Busy, Busy, Weekend!

So I really need to update the blog more often. Far too much happened over this past weekend and week for me to have not put up a blog update. We'll start with the Canes.


All last week and this past weekend the Canes were on a Western conference road trip. They visited Vancouver, San Jose, and Phoenix. All of which had very late puck drops. I missed the first two and was slightly disappointed we lost to Vancouver (we are streak breaking team! The Canucks had lost 8 straight.) and was amazed that we beat the Sharks in a Shootout. Would have loved to have stayed up till 12:30 to watch that one. We then went on to man-handle the Coyotes. 7-2. Destroyed a crappy team. Hooray! At least we got 4 points out of 6 on a road trip where we easily could have only gotten 1 or 2.


Next up, the brew's news!


The Porter has come of age. It's at the point now where it is perfectly carbonated. The flavors have come together and it tastes great. No more flatness. I have read that 3 weeks is the magic number for letting your beers carb. The Porter came in at 19 days. Now, it'll only get better with time. Now, just another week and a half or so for the Amber and it'll be good to drink too.


I also got to brew my next beer on Saturday! A nice Irish Red. Unfortunately I didn't have the foresight to brew this about 3 weeks ago in order for it to be ready for St. Patty's day. Here's the ingredients.

• 6.6 lbs of Light Malt Extract.
• 1 lbs of Crystal 80L Malt.
• 1 oz. Perle hops.
• 1oz. Mt. Hood Hops.
• 1 packet of Wyeast London Ale Yeast.

Here's a picture of the Wort right after I had steeped the 80L malt. It's nice and red, just the color I'm hoping the final product will be.

Along the brew lines, we went and took a tour of the new Brewery in Raleigh, Lonerider Beers. It's a real small micro-brewery that just opened shop a month ago. They've got some good brews on tap already, a Hefeweizen and a real robust Porter. I'm not big on Hefe's or wheat beers, they're too sweet for me, but the Porter was very good. It's very strong and robust, almost a Stout in color and flavor. Definitely go a check them out if you have the chance. Here's a few pictures that the SWMBO took of the brewery.

And finally, Boone, our dog, and I went hiking out at Umstead Park on Sunday. It was overly warm so I decided to get rid of the dog's extra energy and take him for a 3 or so mile hike. Here's some pics from the day.