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.

Record Smecord

Remember I told you that May was going to break this blog's "page views" record for any month? (see Record Breaking if you need to refresh your memory)

Well, May did break the record. It blew away the previous record 1383 to 1008. That 1008 page view record had held since September of last year.

As it turns out, June blew away May's record 1950 to 1383. July might break June's record. It will be close, but even if not, it blew away May as well. July's page view count is already at 1832 with a few days left to go. I'm wondering if the blog is starting a new trend or if the page views will return to the level of a couple of months ago. I guess we'll have to see.

This picture is not related to the topic of this post. I just felt it needed some picture.

In May, I had Cider Drinking and Breast Flashing to thank for increased views. I cannot attribute any one blog post in June or July for any increase in traffic, although people liked looking at my Fermentation Video in June. Readers also seemed pretty interested that I Got my G.A.B.F. Tickets and that I'm Moving on to 2011 Best Beers List. Women and Beer came on pretty strong at the end of July. Also, for whatever reason, our trip to Geneva Park Campground last August got quite a bit of interest lately. I still don't get very many comments, although I have gotten a few more than usual over the past few days.

Anyway, I'm sure no one cares, but I don't really have anything that exciting to share with you at the moment.

Phat & Tyred Brew day

Seems like forever since I've brewed beer, but today I brewed up a batch of my world famous Phat & Tyred Amber Ale. This is my first 5 gallon batch of the P&T beer. It is also the first time I've tried my modified BIAB process.

My modified BIAB process is basically using a nylon bag inside a 10 gallon gott cooler. I used no sparge, and I got all my boil volume from the mash itself.

Grains ready for the strike water

Beer Smith gave me a strike water volume of almost 8 gallons at a temperature of 161F. Just in case you were wondering, 8 gallons of water is pretty heavy. 8 gallons of hot water is probably pretty dangerous, so if you are going to copy this process, you might want to be careful. I wasn't, but I'm not that bright. Plus, I lead a Semi Charmed Kind of Life, so I won't get hurt. You might.

Women and Beer

Remember back in March of 2010 I mentioned that I had been surprised to find two women working in my local home brew shop (LHBS)? If not, feel free to review at  "My LHBS's".

Now-a-days, I see a lot more women in the LHBS's. Not only do my two main shops employ women, but I see more that seem to be there shopping for brewing ingredients rather than just tagging along with their husbands or boyfriends. Heck, even the Beer Model has brewed a couple of batches of beer, so I see at least one female home-brewer every day.

I would also say that women make up a decent percentage of craft "Beer Geeks". I think of the beer bloggers that I follow, at least half are women. And I think that a higher percentage of women who say they are beer drinkers tend to drink craft beer than do men who say they are beer drinkers.

From 26 Highly Suggestive Beer Ads

And yet, BMC (Bud/Miller/Coors) breweries continue to act as if women don't drink beer. Worse, they act like women CANNOT like beer. Remember my blog post "Beer Ads"? I commented on sexist beer ads and how I'm not sure they actually sell beer like they should. I made this observation after reading an article in which "The Beer Wench" had been complaining about the sexist nature of beer advertisements from large breweries. Personally, as a male chauvinist pig, I have no problem with the sexist nature of the beer ads. I just don't think they are effective at selling beer. I can understand that female consumers might not be too happy about these ads. The Wench is not the only beer blogger I've seen make the same point. Unfortunately, I didn't save the links to any of the other articles. Trust me, though, most women beer geeks don't appreciate seeing sexist beer ads.

Helpful #HomeBrew Thieves

My wife's family visited this past weekend.

They came in last Thursday night and then we spent the weekend (Friday thru Monday) up in Breckenridge.

I wanted them to help me reduce my SheppyBrew inventory, and they did. Boy did they help.

I started them off with some Summer Lovin' American Wheat in hopes that they would help me kill that keg so that I could have an empty one (see below for why it was important to have an empty keg). After awhile Thursday night, though, they wanted to try some other beers, and of course I let them.

Tracy's dad seemed to really enjoy both the Gringo Cerveza Cream Ale and the Gringo Cerveza Jalapeño Cream Ale. He is certainly not a craft-beer drinker, and I was not surprised at all that the Cream Ale would be his favorite. I am a bit surprised that he like the Jalapeño beer, though.

The newest brother-in-law tried a bunch of different kinds. The one he seemed to like the most was 15 Year Anniversary Amber Ale. He told me that ambers are his favorite. I suppose he probably would have been a fan of Phat & Tyred Amber Ale, but I didn't have any to offer him.

The older brother-in-law (older than the newer b-i-l ... not older than I am) also tried a bunch. He was a real big fan of the Fox Sox Knox Rye Pale Ale and the TommyHawk APA. He especially enjoyed the dry-hopped version of the TommyHawk, which was my favorite of the evening. I thought both those beers were tasting particularly delicious that night as well.

Tracy's youngest sister is pregnant, so didn't have much. She did have a few sips here and there and made some very complimentary comments.

The middle sister isn't much of a beer fan but did seem to like Summer Lovin' American Wheat and Buckwheat's Belgium Pale Ale.

I brought the rest of the keg up to Breckenridge. It emptied early Friday afternoon. This makes me very happy.

I let youngest sister take some beer home to one of my virtual beer friends. Hopefully next time I see her, she will be able to obtain some of his for me to try.

The SheppyBrew inventory is much lower than it was before the in-laws came to visit. In fact, it is lower than it has been in a long time. This is good in that I now can brew again. Sadly, we wiped out 15 Year Anniversary Amber Ale and Fox Sox Knox Rye Pale Ale. I'll certainly have to brew those again.

Can't wait to work on my pipeline again.

So, why did I want to have an empty keg? The last beer I made and kegged was Quarter Life Crisis Hoppy Red Ale. I dry hop this beer, and this time I decided to try dry hopping without using any kind of hop sack. Then, I didn't cold-crash and probably was not as careful as I should be to leave behind the bottom hop matter when I transferred from the carboy into the corny. Anyway, I ended up with enough hop matter in the keg that my poppet valve on the beer-out side was clogged up and the keg did not dispense beer.

The only thing I could think of to rectify the situation was to move the QLC into another keg, but at the time, my only other keg was full of Summer Lovin' Wheat. I would have bought another keg, but at the moment, used corny kegs are pretty expensive, plus I knew that the Beer Model's family was coming and that they have been known to consume a fair amount of beer when with me.

Tonight, I sanitized the empty keg and siphoned beer from the full keg to the empty one. I left a couple of liters of the QLC behind just to try to keep as much of the hop matter out of the new keg. I didn't waste it, though, I transferred some of that into a pint glass and the rest into a growler. I drank the pint glass and the growler is still in my fridge.

The new keg of QLC has been pressurized and is in the keggerator. I just poured myself about 10oz, and it does flow. It also tastes very good.

I guess the SheppyBrew Brew Master will consider this a learning experience. I'll be using hop sacks for dry-hopping and/or making sure I cold crash and/or be careful transferring dry-hopped beers into kegs. All's well that ends well, but I don't want to make this same mistake again.

Next brew day for SheppyBrew:  Phat & Tyred Amber Ale.