Browar Grand Imperial Porter, and a soft shelled egg..

Had this beer with Uncle Jack last night,

..and was sorta underwhelmed. It's a porter, so I knew I had a tough win ahead of me, but it was an Imperial Porter, so I thought maybe that would help matters.. and it did, but not enough to sway me. It was a good flavor, overall, but a bit too sweet for me to really love it. That's my hangup with Porters, really.. I'm not a fan of the sweetness they usually exhibit over a Stout of the same ballpark. Porters don't usually have that Roast aspect, which assists in the bitterness perception you get while drinking them, helping to balance out matters. So, there it is.. one mans opinion.

In other news, one of my chickens, not sure which one, laid a soft shelled egg this morning. Broke in the nest box as it was ejected, appaently.. had to clean out the box, but otherwise, no harm, no fowl. ;-) NEXT!!

A real, honest to goodness black & tan?

Check this out:

Holy cow! That's the first one of those I've been able to pull off, like, ever. The flavor was right, too, getting all the Rye Stout first before slowly blending into the ESB underneath. Cool. I wil probably never do this again.. I'm not a big Black & Tan drinker.. I guess I was just bored at the time. :)

Last week, I went down to Timmay's house for the big Dopple Bock Off he was having. It was  fairly private party, with just me and him attending. :) We had a few Dopplebocks, a Thomas Hooker model from his keg, a Fort Collins variety, and the AndyGator, which, as it turned out, was actually a hybrid Dopple MaiBock.. so, it was pale, not dark. Still, we held no grudge and drank it anyway.  The T.H. beer was the clear winner.. far and above, in my book. I enjoyed the Fort Collins, but it didn't have the huge plum and wicked big caramel flavor the T.H. bock did, and that's what I really enjoyed about it. The AndyGator was good as well, but you can't really compare these other two beers to this one.. just radically different styles.

I'm glad Thomas Hooker's beer won this comparo, as it's good to have a local brewery really shine.. it's good to have a great local brewery. I root for T.H. to continue to rock on..

Here's a pic of the AndyGator and Fort Collins labels..

Here's me and the Timmay enjoying the MaiBock and some cheese, and..

Speaking of cheese, here's a bit of the cheeses we had:

That's my Jalapeno cheddar there in the back left, some kind of spreadable soft blue cheese on the left front, and a smoked Gouda there in the front on the right. The Cheddar was sorta mild.. needs more time in the wax to really develop more. The smoked Gouda was nice.. the Blue wasn't bad, but  I like my Blue's firmer and a little tangier and funkier. This was a good entry Blue, though.. hit up the Timmay for further details on who makes that and where to get it.

In chicken news, today I got another three eggs from the girls. That's the second day in a row for three eggs..  think the other Red just started laying. The second Barred Rock still looks really small and pale, and there's another Red straggler, of course.. but hey, three a day is good for me. Show's they're healthy and in good spirits.

ESB down! Thomas Hooker trip, over! Eggs galore!

Took a Saturday afternoon trip to the Thomas Hooker open house yesterday with Jer and Jody.. had a fine time, indeed. I'm not sure I agree where they're going/have gone with the Oktoberfest, but the Munich took a different change as well, and I rather preferred that version. Jody says, of the Oktoberfest "It's like a little version of the Nor'easter".. and I agree. Since I'm not a big fan of spiced beers, no wonder it didn't totally agree with me. The IPA was on last night, though, and the Blonde was, well.. on tap. Neither great nor terrible. Still, it's always worth the trip to that place.. I like it.

Another pic worth a thousand words:

..which means the ESB I did with Pete W. has been nuked from orbit. In it's place, whihc actually may already e cold and carbed from the extended time it spend waiting it's turn in the keg.. is a fancy little Pale Ale called the Challenger Special, so named from it's use of Challenger hops from beginning to end. Clocking in at a mere 4.5%, it's a session beer.. something I'm rather happy about having.

In chicken news, this morning has produced yet another two eggs from my two good producers, making this the 4th day in a row I've gotten two eggs from them. Nice job, ladies! They're tasty little buggers, with the key word on "little".. Jeremiah brought up a dozen of his chicks Large eggs, and.. to say they dwarfed my chicks eggs is an understatement. Here, have a look:

And heck, that's the second LARGEST egg I've gotten from my flock so far, and I'm not sure that Jer's chicken egg is actually the biggest in the box he brought. It weighs about 40% more than the average of any of our eggs, easily. 

Speaking of chickens, boy, do they like yogurt! One of the kids didn't quite finish up her bowl of 'ghurt this a.m., so the chicks got to experience that for the first time today.. went CrAzY about it.

Speaking of yogurt.. ;-) ..been thinking about giving some yoghurt making a try, too. It's sort of like cheese, I'm told, but possibly a lot easier. I'm still looking into it, but you gotta figure you can save a few bucks making the stuff if the Stoneyfield Farms product you're currently buying is $4 a quart and your kids eat it like it's going out of style. We'll see where that goes, eh? I *love* yogurt, but feel bad when I eat it cause, a) it costs a lot b) I like to eat lots and lots of it, and c) when I eat lots of it, there's less for my babies to eat. And, I'd rather they ate the stuff then me, cause it's better for them than other crappy stuff in the cupboards.

Oh yeah, this beer... Allagash Dubbel Reserve.

Totally forgot to post about this one back when it was current, and now I forget most of the details. But, yeah.. me and Will drank this one after we got back from Willimantic Brewery. Allagash Dubbel Reserve. I think I served it too cold, so it was a bit off from the start, but even after it warmed up a bit, was still not like the really rich, whipped cream like Dubels' I've had in the past that I've enjoyed immensely. It was OK, don't get me wrong.. but I'm not buying another.

Also, did a little experiment with the espresso machine and steamed up some milk and atttempted to pour a latte style pattern on this hot chocolate for one of my sick babies... it didn't turn out pretty, but it sure tasted a heckuva lot better than a standaard hot chocolate! It was REALLY tasty.

In chicken news, today marks the first time both of my layers have fired off back to back eggs. Two yesterday, and two more today. Good job, girls!

Willimantic with Will.. and the BIG egg!

Took alittle trip with Will Siss "The Beer Snob" last saturday, and was truly shocked by what happened when we arrived. Get this, with photogaphic evidence..

On arrival, we ordered a beer.. here's a shot of me looking dapper as usual:

But Will only ordered a *half* pint.. here's evidence of that (a Redhook Nitro Porter, if I'm not mistaken..):

From there, I ordered the following sampler:

The best beer of the bunch, was easily the Three Cents Pale Ale. Lots of hops, great balanced bitterness, un-filtered. Really excellent, all around. I could easily have drank a couple or three pints of that in a row.. really drinkable beer. Not a big one, either.. not quite a session beer, but darned close. I was a little let down by the Double IPA.. and the Harvest Ale fell a little shirt as well. The Oktoberfest was awesome, though.. and the Stout in the middle is escaping me for now. Apparently, it was forgettable.

..but Will, on the other hand, ordered water! Here's the shocking evidence caught on film!:

This is big news. This expose is really going to rock the beer world, I know... but I felt it needed to get out. Always in search of the truth!

In other news, check this:

Oh, snap! That's a 63.3 gram egg! Just found that beauty, along with the other average (for them, so far..) sized egg not on the scale, in the coop this morning. That egg makes the first for one of my girls in the Large class. All of them, so far, were in the "PeeWee" category, i.e. under 15 ounces per dozen.. this one is nearly 1/3 larger than their normal egg average so far. Time for breakfast! :)

Oh snap! Breaking news! This just in:

So that's the reason why it was so big and heavy... a double yolker! Just the one on the left, kids.. the one on the right was one of their previous 42 gram beauties. They've both just been assimilated as my breakfast about 2 minutes ago, and were tasty indeed!

Eggs and Imperials..

Somebody in the hen house fired off another egg this morning.. not sure who, though. It's on the small side, at 42 grams.. I'm not sure it was the Barred Rock who layed the other day.. but it might be. That makes her on a less-than every other day cycle already. Good times! Today is the ON day for my R.I. Red, if she's gonna stay consistent. Fingers crossed..

In other news, I drank this beer:

last night with [Person's name withheld to protect the innocent]. Heh... me and [Person's name withheld to protect the innocent] also had a few "virtual beers" with both Timmay and Pete W. via Skype, making for a bigger party than originally planned, and neither Timmay or Pete had to drive home when we were done. In retrospect tho, it sure seemed like Timmay might have needed a hand getting up the stairs to his bed at the end, there.. 

In any case, on sale for $2.99 a Bomber at The Depot, this creation was a great beer! Eel River's 'Raven's Eye' Imperial Stout. 9.5% on the scale, it also clocked in with *huge* coffee/chocolate cake flavor. Big body for this thing, and went down a lot smoother than one might expect for a big beer. I quite enjoyed it, and would recommend it to the masses. Strangely too, it is labeled as certified organic, making it possibly the first organic beer I have ever really enjoyed.

I'm not sure if I've ever posted this before, but, as a general rule, organic beers suck. Organic anything is all fine and well for the planet, and I dig the idea.. but in general, I find organic stuff lacking in the distinct flavors I expect from non-organic beers. I'm not sure this qulaifies for stuff that isn't beer, but I'm no expect on lettuce or chives to say for sure wether that makes a difference in that particular ballpark. But yeah, as far as beer goes, organic has not impressd me.. until now.

Carry on.. nothing to see here.

Another chicken laying!

Yessss!!!

Heard a lot of commotion out inthe henhouse a few minutes ago.. when I went to check, I found the Barred Rock just climbing out of the nest box. Inside, I found a TINY little very warm egg, having just been fired off by said Barred Rock, and a much cooler one, that was apparently shot out a few hours ago (see previous post..) by the R.I. Red. Great! The R.I. Red egg is the biggest yet at 47.6 gram and the little Barred Rock egg checks in at just over 34 grams. That makes the Rock egg a PeeWee class, but the Red egg just squeaks into the Small category! We're getting there! Both chickens should eventually lay Medium and Large size eggs, when they're fully grown.

Here's how I found them, just after the Rock climbed out of the box..

Here's the two side by side:

And here's a size comparson with my thumb. Tiny!

 

Good times!