Lucky U IPA

Yes, this post is about the same Breckenridge Brewery Lucky U IPA featured in the youtube videos I posted a few days ago in "Interesting / Amusing news". The beer that was sevendrupal hopped and in the video Lucky U IPA.

We went camping over Memorial Day Weekend. When the Colorado Shepards go camping, the Beer Model and I like to bring beer. Since there has been a relatively new trend of craft brewers packaging their beer in cans, the beer we have been bringing over the past couple of years has been canned. When I was at the liquor store this week, I saw Lucky U IPA in cans, and since I had just posted some videos about the beer, Lucky U IPA is what I grabbed for myself. Tracy doesn't like IPAs, so I got something else for her.

The top of the can says that Lucky U IPA is "A Hoppy Homage to a Denver Landmark The Tivoli Brewery". Not sure what that is about. I might have to research that. Or, if you are reading this and know what that means, let me know. I mean, I know there was a brewery called "Tivoli" and I know where it was located and that it is historically significant to Denver. But, I don't really know how specifically Lucky U IPA is a Hoppy Homage to that brewery.

I like this beer. The beer uses Amarillo, Magnum, Perle, Cascade, Apollo, Fuggle, and Goldings hops (that is 7 of them in case you didn't count them, thus the sevendrupal hopped commercial, I guess). As you might imagine, it is hoppy. It has a nice IPA bitterness.  It is certainly not as bitter as some of the crazy double and imperial IPA's out there. It has 68 IBU for a 6.2% ABV, which is significant, but not unreasonable. I have used all those hops in my home-brews except Apollo. This is probably not a hop combination I would ever come up with. It works in this beer, although I don't think I have the sophistication of pallet to pick out Perle or Fuggle from this line up, and I sort of doubt most pallets would taste a difference without some of those hop-types. The hop flavor is very citrusy, with quite a bit of orange or maybe mango flavors. Really yummy for those hop-heads out there.

I think the underlying malt profile is great.  Obviously, the hops dominate the flavors, but I think the malt-bill does a great job balancing out the beer. The website says they use Two Row Pale, Munich, and Carmel malts. All of those are pretty standard in American IPAs, but they also use Torrified Wheat.  I have never used Torrified Wheat in any of my own beers, and to be honest, I am not sure what would be the reason to use it (as opposed to just using a wheat malt). That might be another thing I need to research. I suppose that it gives the beer a bit of body and probably a bit more head-retention. I would think it would be similar to using a flaked grain. But, again, I'll have to research that.

It is a great beer. Next time I'm at Breckenridge Brewery, I think this is probably what I'll order. There is a high-probability that next time I go camping, this is the beer I'll pick to bring along.

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I also brought a growler of Sheppy Brew's 15 Year Anniversary Amber Ale camping. It is still an amazing beer, even though we drank it out of tiny little camping cups. Its hop character is beginning to fade, but that only seems to bring out more of the nice caramel notes from the malt. I really enjoyed drinking it this weekend as well.

We brought a growler of Whisky Wife Wit as well, but we never got a chance to pop it open. On Monday, though, I found a liter bottle of the older batch of WWW (the batch that was bottled almost a year ago) and had some of that. Its orange flavor came through very nicely. I am impressed (and surprised) with how well the WWW seems to age.

Stanley Cup Finals are here!

So, the Stanley cup finals are about to start. With all due respect to the NCAA final four and the Superbowl, I think the Stanley Cup finals are the most exciting of all sports' championships. I know I'm in the minority on that opinion.

The Vancouver Canucks play the Boston Bruins. The Canucks came into the NHL in 1970 and have never won a Stanley Cup (although the Vancouver Millionaires won one in 1915). The Bruins have not won one since 1972. Both these cities are good hockey towns and I have to assume that a win for either team would be exceptionally exciting for each fan-base. I can't imagine it will be as exciting as it was to see the Stanley Cup return to Chicago last year, but I might be biased about that.

If it isn't the Blackhawks that win the cup, I am at least happy that someone who has not won one in awhile will win it. I'm certainly happy that the evil Red Wings cannot win this year. I'm also happy that none of the newer warm-weather teams are going to win.

If I have to pick (and of course I do have to pick), I'm gonna cheer for the Bruins. I am always more likely to cheer for original 6 teams (excluding the evil Red Wings, of course) as opposed to everyone else. Plus, I am still a little bitter that the Blackhawks got knocked out of the playoffs by the Canucks. The green guys still annoy me, and I there is just something about the Sedin twins that bothers me.

But, quite frankly, I'll be fine if Vancouver wins as well.

Go Bruins!

Unfortunately, I still have a fair amount of TommyHawk APA to drink while watching the finals.

Picture from http://bruins.nhl.com

It looks like hockey is returning to Winnipeg.  Of course, I am not a fan of having hockey in cities like Atlanta, and I certainly approve of moving the team back to Canada. Now, if we can get NHL hockey out of Phoenix, Dallas, Florida, Carolina, and Tennessee, things will be even better. I certainly hope that Winnipeg can support the team. It will be the smallest market in which an NHL franchise exists. I was under the impression that when the Jets moved away to Phoenix, it was a financial decision. I guess (according to the article I linked above) most of the financial factor was the fact that Winnipeg was not providing a new arena for the team to play in. Apparently, the building is no longer an issue.

A few weeks ago, I gave a link to Forbes NHL Team Values 2010. Atlanta is certainly not a money-making prospect for hockey. Canadian teams (generally speaking) are at least making money, so I would think that the new Winnipeg team would at least be able to financially outperform Atalanta. I guess time will tell.

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By the way, I mentioned a couple days ago how May broke this blog's all-time record of "page views" in any month. As expected, not only was the record broken, it was blown away. My total ended up 37% over the previous record month and up over 55% over April. Of course, I mentioned that "Cider Drinking and Breast Flashing" was already on the all-time list and rising fast. Well, it is now #1 on the list. It is only a few above "Tweedle beetles", but certainly has the momentum to remain #1 for a long time.

As of yesterday, I have been added to the "Complete List of Beer Blogs" on the Beer Bloggers Conference website. I don't know how much traffic that will give me, but hopefully getting on that list will do something positive to my "readership". I may have to make an effort to post more beer content to remain worthy of the list.

That's it for now. Time to watch some hockey!

Twitter Feed Test

Well, you may know that this blog gets imported into my facebook notes.

Facebook's import process frustrates me because quite often it stops working for awhile. When I report an issue with the import, I get an email back saying someone is looking at it and it might help if I send a screen shot of "the error". There is no error to send them. The process just stops working for awhile.

As I am composing this entry, facebook has not imported my last 5 blog posts (Cider Drinking and Breast Flashing; Interesting / Amusing "news"; New Tommyknocker; Another Popular Post (Breasts); Record Breaking!)

I've decided to give up on Facebook's import process. Instead, I'm starting to use twitterfeed.com . I already use twitterfeed to "tweet" my blog and updates to SheppyBrew.com to twitter (http://twitter.com/esheppy if you want to follow my tweets). Since facebook has its own little utility to import blogs into notes, it has always seemed silly to use twitterfeed to post to my facebook wall, but since I've given up on the facebook utility, I'll go ahead and do it.

So, this is a test post to see how it works. If you are my facebook friend, let me know if you like this the same, better, or worse than reading my blog as a note.

I am just adding this picture to see how (or even if) it show up on my wall:

Record Breaking!

Today around lunch time, I noticed that May 2011 has surpassed September 2010 as the month with my blog's most "page views". The total in September 2010 was 1008, and was by far the most popular month for my blog (until this month, of course). I posted quite a bit in September 2010 about my GABF experiences , and I know quite of few of my virtual-friends from the Mr. Beer community stopped by to read those posts. Since blogger has started providing the stats, this blog averages around 740 page views a month, so getting more than 1000 is pretty significant.

At 12:30 today, the total for May was at 1011, and May is not even over yet. AND ... most of my posts this month have not even been imported into facebook, yet.

The popularly of "Cider Drinking and Breast Flashing" caused a huge portion of the traffic this month. Personally, I think just about any of the other blog posts this month have been more interesting, but I guess people just really like cider, and were excited about finding out how mine turned out.

Photo from 25Stanley.com

I am pretty sure this month will also be record-breaking for the SheppyBrew Nano-Brewery. Since I've started brewing, I don't think I've gone a month without brewing at least one batch of beer. This month, I am giving myself half a batch because the only brewing SheppyBrew did this month was on the Beer Model's Brew Day, and the Beer Model did at least half the work on that brew day.  I didn't literally go through the SheppyBrew Brewing Calendar to see if I actually have brewed every month, so it is possible that I am wrong about this record, but I am pretty sure about it.

I also did not brew much in April. My only brew-day in April was a batch that got split into Gringo Cerveza Cream Ale and Gringo Cerveza Jalapeño Cream Ale.

Despite the fact that I have not brewed very much over the past couple of months, my home-brew inventory is at an all-time high. I do not really have room to store more beer. My beer fridge is about full. I might be able to shove another home-brew six-pack into my "commercial" beer fridge, but not much more than that. There is even some home-brew in our food-fridge. And, now I have a keg in my kegerator and another getting ready to go in there. My conditioning coolers are not completely full, but almost, and I still have not gotten all my Gringo bottles out of the carbonation area of the basement. I'm either going to have to slow the brewing down even more, drink more, or give a bunch away. I may have to employ a combination of those tactics.

But anyway, those two records are pretty exciting ... aren't they? I may have a celebratory home-brew or two to mark those two accomplishments.

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.

New Tommyknocker

I've talked about Tommyknocker Brewery quite a bit in this blog. It is a brew-pub in Idaho Springs that the Colorado Shepards go to quite a bit.  I like the location. I like their story. I like their food. I like their beer. Additionally, they have the best AHA pub discount out of all the places I've used my discount so far.  We end up there for lunch quite a bit after spending the morning in or around Idaho Springs. Quite often, we plan return trips from the mountains so that we end up by Idaho Springs around lunch time as well.

Recently, Tommyknocker Brewery significantly updated their website. I think the new site looks much better than the old one. They also updated the look of their graphics for logos, packaging, etc. Personally, I thought the old logo and other graphics were great, but I will probably get used to the new look.

According to their web-site, they are expanding. That is good too.

But, to me, the best news is that they decided to make their Hop Strike Black IPA a regular member of their beer lineup. Last time I asked, the bartender I was talking to told me that it was just a seasonal and would not be around too much longer. I communicated my disapproval.  I told him that Hop Strike was the best beer they make. Apparently, he agreed and convinced the owners and / or brewers to keep it on tap permanently.  I'm sure all he had to tell them was "Hey ... Shep wants us to serve Hop Strike year-round".

Not only are they keeping the Hop Strike Black IPA as year-round brew, but they have started bottling and distributing it. Personally, I rarely buy Tommyknocker beers from a liquor store since I go to the pub so much, but it is nice to know I can get it if I want to "down here" in the metro area if I want to. And, in fact, when I saw some in the liquor store, I did grab a couple of bottles.

Yesterday, we decided to go to Idaho Springs and visit the Argo Mine and Mill. This gave me the opportunity to go to Tommyknocker and buy a hat with the "old" logo on it. Of course since we were there, we had lunch and I had a couple of beers.

Here the boys are in jail at the Argo mill.

Here the boys are at Tommyknocker Brew Pub.

Tyler thought it would be funny to steal my hat.

This is some random pirate who made his way into our house.

Sunday (after coming to terms with the fact that we had not been raptured), the Beer Model and I kegged up her Summer Lovin' American Wheat Ale. We had over 88% attenuation, which means the beer is almost 6% ABV. That is a bit higher than we were shooting for, but the sample tasted pretty much exactly how I had expected it to taste. It is light with just a touch of citrus flavor from the orange peal and coriander.

We are force-carbonating it right now at about 31 psi. Its carb level should be a bit higher than my first keg. Tracy is hoping to share this with her family when they come to visit in July. I'm a little afraid that if that is the goal, we should have brewed it a bit later. We'll see if it lasts.

Interesting / Amusing "news"

So, you may remember that I have a couple of online "news papers" at paper.li. (see news.ericshepard.com).

They are:

• The Esheppy Daily (news.ericshepard.com)
• The SheppyBrew Weekly (news.sheppybrew.com)

These "papers" are based on tweets from tweeters that I "follow" on twitter. I actually don't do much on twitter. There are automated tweets from this blog, and SheppyBrew.com, but I don't actually go to twitter much to make my own tweets or see what others are tweeting. My two online papers, however do a pretty good job of compiling things that are interesting and / or amusing to me.  The SheppyBrew Weekly is more beer-related, and the Esheppy Daily is a more general compilation of things I'm interested in (which of course also includes beer). 

For example, just today, I found out that New Belgium Brewery is looking to open a new location out East sometime later in the year. I find that very interesting. A bunch of the interesting craft brewing news that I know about is because of these papers too.

Quite often, I find out about beer blog updates from one or both of the papers. The Beer Wench, BrewGasm, and the girls from Boobs and Breweries are regular "contributors" to my papers, and I would not usually know about updates to those sites if not for my papers.

But, by far the best part of these "news papers" are some of the videos that make the "Media" section. Of course, you facebook readers will have to actually go to my blog to see these embedded (although I did post some of them on facebook recently as well).  Here are some recent good ones:

The best video I've seen in a long time is Beer Song by ElbowSkin. It made me laugh-out-loud, and I really enjoy the tune as well. This was contributed by The Wobbly Thong who is a beer blogger in Australia.


Beer Song by ElbowSkin from Alister Robbie on Vimeo.

Another LOL (for me) is Turtleneck & Chain and Michael Bolton singing about Jack Sparrow. This one might just be my screwed-up sense of humor, but I do find it hilarious for some reason. NOTE, if you are sensitive to profane language, you might want to skip this one.  I think The Beer Wench posted this one.

Breckenridge Brewery posted a few "Truth in Beervertising Commercials" that amuse me.  These are not LOL, but they are pretty funny, especially for beer geeks:

If you touch it and it's cold, then it's cold .  This is a shot at the stupid indicators on certain BMC beer bottles that tell you when your beer is cold.

I'm actually not sure how many non-beer-geeks get how stupid Miller Lite's "Tripple Hopped" advertising gimmick, is, but it has always annoyed me. Breckenridge Brewery's "Sevendruple-Hopped" commercial takes a shot at that.

 Lucky U IPA is probably the funniest shot at the macro-brew advertising.  Obviously, that is just my opinion. You might think one or more of the others is funnier.

And of course the "Gravity activated pouring." commercial is sort of a subtle shot at some of the weird things the BMC breweries are doing to their bottles to make pouring more interesting.

And this one ties all these truth in beervertising commercials together:

I have not seen these Breckenridge Brewery commercials on T.V.  I am assuming I just miss them because I rarely watch T.V. live and usually zoom through the commercials. But, I suppose they might just be youtube videos and never actually on T.V.

But, anyway, these are some of the things that come up in my "news papers".  They amuse me, so I thought I would share. Some of you probably think these are funny too.  Some of you probably don't think they are all funny. If you don't think any of these are funny, I don't think you have much of a sense of humor.

Cider Drinking and Breast Flashing

You may recall that around the beginning of March, I "brewed" a batch of Simple Hard Cider based on a couple of episodes from Basic Brewing Radio.  A couple weeks later, I reported that I had bottled the cider.

Several days ago I tried some.  It was pretty tart and dry.  I didn't get much apple flavor from it, or really much of any flavor other than "tart".  I had been stuffed up with a cold and thought I may just not have been able able to taste because I couldn't smell.   I probably should have waited from my first taste.  I did think the carbonation was about perfect, which was something I had no idea about when I bottled it.

Tonight, I was feeling better, so I decided to try another bottle. It was still tart and dry. I got a little bit of apple and just a touch of what might have been cinnamon. I guess it was whatever they spiced the "spiced cider" with.  It was ok. Not great. If you are ever visiting and what to try it, let me know. I will most likely still have some for you to try.

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I feel like I should make some sort of funny statement about the Vancouver fan who flashed Ben Eager in the penalty box last night.  Unfortunately, I've not been able to come up with something all that amusing to say.

I'm sure there are great jokes to be said about "the twins". I'm sure we can say things like "no wonder Eager spent so much time in the penalty box". I'm just not clever enough to nail those jokes. I bet you can find a bunch by going to twitter and searching for "vancouver flasher".

I've been cheering against the Canucks, mostly because they beat the Hawks in round one. But another reason I can't cheer for the Canucks is those stupid Green Guys who are always there (although they were not there last night). I guess if the team is replacing the Green Guys with the blond breast flasher, I might have to reanalyze my policy against the team.  Of course, she did get kicked out, so maybe I should not reconsider after all.

I cannot quite figure out how taking out your breasts and rubbing them against the penalty box glass in front of the opposing player communicates your dislike of that player or his team.  I assume Ben likes to look at breasts. Most guys do. I am sure he liked that view better than the upside-down back-side of a man in a green spandex body suit.

Just saying ....

by the way ... I don't own either of the photos of the Vancouver fan. I also don't have permission to use them. Yes, I am a terrible person. But to give credit where credit is due: I got the first one from 25stanley.com, the article "Ben Eager des Sharks se fait flasher par une fan des Canucks". I am not even sure where I got the second photo from. It is all over the place, so I might even be considering it public domain at this point.

For what it is worth, I took the picture of the cider, and I do own the photo. If you want to use it in your own blog, go ahead.

Beer Model Brew Day

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, this past Saturday was National Home-Brew Day , and my wife decided to help brew a wheat beer that she called Summer Lovin' American Wheat. This was the Beer Model's second brew day, and SheppyBrew's first all-grain wheat beer (BIAB).

The brew day gets started a little later when I have to wait for the Beer Model to wake up.  But, it is ok, because she is so pleasant to look at.  We pretty much shared the brewing workload, although somehow I got stuck with the clean-up.

Here are some pictures of the Beer Model and her brew day:

Filling the brew pot

Removing / draining the BIAB bag

Adding Hops

Orange Zest

Siphoning wort into carboy

The Brewing day went pretty well.  We got a bit over 5 gallons into the carboy, and it was bubbling away nicely on Sunday and Monday.  I would have preferred to get a bit more wort with a little less of the cold-break material.  I think I need to start designing my recipes to leave a bit more of the wort behind in the brew kettle.  I'm also thinking I may want to get a pre-chiller for cooling down my wort in the summer.  The wort went into the carboy at around 70, which is ok, but I prefer to get it down closer to 60.  Plus, the weather was nice and warm, but not as hot as it will get later in the summer, so cooling will just be getting more difficult as the weather gets warmer.


Another thing we did was compare beers from the newest version of Buckwheat's BPA.  This batch was an experiment where I brewed up 5 gallons of wort and split the it into 2 Mr. Beer fermentors.  In one fermentor, I pitched SafeAle US05 yeast and in the other I pitched Safbrew S33 yeast.  The idea, of course, was to see which beer the Beer Model preferred.  Personally, I tasted a little more of a subtle fruity "Belgium" character in the S33, but not enough of a difference to declare one my favorite over the other.  The Beer Model decided that she did prefer the S33, which was a bit of a surprise to me.  I am pleased with this result, though, because it means I probably picked the right yeast in the original recipe.  The fact that I picked up a little of the Belgium funk in the S33 makes me feel a bit better about calling this beer a Belgium Pale Ale as well.  I think we are done experimenting with Buckwheat's BPA.  S33 is the winner!

Newest BPA comparison

The boys built a fort in the living room during the brew day.

Fort in our living room

Summer Lovin' American Wheat looks like it will be a beautiful pale-gold color.  It should be light and refreshing with a subtle orange zest and coriander flavor.  It should be on the malty-sweet side with just a touch of honey flavor.  It will be pretty dry and relatively low in alcohol.  We are going to keg this beer, and if it lasts, share it with the Beer Model's family when they come to visit this summer.  If it does last until then, I don't expect it will last much longer.  We might have to brew it up again before the summer is over.

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!

Kegging SheppyBrew

Saturday, I finally kegged a batch of beer.

I've been brewing since early 2009, and have always just bottled my beer.  I never really minded the bottling process too much when all my batches were 2.4 gallons, but for some reason, the 5 gallon batches really pushed me over the edge, making me despise bottling days.  Cleaning and sanitizing 40 or 50 bottles and then individually filling and capping each one was starting to seem like way too much work.

So, for awhile I've been thinking about kegging.  Cleaning and sanitizing one container is much easier than doing 50.  Filling that container is pretty much just like filling the bottling bucket before.  Of course, I wouldn't have to cap all those bottles.

Kegging takes a bit of an upfront investment. The first piece of equipment on my wish list was a kegerator, so that I would have a place to keep my kegs of beer cold.  I had been on the lookout for a proper-sized mini fridge that I could convert.  I also looked at actual professionally built kegerators.  Some of the kegerators on e-bay were going inexpensive enough that when I factored in the refrigerator, conversion kit, CO² tank, CO² regulator, and other miscellaneous "stuff", the build or buy ROI was pretty much break-even.

And then, one day in early March, I placed a really low big on an ebay kegerator, expecting that there was no way I would win the thing.  But, I did win.  So, for over a month, I've had a kegerator sitting in my garage waiting for the opportunity to be used.

And, this Saturday, Fat and Stoopid Amber Ale was ready to transfer.  I stopped by my LHBS (the Brew Hut) last week to get a re-furbished corny keg and some quick-connect fittings for the gas and beer lines.  Then, I stopped by a little later in the week to get my CO² tank filled up.  Saturday morning, I started to put everything together and test the system when I decided that I did not like the clamps that came with the kegerator, so I went to home-depot at its 6AM opening time to get ones I liked better. 

I sanitized the keg with my normal star san and then pressurized the keg to run the sanitizer through the beer line and tap.  After running the sanitizer through, I simply "racked" my beer from the fermenter into the keg.

Draining the beer into the keg.

Filling the keg went smoothly.  I sealed up the keg, and pressurized it.  I purged oxygen from the head-space of the keg by opening the release valve a few times, and let the keg sit under 30 psi pressure.

Then, I had to move my kegerator from the garage to the basement.  First, though, I moved my little beer fridge from the basement up to our kitchen.  I'm not sure if that little fridge will stay there or either be moved elsewhere or sold.  The kegerator replaced my little beer fridge downstairs.

Inside the kegerator.

The kegerator.

Throughout the rest of the day, I let the kegerator temperature stabilize.  I kept playing with the CO² pressure, and eventually ended up at about 12psi and 38 to 40 degrees F.  I'll let the carbonation slowly absorb into the beer over the next few days.  Sunday while watching the mighty Blackhawks defeat the evil Vancouver Canucks, I poured myself a beer from the kegerator tap.  It was a very nice beer.  Under-carbonated as expected, but it was certainly coming along.  I expect it will be perfect in a few days.  Isn't it exciting?

I harvested the WY1272 yeast so that I have some for future brews.  I cleaned everything up.  I'm feeling pretty good about this whole kegging step that I've taken.

Harvested some yeast

There are a couple of changes I think I need to make to my setup.  My kegerator will physically fit two corny kegs, but right now, my gas line only supports a line to one keg, and I only have one serving tap.  So, I'll have to get some splitter valves from my regulator to two kegs.  I think for now, keg two will only have a picnic tap attached, and I'll open the kegerator to get beer from it, but eventually, I'll want to run a second tap out of the kegerator.

Right now, my CO² tank and regulator sits inside the kegerator.  I think I will want to set that up outside and drill a hole through so I can adjust the pressure without opening the door.  This will be especially important when there are two kegs in there.

I may eventually want a bigger CO² tank.  The one that came with the kegerator is tiny, and will have to be filled quite often (I think).  The tiny tank will probably be perfect to bring camping or to picnics or similar off-site places where I want to bring a keg of beer.

I'm also thinking of adding a tap or two to my big beer fridge, and setting it up so it can hold two or three kegs.  This is probably really far in the future, but it is something I can see myself doing eventually.

Anyway, the important part of this blog post is that SheppyBrew is now available in keg.  Pretty cool if you ask me.

3 to 4

I have not seen the Zizzer Zauzzer Zuzz in awhile. Sometimes I think about where he might be or what he might be doing, whose life he is currently trying to ruin, or why I would even be thinking about him. I can no longer breath under water or fly through the air. I don't really miss those powers, because as I mentioned way back in 2006, the situations in which those powers may turn out useful are very few and far between.  Besides, I sort of suspect that while I had those powers, my immortality was disabled, and now I am immortal once again.  Immortality is a much better power than human flight, don't you think?

The Tweedle Beetles are still around, but I don't find myself obsessing about them as much.  And, for the most part they seem to be leaving me alone.  I'm sure they are working on some nefarious plot, but what do I care?  As long as they stay away from me and mine, they don't bother me so much.  For the most part, their evil schemes were not all that damaging anyway.  I would have liked to win or place in the Breckenridge Duck Races, but losing didn't ruin my life.  Yes, the Anaheim Mighty Ducks (now known as only as the Ducks) won that Stanley Cup, but I got over it.  In fact now that the Blackhawks have actually won a championship in my lifetime, very few hockey things bother me much anymore (Red Wing players and fans excluded, of course).

Besides, I can't let those T-Beetles bother me too much.  They make a great beer.

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Ok, I was wrong.  The DAMN Tweedle Beetles made those momma-boy Sedin twins and those pansy Vancouver Canucks and the idiotic Green Spandex Men win tonight.  I would not be at all surprised to find out that the Green Spandex Men are actually Tweedle Beetles in disguise. 

Those stupid green men look evil, don't they?  Come to think of it, so does Kesler.

I hate those freeking Tweedle Beetles!!!!

Upcoming National Home-Brew Day

National Home-Brew Day is coming upon us fast.  Yep, Saturday, May 7 is the day.  Are you going to brew something?

I am.  Or more accurately, my wife and I are going to brew something.

So far, my wife (aka the SheppyBrew Beer Model) has participated in one brew day.  She helped me brew 15 Year Anniversary Amber Ale the first time.  That beer turned out fantastic.  It is one of those beers that we both like.  It is hoppy enough that I am a bit surprised that she likes it, but it is one of those beers she grabs for herself just about every weekend.  Its hop flavor / aroma comes from crystal hops, which is very similar to some of the noble hops.  It give more of a mellow, floral flavor and aroma than the citrusy American hops, so she is just not associating the beer as hoppy.  It is hoppy, just different hoppy.  I call it an amber ale hopped like a German Pilsner.

Anyway, the Beer Model thinks she wants to brew something.  She says she wants to brew something that SheppyBrew has not brewed before.  She also says she doesn't want anything dark or hoppy.  Unfortunately, all of my future to-brew-list beers are hoppy or dark or both.  Fortunately, this means we can come up with a new SheppyBrew recipe.

But, when I ask her what she would like to brew, the most I can get her to narrow it down to is "not hoppy and not dark".  I can't even get her to narrow it down to ale or lager.

So, here are some beer styles I think I would like to brew that are not hoppy and not dark in color:

• Cocoa Blonde:  Not too long ago I was at Dry Dock Brewing Company and had a blonde ale that had added cocoa nibs into the secondary fermentation.  I was very impressed and thought the Beer Model would probably enjoy it.
• Vienna Lager:  I've wanted to do a Vienna Lager for some time.  It is an Amber Ale, but I don't think it would end up darker than 15 year or Buckwheat's BPA. 
• Sam Adam's Boston Lager Clone:  I have links to several clone recipes.  We both have enjoyed many Sam Adam's in the past.  I think she'd like this beer.
• Kolsch:  Practically speaking, I'm not sure a SheppyBrew Kolsch would be much different from Wetta Blonde or Girly Berry, but this is another beer style I've been thinking about trying.  I would probably use the recipe from Brewing Classic Styles.
• Cocoa Kolsch:  A Kolsch with cocoa nibs.
• American Wheat:  Tracy loves her gateway wheat beers such as New Belgium's Sunshine Wheat.  We could add honey to make it a honey wheat or/and raspberries or/and apricots or some other girly something (maybe even cocoa nibs) to add some excitement to the American Wheat.
• Altbier:  She might think the color of an Altbier would be too dark, but she's wrong.  She would love an Altbier.  In fact, she did enjoy a few at GABF.
• California Common Beer (aka Steam Beer).  I don't know.  I just think she'd like it.
• Saison:  Who doesn't like a nice farm-house ale?
• Belgium Blonde Ale:  It's light in color and high in alcohol, what's not to like?  It might have a bit too much of the Belgium funk if we are not careful, but it is worth a try.

So, if anyone out there has a vote, or even more nominations, leave a comment.  The Beer Model gets the final say, but I'm sure she'd appreciate any help she can get making the decision.


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I also brewed a batch of Gringo Cerveza Jalapeño Cream Ale today.  It was my first official all-grain BIAB batch, and it went great.  My mashing efficiency appears to be about as good as what I was getting in the mash tun. I split this batch into 2 Mr. Beer fermenters.  I was planning on just adding jalapenos to one of the fermenters in a few days, but now I am thinking about maybe either adding the peppers to both, or maybe adding something else (green chilies maybe) to the other.  I would like to be able to try this beer on Cinco de Mayo, although I am cutting it sort of close by only brewing it today.  I guess we'll see how it goes.

My BIAB process was a little non-standard.  Typically "official" BIAB brewers try to mash with the whole boil volume plus whatever volume of water the grain should absorb.  Beer Smith had me hold back 2.16 gallons of sparge water rather than use the whole boil volume for the mash.  I had sort of assumed that this was because my pot would not be big enough for grains plus the whole 7 gallons of water, but I certainly could have fit more water in.  It might just be that Brad Smith never considered BIAB when he designed the software.  Or, maybe I did not set up my brewing equipment just right.  Anyway, I followed the directions and "sparged" by putting the grain bag in my 5 gallon gott cooler and pouring the sparge water on top.  Again, the mash efficiency seems very similar to what I was getting on my infusion mashes, so I guess it works ok as is. 

The strike temperature suggested by Beer Smith seems to have given me a mash temperature that was higher than I had intended.  I think that is fine with this beer because I was sort of thinking that extra body would not be a bad thing with this beer, but obviously, I need to try to adjust for future beers.  This might be another reason to hold back some water, so I can adjust the temp by adding boiling or frozen water after getting the original temperature reading.

But, other than the minor process note, everything went great.  I am going to keep doing the BIAB.  Almost certainly, my next brew day will be whatever my wife decides to brew on National Home-Brew Day.  I am sort of thinking a wheat beer would be a good idea, since I won't have to worry about a stuck sparge with the BIAB process.  But, whatever she wants to brew, we'll brew.

My first ever all-grain BIAB.

Next iteration of Bluefield Chocolate Ale

So, I am currently drinking a Bluefield Chocolate Ale.  I think more so than any beer I've ever created, this beer is Jekyll and Hyde to me.  There will be some nights when I think it is a wonderful treat, and there will be some nights when I question why I would ever brew such a thing.

Tonight is sort of Jeyde to me (somewhere between Jekyll and Hyde).  I'm not wild about it, but I don't think it is a complete waste of fridge space either. 

I do think its the hazelnut that most screws with me in this beer.  And usually, when I think about it, I keep thinking that peppermint would better compliment the chocolate than hazelnut.  I actually brewed a Peppermint Stout quite awhile ago (Leprechaun Stout) which I thought was a wonderful dessert beer every single time I drank a bottle.  I kept describing it in my mind and to other people as very much like girl scout thin mints (mostly virtual people, but I did actually describe it to a couple of real people like that as well).  And, it was actually a beer that I could enjoy for the beer as well.

Right now ... light-bulb ... Leprechaun Stouticus, but, that is not what this blog entry is about.

What should I do about the Bluefield Experiment?  Should I just give up?  I can't do that ... I've already got a blog label.  Should I continue to try to make a beer that my sister might possibly enjoy?  That seems like a waste, she's convinced herself that she hates beer, and so I'm doomed to failure there.  Should I start taking the experiment seriously and try to use chocolate like beer-lovers might enjoy (more of a subtle chocolate taste)?  Well, that seems like a cop-out since the whole point was trying to make a beer that Mrs. Bluefield might like.  I don't know.  Do you see my dilemma? 

Whatever I do, the next iteration of the beer has to take some things into consideration.

1. Hazelnut is just too schizophrenic in this beer for me.  I am thinking peppermint may be a better complimentary flavor to the chocolate.
2. The beer is over-carbonated, and therefore hard to pour with a reasonable amount of head.  I should carbonate to a lower level.
3. With such a lot of unsweetened cocoa, there is too much sediment in the bottom of these bottles.  I think maybe I should try to cold-crash to keep more out.  Perhaps I should condition in a secondary fermenter.  I wonder if I should investigate filtering.
4. I do not think both the lactose and the cocoa are a good idea (at least at their current levels).  The final gravity seems just too high.  (I could be wrong about this ... I don't know).

I guess the biggest question is, should I keep the cocoa at this high level (less beer-like) or should I reduce the cocoa and allow the chocolate malt to provide more of that flavor (more beer-like).

I don't know.  To be honest, it doesn't really matter at the moment, because there is no way I'm going to fit Bluefield Chocolate Ale into my brewing schedule for quite some time. At a minimum, I have to brew Gringo Cerveza, Phat and Tyred Ale, BlackHawk Black Ale, Stone Soup IDA, and Eric's Irish Red.  By the time I've done half of those, I'll have other beers I have to brew.

But, I was drinking the beer and thinking about it, so I put my thoughts down on the blog.

Go BlackHawks!!!  Red Wings Suck!!!

1st Quarter Brewing Stats

The 1st quarter of 2011 is over, which means it is time to publish another blog post in the continuing series on SheppyBrew's brewing stats (see SheppyBrew 2009 Stats, 1st Quarter Stats, 2nd Quarter Stats, 3rd Quarter Stats, SheppyBrew 2010 Stats)

So far in 2011:

• I made 8 batches of beer, which puts me on pace for 32 for the year (33 batches in 2010)
• I have made about 32 gallons of beer, which puts me on pace for 128 gallons (75 gallons in 2010)
• 2 of the batches were completely new recipes (18 were new in 2010)
• 1 batch was a lager (2 in 2010)
• All the batches were SheppyBrew recipes.
• 1 was a partial mash (9 in 2010)
• The other 7 were all-grain infusion mashes (10 were all-grain in 2010)
• My average cost per 12oz bottle per batch has been $0.54 (I did not really keep this stat for all of 2010, but the average for the 4th quarter was around $0.79). 

Note, 3 of my batches are still in the fermenter.  This is consistent to all the previous posts.  I always assign the quarter / year by date brewed.  But, that does mean my last bullet about cost per bottle is incomplete until the rest of these are bottled.

You may be wondering how my gallons can be so high compared to last year when my number of batches so far this year is tracking to be down a bit.  Part of the answer is that I've made 3 double Mr. Beer-sized batches.  I also purchased a 6 gallon carboy in which I've brewed two beers (Stouticus American Stout and Fat and Stoopid Amber Ale).  So, my batch sizes are mostly twice as big as they all were last year.

Actually, Rocktoberfest Lager is the only one that was truly a Mr. Beer-sized batch this year.  I am considering a double batch of Buckwheat's BPA as two batches because half the batch is fermenting with Fermentis US05 and the other half is fermenting with S33, so they are actually two separate beers.  You may recall that I did a similar experiment last year comparing S33 with T58.  These two batches are still in their fermenters.  I should be bottling them up soon and will probably let you know how they seem to compare.

So far, I do like doing the bigger batches, especially in the new carboy.  The only part I don't like is the longer bottling days with the big batches.  I have decided to start kegging some of my beers.  I've even taken the step of purchasing a Kegerator from ebay, and my batch of Fat and Stoopid Amber Ale may be the first of my beers that I put in a 5 gallon keg.

As I discussed in "BIAB for me?", Fat and Stoopid Amber Ale started out to be another batch of my world famous Phat and Tyred Ale, but I ran into issues.  Partially because of those issues and partially because my mash tun is simply too small to effectively make "big" batches of all my favorite recipes, I am thinking of moving to BIAB batches.  In fact, I am planning on making my next batch BIAB.  It will probably be a Gringo Cerveza Jalapeño Cream Ale for Cinco de Mayo.  I think this will be another batch that I split into 2 Mr. Beer fermenters.  I plan to add jalapeños in one fermenter and leave the other as just a regular old lawn-mower type beer.

In SheppyBrew 2010 Stats, in the "expectations" section I said:

  "I think I'll brew about the same amount or maybe even less.  I'm thinking that I'll concentrate more on my favorites and thus have a bit less variety as well."

At the moment, it doesn't look like I'm brewing less, but I have been concentrating on brewing my favorites.  As I mentioned, only two of my batches were new recipes, and Fat and Stoopid was intended to be Phat and Tyred.  I do think I'll slow down eventually.  I can't drink too much more beer, and I am about maxed out on storage space.

I also said:

"I may or may not let more people try my beers."

In fact, just this past Friday, I brought in 40 bottles of Stouticus to share with my co-workers, so assuming most of them actually take some, I think that will already be more people than have had SheppyBrew beers so far.

I also said:

"I probably will do real 5 gallon batches.  Even if I don't get a 5-gallon fermenter, there will probably be more big batches split into two Mr. Beer fermenters."

Well obviously, I did buy a 6 gallon carboy and have split big batches into 2 Mr. Beer fermenters as well.

I also mentioned:

I would love to get into kegging my beers, but I do not know if that will happen.

Well, it does look like that will actually start happening pretty soon.

So, what's next for SheppyBrew nano-brewery?  Well, I already told you, but just as a reminder: I'll keg some of my beers and I will experiment with (and maybe switch to) BIAB all-grain brewing.

So, there is your SheppyBrew update.  I know no one but me really cares about this stuff.  That's ok, because no one else really reads the blog.  If you want to read something more interesting, try here or here.

Vacation Videos

Here are some videos from spring break.  I apologize again to those of you with slow internet connections.  This will probably take a long time to load.  For those of you reading on facebook, you will have to go to my blog to see these videos.

The first video is of the Shepard boys playing in and around the ocean (the two little Shepard boys had never been in or around the ocean until this trip)

 The next few are the little ones playing in the sand.

 A little crab that Tyler found on the beach.

A ride at Lego Land

Another ride at Lego Land.

And here is an absolutely fantastic video of my wife's foot.

Arrogant Bastard

While in San Diego for spring break, I had dinner with a friend from high school.  He is also a home-brewer / beer geek and happens to live in the same town as Stone Brewery, home of Arrogant Bastard Ale (as well as several other great beers).

I've talked about Arrogant Bastard before.  What I had back then was the Oaked version, and I have to say that I enjoyed the Arrogant Bastard that I had fresh from the tap at Stone better than I did the one I had back in July.  I suspect that both the freshness and the oak flavor before contributed to me liking it better this time.  It was awesome.

I love the description on the back of the bottle:

"This is an aggressive ale. You probably won’t like it. It is quite doubtful that you have the taste or sophistication to be able to appreciate an ale of this quality and depth. We would suggest that you stick to safer and more familiar territory–maybe something with a multi-million dollar ad campaign aimed at convincing you it’s made in a little brewery, or one that implies that their tasteless fizzy yellow beverage will give you more sex appeal. Perhaps you think multi-million dollar ad campaigns make things taste better. Perhaps you’re mouthing your words as you read this. "

"At Stone Brewing, we believe that pandering to the lowest common denominator represents the height of tyranny - a virtual form of keeping the consumer barefoot and stupid. Brought forth upon an unsuspecting public in 1997, Arrogant Bastard Ale openly challenged the tyrannical overlords who were brazenly attempting to keep Americans chained in the shackles of poor taste. As the progenitor of its style, Arrogant Bastard Ale has reveled in its unprecedented and uncompromising celebration of intensity. There have been many nods to Arrogant Bastard Ale…even outright attempts to copy it… but only one can ever embody the true nature of liquid Arrogance!"

I copied that text from Stone's web-site, and it seems like an awful lot to put on a bottle.  I know the sentiments on the bottle are the same, but it might have different (shorter) wording.

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Here is an Arrogant Bastard Clone recipe that I got from The Brewing Network's Jamil Show:  Can you Brew it Arrogant Bastard Re-Brew.

OG:  1.066
94.8 IBU
22.5 SRM

90% pale 2 row
10% special B

24g Chinook 85 min
24g Chinook 45 min
24g Chinook 15 min
24g Chinook 0 min

WLP 007 Dry English Ale

148 degrees mash

Everyone except Tasty (who actually brewed it) voted it was cloned.  They pretty much decided to take that recipe and pasteurize it to see if that makes a difference.  Personally, if I brew it, this recipe is good enough for me.