2022 Thanksgiving Turkey

Since 2018, it has been my job to make the Thanksgiving turkeys.

I smoke them outside, which is delicious and also frees up the oven to help the wife planning various sides.

Plus, it's fun for me to do.

Win. Win. Win.

This year, of course, I did it again. My wife got me one of the supermarket frozen turkeys that are always on sale, and I started thawing it out the weekend before Thanksgiving.

Wednesday, I unwrapped the bird and put it in a beer brine made with salt, pepper, brown sugar, and my some extra Dudoc's Red IPA that I had in a growler.

The 3 B's

If you follow along on this blog at all, you quickly realize that most of my posts have something to do with BBQ, Beer (brewing), or Biking.

Quite a few mention two out of the three. Many combine all three.

BBQ, Beer, Biking

Just about every weekend I do at least one activity in each of those categories.

Sometimes when people ask me how my weekend went I just tell them ... "I did the 3 B's".

If it's the first time I've mentioned it to someone, I have to explain, but after that first time, it's never a surprise.

I guess you'd have to say those are my three biggest hobbies. I can also say that during the whole craziness of Covid lockdown, those were big parts of what kept me sane.

L is for Little Dry Creek Brewery

It is amazing to think that the Beer Model and I are already on "L" for this round of our little  A to Z Denver Breweries project.

The wife keeps forcing me out to the breweries.

We posted A is for A Bit Twisted Brewpub in June ... only 5 months ago.

K is for Knuckle Puck Brewery Kombucha & Beer appeared about a week ago.

If my quick math is correct, that's over 2 new breweries visited per month. Crazy!

Regardless, the letter L comes after the letter K, so we needed an "L" brewery.

There are actually a ton of breweries that start with the letter "L" in our area.

Merican Lagers head to head

I don't know if I "said it out loud" on this blog, but I've been wanting to compare my Mr. Awesome Merican Lager to my Jethro Bud Nelson Merican Lite Lager.

They were certainly designed to be different, but I was curious to see how much.

K is for Knuckle Puck Brewery Kombucha & Beer

If you've been following my A to Z Denver Breweries series of posts, you know that I recently posted J is for Jade Mountain Brewery and Teahouse.

That means, of course, that we had to find a "K" brewery next for our 4th round.

In round 1, we visited K is for Kokopelli Beer Company.

In round 2, we visited K is for Kitchen, Lowdown Brewery +.

In round 3, K is for Kettle, Copper Brewing Company.

According to the Colorado Brewery Map & List, we had a couple choices for round 4, but nothing particularly close. So we had to travel a bit for ...

K is for Knuckle Puck Brewery Kombucha & Beer

Riding in the November Cold

I cycled over 110 miles in the cold this weekend. Each day I started early in the morning with the temperatures close to 20F.

Had to rely on my winter "kit" to keep me warm, and even so, my fingers and toes got cold.

But, even so, the rides were fun.

I passed my #5000MilesIn2022 goal early in October, and am now working on completing the #10Everestsin2022 goal.

Sunday I got in another Metric Century to keep my #MetricCenturyEveryMonth goal alive.

According to Strava, I only need about 8000 feet to get to 29,032 for the year. 

2022 Learn to Homebrew Day

This past Saturday was the AHA's Learn to Homebrew day.

You might remember this from previous years, but my homebrewing friends "Doc" and "Du" and I try to get together a few times a year to brew together.

Learn to Homebrew Day and Big Brew Day are always great excuses to get together.

The AHA always posts a recipe for these national brewing days. The one they posted for Saturday was LTHD22 Hoppy Amber Ale.

While I don't ever actually use the AHA's recipes, their Hoppy Amber Ale, inspired me to come up with a recipe for a Hoppy Red Ale (aka Red IPA). 

Back in the day, I was a great fan of this style. Remember such classic beers as Quarter Life Crisis and Pompously Illegitimate Red Ale.

Wien Zerschlagen (Batch 323)

I brewed my 7th lager of the year last Sunday.

My 19th batch of beer this year (20th if you count the double bath of McShepardSons Irish Ale as two batches).

Officially, it was the 323rd batch of beer I brewed since I started way back in 2009.

If you've been following along on this blog for the last year or so ... you might have noticed my infatuation with the Vienna Malt from Root Shoot Malting.

Root Shoot is a Colorado malting company, so I've tried to use it quite a bit for the various Colorado Strong beers I've brewed.

The Root Shoot Vienna Malt is darker in color and (in my humble opinion) more rich in flavor than other Vienna Malts.

I feel like it is pretty unique and I use it quite a bit in beers whenever I get my malts from the Brew Hut.