Hop shipment, and a hike with the kids...

The big hop shipment came in yesterday afternoon.. 23lbs of pure joy. Check it:

This is the 27lb box it came packed in..

This is Timmay, huffing a just opened 5lb bag of Amarillo, so we could get out his 1lb amount that he ordered.

This is how the individual bags of 1lb increments came packaged. the foil is awesome stuff.. nicer than the plastic vac bags me and Pete got a few years back when we last ordered.

Switching gears, this is me and the kids on a picnic hike through the Henry Buck trail inthe American LEgion state forest in Barkhamsted, here.. nice trail, but probably a little tough for a 5 year old.. and tough on the dad who has to start carrying them on his back about 2/3rds of the way through the hike.

This is a big rock:

This was named "The Troll Bridge with No Trolls"... because, well, there were no Trolls!

And this paddle was a nice find, stuck in a swirly bit f water at the rivers edge on the way back to the car. It's gonna be a mash paddle, after I trim it up a bit. The current paddle I have is just a hair too short.. this one will work quite nice as a replacement!

In other beer news, that darned Belgian Stout is *still* fermenting hard core downstairs. How is this possible? It's been going for days now.. sure is gonna be tasty though, I can tell that much already just by the smell of it. The "Delta" Wheat aka Jess's Mean 40th (that I brewed with Pete W. a few weeks back) is also online and ready, and tastes like a million bucks! Real tasting notes in a couple days when it settles just a bit more, but I had my first glass yesterday and it was quite good.

Chickens are still doing well. Starting to move the tractor around the yard now that the grass is beginning to grow a bit. We also started to put in some raised garden beds in the back yard, but I haven't taken any pics of those yet. Stand by and I'll get some of that online in just a few..

Tantrums and a few new brews (Harpoon 100bbl Oyster Stout & Choklat)...

Here's a pic of the few beers me and a few others shared on that Irish day.. what's it called? Anyway..

Actually, looking at it, that Hop Stoopid ain't new to me. Good beer, just not new. There's a review here somewhere on it.. the Harpoon Island Creek Oyster Stout was fairly unremarkable except that it includes oyster juice or something. Me and Jody split this one while brewing up the new Belgian Stout that's in primary right now.. next to it's little brother, the same base wort fermented with Jolly Pumpkin's Bam Bier yeast scavenged from the bottom of a bottle of that beer. Stand by for a sec on that.. Geting back to the Harpoon beer, me and Jody both couldn't get much exemplary out of it except that we both remarked that it tasted "mineral-ly" if that's even a word. Well, it does. And that's about all I can muster on this one.. it was pretty plain. Not that it was bad, cause it wasn't.. it was a solid beer as far as stouts go, but I'm not sure this really stands out for a 100bbl series beer. Hey, just one mans opinion!

That Choklat, however.. hmmmm. Now that's a beer! This is an 11% monster that is disguised as chocolate milk. I'm serious, this thing tastes dead nuts like chocolate milk! It hides the alcohol like a ninja and hides behind a wicked tasty milk chocolate flavor.. and a darned good one at that! This one has huge ratings on Beer Advocate, I see now.. and for good reason. It's a nice treat. I'm not sure I could drink more than one of these in a sitting.. maybe, but not sure. It's so peculiar a flavor for a *beer* (this is a beer, right??), that's it really puzzling to wrap your head around. There's really nothing "stout" about it.. except that it's a legit stout. Say Wha? More interesting is how they packaged a thing like this together and got those flavors out of these base ingredients.. really a testament to what you can do with beer and have have it come out tasting so unlike a beer. Man, I gotta get out of this review, because it's so bizarre, but then.. so is this beer. Go get one, drink it and see if you're not as confused as I am!

And, just to save this for future blackmail use, this awesome clip is a tantrum Lynda threw the other day when her momma told her she couldn't wear rubber rain boots without socks, or just needed to put on some sandals to go outside. Totally awesome stuff. I only grabbed 45 seconds of this tirade, but it went on for some time.. really excellent stuff!



That's all for now.. carry on.