Yet another garden update and *gasp* an infection in the beer!

Ahh.. another day, another garden update. Tis' the season, after all.

But before that, I should mention that the 4th tap was killed, cleaned, and is now home to the Avalon Pale Ale.. err.. one of them, anyway. There's two for this year going to the beach. Well, three, really.. but one is staying here. Two are heading to the shore. OK, now that we got that straight.. On standby is the Berliner, which I'm really looking forward to. Savvas is comin' over today, so I expect to be able to polish off the rest of the Brown Ale and get the other keg for the shore into the fridge and carbing.. Let's get back to that garden for a minute, ok?

Behold, the first Habanero! Yeah, as expected, it's in an Earthbox. Those things just damn WORK! I will definitely have another one for next year. I'm gonna grow all my peppers in two Earthboxes.. and the harvest will be massive! Plus, it'll free up an entire half garden bed for other things. Cool. I'm also collecting buckets for the Global Bucket Project. Stay tuned for more on that..

This is said Earthbox containing the above-mentioned Habaneros... Dig it.

Horseraddish gone wild! Just a photo to document it's progress, really.. prehistoric lookin', ain't it?

Hmm.. these Cascades are doing *ok*.. nothing like the first year, but they're OK. They're also much more manageable down at this level.. but the production is still lower. Better than last year though. The Nugget plant isn't even worth a photo, it's so lame in comparison.

Jalapenos on the plant. They're going amuck down there. There's five visible in this picture alone, and this is just a fraction of what this plant contains. I had a bite of one two days ago right after I took this pic, and it had a bit of a tang to the seeded portion of the pod, but the pepper itself was still pretty lame. The heat doesn't really develop until the pod changes to a darker green, and get's hotter as you let it go. Eventually, it'll change to a red color, and that's when it's supposed to be it's hottest.. but I like the green sorta hot, sorta sweet versions. I'll save the heating bit for the Habaneros, which don't really have any provision for a "mild" setting. They're set to 'kill" automatically. Like that! As you can see, there's a stake in the ground to hold this one up. I've had every one of the six Jalapenos fall over on it's own, and two of the Habaneros keel over as well. Next year, I will remember to start these buggers with stakes in the ground from day one. No one in any of the books or things I read said anything about staking pepper plants..

Roma tomatos on the plant starting to make some headway now.. these guys are slow to develop.

When I pulled the peas and old bolted lettuce up, I replanted with some new stuff, like a few rows of new lettuce, some turnips, radishes and a couple of Brussel's Sprouts, just for kicks. We'll see what grows. Damn chicken got into the bed *just* as they were starting to sprout and kicked a few sprouts out of the beds. It's my fault, cause I didn't put up a fence and I also told the chickens there were really tasty things to eat in the beds.. the grubs I mentioned last post. So, naturally, they went back for more, not knowing I had replanted stuff. And, you know, chickens don't care about what I've planted anyway. I still love them. This pic below is the radishes just starting to pop up.. and the next pic below that is the markers I've put in place to tell what's in what rows. So fancy! ;-)

In beer news, again, this is the 12 gallon bucket of Avalon Pale that's going to the shore. This one I left in the big open top keg for 12 days before transferring to keg, and it looks like it might have picked up a hint of Brett from the air. Check the funk on the very surface, just forming. I racked the beer out from underneath it.. and it tastes just fine. But, given a few months, I think it might develop some funk. The beach keg will be gone in a mater of two weeks or so, so that's no issue, but the half of the batch I saved for myself might prove to get some *ahem* "additional flavor". We'll see about that and report back as time tells the tale..

I think that's all for now.

The new Mint plant, some garden updates and a beer quickie..

Some updates to the garden..

Check this thing! Melons and Cucumbers and one watermelon of the the left side, still growing. We're going to regret planting this soon enough, but it's still funny to watch it grow..

My new Mint plant. Thanks Crystal! I got a tiny little rootlet that was creeping out of it's boundaries from my pal Crystal, and got it potted up there. We'll see how it's doing as time goes by. Hers was doing well enough in the front bed at her place and smelled like a million bucks. She tells me it's spearmint. I intend to keep thing one indoors in the winter to keep it going, and perhaps do a small potted herb garden thingy to amuse myself when my big garden is nuked in the winter. Still, that cold frame idea I've been pondering has me intrigued.. I might eek out something well into November if I do that right..

Here's me and a couple of chickens, taken yesterday, pulling grubs from the exposed part of the bed where I pulled up the beans and bolted lettuce:

I was listening to some tunes while doing this and didn't see the wife sneak up on me with the camera to take these shots.. otherwise, I might have dressed more appropriately for the pics. The other chickens were nearby, behind the tomato plants, but weren't enjoying the huge amount of fats grubs that these two Barred Rocks were as I pulled the pests from the ground and tossed 'em to them.

Here's a couple shots of the big tomatoes on the downhill side of the astern bed, which are so out of control from improper staking (raises hand!) that I had to go horizontal with them to keep 'em growing. There's so many potential tomatos here it's unreal.. next year, I'll know what I'm doing more and have a much better setup installed.

This is the cherry tomatos here (below), and there's bunches more of these clusters to go...

I didn't notice this one was split until after I came inside and blew this up on the monitor.. I kinda freehanded this shot cause it's well into the middle of the grouping of plants. I'll go pull this one out of here in a few minutes and see what it looks like...

Here's the now half-empty downhill bed, which we're readying for some more fall lettuce and maybe some garlic or onions.

And here's a pic of that poor bugger off in the 'big rock' garden all by it's lonesome.. it's actually doing sorta fine over there.

In beer news, I kegged up the Berliner yesterday and that's on standby to get carb'ed, but it's waiting it's turn behind the other beers I have to get ready for Avalon next month. The Avalon beer itself it pretty much done, just waiting another day or so before I keg that up into a couple of kegs.. one for the beach and one for here. I gotta get my new idea for an Oat Stout brewed up pretty quick, cause I'm starting to get low on Tap #2 where my dark beers reside.. The Belg. Stout is still going strong and tastes as good as ever, though so that'll tide me over till I can get something else brewed up. Results from the competition some of the Commandos entered should be up in the next couple days, too.. stand by for those results. That's all for now..

The Brutal Truth - Timmay's Imperial Belgian IPA (Don't count the Belgian part!)

Here it is, another installment, guaranteed to break hearts of home-brewers everywhere. Dig this:

Our latest victim, Timmay's Belgian inspired Imperial IPA, which he told me to disregard the Belgian part of. Something about it not turning out quite Belgian'y or something? I forget. Whatever! Let's begin.

Aroma: A mild fruitiness, some notes of peach, and a very faint sweet smell.. per guidelines, I'm looking for an "intense hop aroma" that I'm not finding here. Hop aroma should be in an Imperial IPA. No hot alcohols, and no off-aromas found. With a label like Imperial IPA, I'm missing something.. perhaps we'll find it in the flavor? Let's keep looking. It simply needs more aroma hops to compete better here. For now, 5/12

Appearance: Looks like a million bucks! I mean, look at the head on that damn thing. Fluffy, tight bubbles, persistent. Looks great to me, although it's supposed to be clear. As such.. 2/3.

Flavor: Ah! There's something! Even has a flavor of Peach! Very interesting. I get a big malt flavor, with not as much hop as I'd like in this style.. but.. It has a really intriguing fruity flavor, and enough bitterness minus the hop flavor, to carry it. Just barely. I think I could use either a *bit* more bittering hops, or a more dried out beer, to bring a sense of less body and midrange and emphasize the taste of the hops and yeast derived flavors.  It's pretty drinkable for a bigger beer (how big is this, anyway? I have no idea.. I wasn't told and it ain't on the label.. we'll assume it's 7%+ or I'd hesitate to call it Imperial, but who knows?) However, bottom line is, it's not packing enough hops (al la Pliney or Ruination) to compete well in this ballpark.. 12/20

Mouthfeel: Nothing to complain about here, just smooth, well carbonated goodness. Well done in that respect. No alcoholic warmth from what we assume is a bigger beer, just very drinkable beer. 5/5

Overall Impression: This one is a mixed bag. It's got just enough bitterness to carry the beer, but not enough hops to be a DIPA. It's clean, moderately malty, yet very drinkable. It's got some punch to it (I feel it creeping in on me now..) but invites sip after sip. A funny peach-ish flavor seems to seem in everywhere I look, but with the name "Belgian" on it, I'm interested in how that plays out. This one is hard to put a finger on, but.. for the style, it misses out on a few important key points, but still impresses. It's a well made brew, with an easily rectified (on the next iteration) issue, that being "more hops".  I'm gonna give it 7/10 in this box.

Total: 31/50

Summary, it creeps into the "Very Good" scoring guide per BJCP style sheets.. I think because it has some curious strong points, like the killer flavor aspect and easy drinkability, but misses the mark on hops. If this is the beer Timmay sent to the Ohio comp, I'm curious to see how it fared there.. just a few more days will tell. Good job, Tim. Add a few more ounces next time and this one will be out of the park!

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..

The Brutal Truth: Savvas's Belgian Thing

Behold, the latest poor bastard up for a go-round in, The Brutal Truth:

Let's do this thing. Because he's not sure what this is, I'm gonna put it in Belgian Pale Ale for him. The only stats we know are that it's in the neighborhood of 6% abv and was built as a kit from somewhere that he got for a gift.

Aroma: Mild banana and custard-ish aroma. Nearly heaven, in fact. It's very light, but distinct. No off flavors noted here. A touch of maltiness in the aroma as well. 10/12

Appearance: Color is good for style, but clarity is a might bit less than clear.. The head poured well and stood for some time, and persistence is very good so far, with a mousse like consistency. Gorgeous, in fact. If only it were crystal clear.. 2/3 

Flavor: Soft and delicious in every describable BJCP manner. It's hops are so restrained, but the malt comes through *so* well to make up for it. This is to style, however. The beer invites sip after sip, and does not disappoint. Bitterness zips right in to hit the tip of the tongue to let you know it's there, but fades off to nothingness after you swallow, leaving the fantastic maltiness in it's wake. Very well done! I cannot place whatever hop was used in here at all.. and this is also to style. As this beer nears the end of it's day, I almost want to call out an extremely mild peppery-ness in here, but I'm not positive on that. I also think I want perhaps one more thing here.. either a bit of orange peel or it's ilk, or maybe a whiff of aroma hops.. I need just one more dimension to reach perfection. As a result, 17/20

Mouthfeel: Carbonation is fine and persistent. Body is medium in feel, overall. 4/5

Overall Impression: This is a solid, well-done, very drinkable, kick-ass product. I find no faults with it, from a brewing standpoint.. I think a higher score would be found with just a hint more of *something*.. but this is a damn fine beer as it stands. I'd be proud of this one, were it mine. 8/10

Score: 41 of 50 (oh, snap!)

Oh yeah, this one is good! Nice work Savvas, and thanks for leaving this one here for me to run through the wringer!

Garden update.. July.

Just a bunch of regular and a few macro (with a crappy camera) photo's of the garden and how things are growing in early July.

Here's the very first flowers from the Earthbox Habanero's on the deck. The ones in the beds out back aren't popping just yet, but they seem like they're *just* behind the Earthbox units.. so far, I'm happy with the results the Earthbox has given me. It's an interesting idea and it's very easy to maintain day to day. It's also extremely consistent with it's process, it's completely resistant to bugs and pests thus far, and hell.. it's beating the pants off the raised beds. So far, it's only drawback is that it's not an 8x4 sized unit and it costs money to make. But if all you're looking to do is grow a few plants, this is a great tool. Hmm.. didn't intend to make this an Earthbox review just yet. Let's save the rest for the end of the season, eh?

Here's a shot of the Earthbox from a couple steps back..

Here's a pic of the newly forming cones from this years Cascades crop. It's not gona be much of a crop, since I'm still building the soil quality up.. but it's looking to be much beter than last year. Which isn't saying much, really, since last year was a joke. Soil is important, I'm finding out.. 

Here's a pic of the Jalapeno's in the bed out back that are really coming along nicely. You can see two good sized ones on the plant in this shot.. these are the two biggest so far, but the others are packing, too.

Check these cherry tomatos just coming out from the bottom of one of the plants in the lower bed. Nice work, guys!

And finally, a pic of the lettuce, taken just yesterday. STILL cranking out the leaves, hard core..

Dorsky Museum and The Gilded Otter

This is a little out of date, cause this was a week and change ago.. but I went to the Dorsky Museum with the Boss for an opening she had/has going out there. The Ladies Auxiliary was actually the thing, not just the Boss. They seem to be popping up everywhere these days..

Here's a partial shot of the install.. there was more to it than just this, so you'll have to make the trip to see the rest. That child is not included, however. Hi Oscar!

These guys are so hard core, they even have their own T-shirts. More than I can say for my *own* club..

While we were out there, I hit up the Gilded Otter brewpub located a few blocks away in the center of town. Check out this doorman.. excellent job, friend!

Their menu (the one that counted..) was as follows:

I had the sampler, and I'l give props to the Altbier, the Oatmeal Stout and the Rail Trail Pale ale.. but when your Pale Ale out-guns the hops in your IPA, you've gotta reformulate that thing. The IPA, I mean! The altbier was a GABF medal winner, so I expected good things from that, and it didn't disappoint. The Stout wasn't a standout, but the rest I wasn't that thrilled with. I actually took vast notes on all of them, but my iPod seems to have eaten them. Damn. 

They had a curious brewery setup.. here's the brewery itself..

The brewery itself wasn't curious.. except for the Elmo doll seen in the lower left corner of this pic. But the serving setup was kinda strange. They took about 4 jacketed serving tanks and had them plunked down in the center of the big room, taking up prime seating real estate from the restaurant. There were four more chunked down just as you walked in, as well.. also taking up big floor space. The brewery was on the far back wall, behind the regular walkup bar. I imagine that might be a pain to brew on.. but the machinery itself was really sweet. Standard looking 7 or 10 barrel setup, but included an HLT that was separate from the rest. The little guy on the right side of this pic. Interesting. Upstairs, there was a whole lot more fermenters behind double walled glass, in what I imagine was a lagering area.. but they were also lagering in the jacketed tanks downstairs too, so.. I dunno. Curious, like I said. 

'tis all for now.. carry on.