theme.

The past two weeks, I skipped the Friday Humor and replaced them with "2011 #GABF Session 1" and the also-wildly-popular "Sexist Beer Labels"

Surprisingly, apparently a couple of my virtual friends made comments that make me think they miss the little Friday Humor feature of the blog.

I've stolen and posted funny motivational posters before on this blog. They amuse me.

SheppyBrew Stats Q3 2011

I just realized that it is now the 4th quarter of 2011 and that I have not done my quarterly posting of the quarter's SheppyBrew brewing statistics. (see SheppyBrew 2009 Stats, 1st Quarter Stats, 2nd Quarter Stats, 3rd Quarter Stats, SheppyBrew 2010 Stats, 1st Quarter Brewing Stats, 2nd Quarter Brew Stats)

For what it is worth, the 3rd Quarter Stats post from last year are the 9th most popular post all-time on this blog. I know you don't really care, but let's be honest, you've probably already lost interest and won't read the rest of this blog post anyway.

More Beer Labels

So, I got some feedback on my article "Sexist Beer Labels" that I thought I would share.

Some of my virtual friends from the Mr. Beer forum added in the following artwork:

Drinking Ellie's Brown Ale

While grilling some brats Saturday evening, I drank my third beer from the 5280 Seasonal Six Pack. Avery Brewing Company's Ellie's Brown Ale pours deep dark brown with a nice tan head. I do not know if I may have just been in the right mood for a brown ale, but I thought this beer was absolutely fantastic.

Back to the mash tun

Saturday, I took the wife and kids on a field trip to The Brew Hut to get ingredients for the 2011 version of SheppyBrew's X-Mas Ale. I brewed it up on Sunday.

The kids really like the Dry Dock

Of course, my big fermenter was full of Stouticus American Stout, so I got up early and bottled up Stouticus. This time, I mixed sugar and the beer in a corny keg and used my Beer Gun to bottle it up. It seems to have gone smoother this way, but that may have just been the fun of a new process. One decent advantage of using the keg is that it is easier to get every bit of beer out of the keg than it is out of a bottling bucket.

Brecken

Remember that not-too-long-ago I mentioned that I have hundreds of sister-in-laws? Well, with hundreds of aunts, that means my kids have thousands of cousins *.

Yesterday my wife and I got one more niece and the boys got another cousin.

The newest child is named Brecken ... I'm sure named after Breckenridge Brewery **. I think that is the coolest name I've heard in quite awhile.

Note: this is not a recent photo of Brecken.

I am a guy, so I don't remember any of the important stats other than everyone is doing fine. Congratulations to Carrie and Dave and Brecken!




* Actual numbers are not quite as high as described in this blog.
** Saying that "Brecken" is short for "Breckenridge Brewery" is speculation on my part. It is also most likely not true.

Sexist Beer Labels

Speaking of sexist ...I have mentioned before (see Beer Ads) that I am a fan of the BMC beer television commercials. They amuse me. Even the ones (maybe even especially the ones) that offend feminist beer geeks by objectifying women. Again, I am not proud of it, but it is the way it is. These sorts of commercials don't make me want to buy their product, but that is another story.

The BMC breweries may have the lead in great T.V. commercials, but craft breweries dominate in bottle labels. Here are just some of the wonderfully sexist labels out there. These are not even the most chauvinisticly offensive ones. I've never bought any of these beers (I did have samples of Lagunitas A Little Sumpin' Sumpin' Ale and Stumptown Tart Strawberry Ale at GABF ... both very good), but if I saw one of these in my liquor store, I would at least consider buying it for the clever labels.

Drinking Psychotically

You may recall that not too long ago I brewed a beer that I called "Psychotically Dark and Bitter IDA" (see Psycho Dark and Bitter on this blog). It was a beer that I brewed to use up some Mr. Beer ingredients. (see the recipe at SheppyBrew.com).

This weekend, I poured myself a couple of bottles.

Regardless whether you call this a black IPA, a Cascadian dark, American style black or India Dark Ale, SheppyBrew's Psychotically Dark and Bitter Ale is wonderfully dark and hoppy and pleasant to drink.

2011 #GABF Final? Thoughts

What a weekend!

If you've never been to the GABF, I won't be able to properly explain it to you, so I won't even try.

A couple of  "notes to self"...

471 Double IPA

So, remember last week, I mentioned the 5280 Magazine seasonal six pack? Sunday (yes, the day after GABF), I decided to use my new grill and while doing so I tried my second beer of the 6 pack. This beer was Breckenridge Brewery's 471 double IPA. 471 IPA is one of BB's small batch series. It is a year-round beer, but as a small batch beer, it is also in limited edition. I do not think I've ever had this one, although it is possible that at some point I've sucked one down at some point at the Breckenridge Brew Pub. It is a 9.2% ABV beer with 70 IBU's.

The aroma is full of wonderful American citrus hops, although I do detect a bit of an English ale feel to the finishing hops. The beer does use Fuggles hops and I don't know if the English feel is a function of the fuggles or the grain bill or a combination of the two. The malt does smell rich and full. Very nice.

3218

Remember when I thought getting over 1000 page views for a month on this blog was a big deal? It was not that long ago that I reported May broke my page view record. Since then, every month has broken that record.

The page view total for September was 3218. I know that real bloggers probably think that is nothing, but for my little blog, that is a really big number.

2011 #GABF Session 3

Since the Saturday afternoon session is for Brewing Association and American Home-Brew Association members only, their was no "members only" line to get in quickly. It really helps put into perspective how great having access to the quick line was for the other sessions. We got there about 11:50 or so and had to walk almost all the way around the huge Denver Convention Center to get in line. Luckily, once the line gets moving, it is quick. Still, it is much nicer to do the short line.

2011 #GABF Session 2

Did I mention how much I love having access to the members only line? Well, I do. It might be worth the cost of admission to the AHA just because of that little perk.

Friday night I was lucky enough to be accompanied by the hottest brew babe in Denver (quite likely the hottest brew babe in the world). She had to drop off the kids and traffic sucked we didn't meet up at the light rail station until around 5:30 pm. When we got there around 6-ish or so, the general admission line was still extremely long, but we got to walk right in. It is cool how fast the general admission line moves, but walking right in is better.