Ancho Chille hangin' in the breeze...

Did a Rye Stout with Rob the other week.. decided to suspend an Ancho Chille in the fermenter for about a week or so, up until I kegged it. Well, kegged it up today and took a pic of the hanging chille, which I thought was kinda funny. Short post today.. just wanted to share.

Tasting notes to follow, when it's cold and carbed. 

Oude Guezue from Hanssens Artisanaal..

So, in my spare time today, I whipped up a 5.5 gallon batch of a brew thaat I intend to sour with some bug dregs I got from the above-mentioned Gueuze from Hanssens, in Belgium. It's a pretty good player, and I thought I could handle it myself after my partner couldn't make it up.. and you know, I sort of *needed* it (or, the junk on the bottom of the bottle, anyway..) to actually make a sour beer. 

I pitched two strains of yeast here.. a really old WYeast smack pack that failed to swell up, and the scum from the bottom of this bottle of sour. BTW, thanks Rob, for the ol' smack pack! Yep, this is *that* one! I didn't do any starters or growing of any sorts.. just pitched, crossed my fingers and I'm gonna hop for the best. Worst case, I could always pitch a dry yeast in the morning if I don't see anything happening.. but I think I'm jut gonna take the Papazian approach and just not worry about it.

Anywho, the new beer consisted of mostly two row pale, a touch of both Crystal 20 and Crystal 40, a bit more of some Munich (the light variety..) and that's about it. I added a bit more layering of grains to this one than I did with my Oro de Maggie, cause, although that beer was (is?) really quite nice, it's a touch one dimensional.. I wanted to see if I could bring a bit more to the plate, so I used smaller amounts of specialty grains and layered 'em up on each other.. we'll see how that goes. Plus, I used the two strains here in the new beer, and just the Calabaza yeast in the Maggie beer. I've taken to calling this newest creation the Hanssens "No Problem" Sour Ale.. cause, well, I had no problems with the brew.. which is unusual, and sorta screws with my naming scheme. Since all my beers are usually named after a problem in the brew day, a dead animal, or a single hop beer indicating just the one hop involved.. this one sorta threw a wrench in the works. Maybe disaster will strike further down the chain and I'll get a real name for this thing in place. Until then..

Other than that, chickens are good, the kids are alive and well, and the wife has a migraine.. and I'm off to bed. Carry on!

Budweiser American Ale (what the..?) and a chocolate thing..

So, yeah.. I drank this thing. And I'll be honest with ya'.. I didn't hate it. I surely expected to, but I didn't. It has a faint whiff of hops in the aroma, and there's an atoms worth of hop flavor in there too.. the bitterness is well balanced as well. It also has a good caramel flavor too. As long as we're piling on praise for a Bud product, there's even carbonation! Whoo hoo! ;-) All that stuff aside, it's a bit on te thin side. If it had a bit more meat on it's bones.. you know, some malt backbone.. this might be a really good beer. Problem is, it's *so* thin, it's a big distraction for me from the large picture here.

In coffee news, I made this thing up:

It's a bit of a weird concoction I decided to tackle after talking with someone online about a Starbucks Chocolate Truffle drink they make. Essentially, it's a scoop of hot chocolate, a single shot of espresso, steamed milk on top of that to do a latte art thingy design on the top, and then some chocolate shavings (from a Hershey bar on a cheese grater..) on the top for design. Or so I thought. The shavings actually start to melt into the drink after a few seconds and contribute to the overall flavor as well. A curious thing, this. Not sure I'm going to drink a bunch of them, cause they take *forever* to make, but they're fairly tastey, and the coffee comes through quite readily.

And a parting shot.. a ridiculous picture of my dog:

Carry on!

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!