American Homebrewers Association Conference 2011

Just got back from the A.H.A. conference in San Diego, California the other day.. it was quite an event. If you're not familiar, the American Homebrewers Association is *the* biggest and only homebrewers conference of it's kind. Nearly 2,000 people attended this thing this year. Not sure if it out does the GABF festival I'm so fond of, but it was very informative. Here's a few pics from the four days I was out there..

The Tiki pavilion draft system, designed for the A.H.A. conference. 

Just *some* of the beers being poured at the Brewing Network festival party on Wednesday..

The 'Ale Camino" Beer Utility Vehicle, with 350 IBU's of power.

Ron Jeffries from Jolly Pumpkin, pouring me a beer. 

Gary Glass and John Palmer, legends. 

Dan Gordon of Gordon Biersch showed up with a few bottles to share at one of the seminars..

That's a 9 tap Randall system. Sheesh.. 

These are the beers that didn't get drank from the judging. There were hundreds..

Yeah, it was quite a thing. Coming to Penn in 2013, as we heard.. might see you there.

NYC and related things..

So, we took a tiny trip into NY City this weekend.. Friday evening to Sunday afternoon, in fact. Something to do with a 10th anniversary of something or another. Spent a couple nights in a fancy hotel and saw some sights. This post is a bit picture heavy, so I'm going to clump some of them together for sake of brevity, but our trip was great. I'm not going to post about everything, but we did do lots of stuff that I was really looking forward to. The major things to get done was a 'Voyage of the IPA's' boat trip/beer fest on the Clipper City, a concert where we got to see The XX, The Bodies exhibit, and then everything else was just funny stuff we figured we'd try out while we were in there. This is a view out of the room where we stayed, and you can see from 5 floors up we have a nice view of the skyline and a small slice of Times Square was also visible, if I had been facing in the other direction when I pulled the trigger on this one. 

Here I am sipping an espresso at Abraço espresso in the East Village area. The espresso was awesome. The 'drip coffee' was well done, but not out of this world. It must have been a blend of some type, but was not identified as to what. It was prepared on a row of Hario V60's lined up on one of those multi-level shelves what hold the ceramic drippers above the cups you're dripping the coffee into. I forget what you call 'em right now.. but it was those things. I enjoyed it all quite a bit, but the place is so small, and apparently so popular, it took a while to get my order.. I still prefer Grumpy's, then, as I enjoy S.O. coffee over espresso still and Grumpy's has a much larger (nay, any, actually..) selection. And hey, they have Clover's, which are still fascinating to me.

After coffee, we hit up the Bodies exhibit at the seaport, but we can't take pictures there.. so, no pics. But honestly, it wasn't gross at all. There were no floating brains in buckets to see there.. the brains were all properly secured. Quite interesting, still.

This is me and The Boss at Jeremy's Ale house, at the harbor area, just before we got on our boat. That's Sa and her truly ghetto/huge Hard Cider in a 32oz styrofoam cup. Sweet. The draft line is below that, displaying a few of a truly generous selection of bra's, which hung by the hundreds from the ceiling at this place. Do not ask why, as we were there during the daylight hours, and it was fairly tame inside, still. And finally, me, with my Mothers Milk, Milk Stout. 16oz only, thanks.

Then, we got on the "Voyage of the IPA's" cruise for two hours, which was truly more magnificent than I originally had any idea that it would be. It was more like a beer fest, on a fantastic ship, that had no beer lines at all to stand in, with a good selection of only the best IPA's from the area. And, we got so close to the Statue of Liberty, we could have nearly reached out and touched 'er. Here's a bunch of those pics:

Some guys, loading the kegs..

Raising the Brooklyn flag..

"I'm the king of the world!!" Sorta..

If you're a fan of Garret Oliver, here's a couple pics of him. He was the ringleader of the show, and I cannot tell you how really personable and friendly this fellow actually is.  Really an approachable guy and a funny bugger to boot. And his pants rocked! He and Sarah talked fashion for a bit while I was getting a different brew up front, or so I'm told.. heh.

He continually referred to himself as "Captain Garret" and advised he would use his position of power to get immediately to the bar to obtain any beer he needed, if it came to a point where lines actually formed. Fortunately for the rest of us, that never became an issue. Funny guy!

Here's that statue I mentioned prior, as well.. we damn near pulled right up along side of it. Great tour, this was. I'd highly recommend it to anyone.

This, sadly, is the best pic we got of the xx concert. Sad, like I said. But the concert itself was really nice. Well done, and we enjoyed it quite a bit.

There was lots more we did too, but didn't get pics of everything. Some of it was small stuff that I just have always wanted to check out, like the big library in NY.. I've always wanted to see what that was like inside. It's cavernous. I *did* get lost. I've also always wanted to sit in Bryant Park, my favorite park in NY, and just sip a coffee and read a couple chapters of a book, and so we did that Sunday morning. Also, breakfast outside on the sidewalk at this place down the street from our hotel was also fun, and something I needed to do as well. And it was beautiful, and I'll probably remember all of it in great detail until at least past tomorrow or Wednesday. :) Quite fun, and I'd even do it all over again.. maybe in another 10 years?

Carry on..

Big brewin'

Here's a couple pics of me hanging out in the mashtun and boil kettle and stuff after joining my pal Timmay for a day of big boy brewing in a commercial environment. Timmay works at Cambridge Brew House, if you're not in the know, as the head brewer. He recently took over this joint from the last brewer and is already turning things around there. He took further steps to assure greatness in the finished beer by having me join him the other week, where we brewed up an Octoberfest for the upcoming Fall season. Check some of this out:

We did some milling of grains first, lofting up a few hundred lbs of grains on our shoulders and feeding them into a two stage, one pass, grain mill. That was easy enough.. went through right quick.

Here's me stirrin' the mash in the big tun after the grains were milled up. Yep, they still do it the old fashioned way here.. and that's pretty typical for a lot of brew pubs. Nothing fancy except some generally hard work with a big paddle for this step.

After that, we did some runoff of the wort into the kettle, and then it was time to clean out the spent grains from the mashtun. Dig it:

Me, just shoveling. All went into some big bins and then a farmer from New Hartford came to scoop it up from up to feed to some cows. Lucky cows.

Then, some interior detail work on the same tun:

This shot is taken from the side hatch, looking up out the top of the hatchway where in the first pic I was stirring. That thing I'm polishing there is the spray head thingy, where the hot water comes down out of to spray onto the grain bed to rinse the sugers down into the kettle.

And finally, me, peeking my head out the top of the boil kettle.. didn't get any shots of the interior of this while I was there, but I was able to crawl right in and check the thing out from the inside. Interesting, and slightly claustrophobic experience!

I loved it. It was a great time and very enlightening. The equipment is interesting, configurable, and quite flexible in its operation. Really neat stuff.

Some day..

Till then, carry on..

Vacation and garden updates..

Just got back from vacation.. 7 days, end to end, but felt like a month. That's what happens when you spend a lot of time on the beach.. things just slow to a crawl. We ate well, and I put on 3 lbs as a result. Sweet. This is what I did, mostly, during the week:

Read. Went through 4 books.. well, 3.5, but I got well into the 4th, so I'll call it OK. As you can see, I'm sportin' my brew gear while away from my brewery. Missed it, yep. I believe I'm brewing with Commando Savvas next week, so we'll be back in the saddle again in just a bit. 

Here's what the kids did while on vacation:

They were really getting the hang of it all by the end of the week. Cessy could really ride  wave in for about 20 feet or so, which is pretty good for being as close to the shore as they have to be. 

Here's my beer fridge for the week. Two kegs, both pale ales, but slightly different from one another.. there's also some singles in there from the lower shelf at the homestead, as well as a few comercial examples. And no, that's not my rum.

Also hit up the Tun Tavern this year, like last year, but didn't get to hang with the brewer this time. Also, I really missed the Berliner Weisse this year that they had last time around, but the rest of the beers were all really solid. I never have any complaints at that place. Recommended!

Here's a bunch of garden pics I just shot as well..

Mint, gettin' huge..

The Global Bucket. This plant has had a hard life so far, but it's still growing fruit. It's ow bent over and growing along the railing, but al the fruits on it are in good shape. We'll keep an eye on it.

Here' those Habaneros in the Earthbox. Still, clearly out of control. Over 40 peppers per plant. Anyone need any?

This is my first tomato that's changing color. It's on the right hand side plant that's in the big container. I never thought these guys were gonna make anything worthwhile, since they all keep end rotting.. but maybe we're gona get one after all.

The hops are kinda small this year, but doing well, and the display on this funny trellis is really quite attractive. I like it.

These Roma's in the raised bed I guess are the determinate type after all, and they're all comin' up great now. Got some good red ones on there that I hope to make into sauce pretty soon.. there already was one that fell right off on it's own and it got chopped up and put on a salad for someone already. These are the types I'm gonna grow all on the deck next year in the Global Buckets that are supposed to be really good for sauces. 

Here's those Turnips that, I dare say, might actually *do* something. They survived the multi disaster stuff that happened a few weeks ago (because whatever was eating stuff didn't wanna eat *this* stuff). Because these guys are so hard core, I will be doing something with them to make them edible. I don't know a thing about turnips yet, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there. There's a couple of surviving green and red lettuce plants in there as well, and those will totally get all ate up. Garden security will be a much higher priority next year, having learned what I did this time around. 

And lastly, a mellon that Barbie dragged off the vine a bit too early. We cut it open anyway, and glad we did, cause it was perfectly fine inside. The kids *loved* it. 

Garden update and Avalon pale ale..

Seems like forever since I've posted here.. but.. only 5-6 days, I guess. In any case, brewed a 12+ gallon batch of Avalon Pale Ale the other day.. this is the beer that goes with me to Avalon, NJ each year to quench the thirsts of the beachgoers on our big family vacation. Last year, one keg wasn't enough, so I made another one.. granted, one is a mini-keg, but still, there's two of 'em. Right now, that beer looks like this:

Nice decoration, isn't it? Fermentation is over, but it still touched ~80 at it's peak.. swamp cooler keg-in-bucket setup or not. We'll see soon enough what sorts of green apple flavors lurk here.

In other news, a pictorial of the garden.. and coffee tree, too. Behold:

Since I moved the coffee tree outside on the deck when it will be fine till the fall, it's suddenly sprouted some major buds from which beans may result. Dig that.

Cucumber on the vine.. this one got picked the day after I took this pic, which was two days ago.. and Cessy ate it right up. I took a bite as well, and it wasn't vomit inducing, even though I hate cucumbers.

Here's a pic (from today) of the very first colored tomatos. They're small, but they'll be ripe in a just a bit, I guess.. and I swear, I will eat at least one of them. That will be a first..

Also new to the family, a teeny tiny little carrot leaf has popped up here:

I know that one is a mite small, but it's got a lot of friends joining it. I planted this one in the less desirable of the two beds for carrot production, but my options were limited. I had some room from some vacated.. err.. spinach, was it? Something. Anyway, I put 'em in there about a week ago and lo and behold, they're actually coming up. I mulched 'em with the straw you see in this picture, and when I saw the leafs emerge today, I pulled the mulch back to give them some light. There's actually quite a few of them in the row, and I hope to see some growth that's easier to take pics of in the near future.

In other bad news, when I went to pull the red lettuce out, with each pull of the evicted stalk came these guys:

Bane of my existence, we are troubled mightily with grubs. Just that one lettuce pull produced the three grubs you see here in this picture, and a couple more were unearthed without too much trouble as well. I found the cure for these is a product (bacteria, actually) called Milky Spore, which the grubs eat, and eventually causes their death. It's actually a pretty neat thing, because it's all natural and completely harmless to *everything* else except grubs. I'll be picking this stuff up in a couple days and applying it then. This is the time, thankfully, to apply the stuff too.. when the grubs are coming to the surface to soon become Japanese Beatles.

Also in that same lettuce pull I found a fat earthworm and a friend of his as well, so I guess we'l have some good with out bad. The worms I can handle.. and the Spore won't harm them when I throw that stuff down.

That's all for now.. tune in next time, true believers. Carry on..