Big Boss Brewery

Last evening, the SWMBO and I made a trip to Big Boss Brewery, and their adjacent pub to sample a few of their brews. Their beers, while more malt-oriented for my tastes, were very good.

Of the seven (I believe) beers on tap, we sampled five of them: The Helle's Belle Belgian Pale Ale, Bad Penny Brown Ale, Angry Angel Kolsch, their Porter, and an Altbier (German Brown Ale).

All of their beers were as they were supposed to be, The Belgian Pale was sweet, fruity and peppery; The Brown Ale was caramelly, nutty and chocolaty, the Porter was nice and roasty and chocolaty, the Altbier was a bit nutty, clovey, and peppery, and the Kolsch was forgettable, just like Kolsch's should be. Seriously, not knocking on their Kolsch, they're a super light-style Ale that is basically not supposed to have hardly any flavor.

Big Boss Brewery was one of the local guys I was calling out earlier to make a "house" (non-seasonal) IPA. I actually got to get some answers while there on why they don't. I was able to ask their head Bartender, Jesse, about this. He explained that the brewery has a three-year contract with their hop supplier and that they are bound to those prices. From the sounds of it, they entered the contract at the time of the hop shortage, so their prices to buy hops are very high still. Jesse said that they have an IPA recipe ready to go once their prices come back down and it makes financial sense. They've already got the labels and art for it as well, they're just waiting on the price.

Big Boss shows off their brewery on the second Saturday of every month. Be sure to check them out.

Welp...

So the Canes didn't put up much of a fight against Pittsburgh. They were swept. Ouch. Apparently, I was wrong on all of my reasons for why they would win in the 3rd round. Mainly on reason 2. I was absolutely dead wrong on our defense.

Apparently, our defense just did not feel like playing. Either that, or they were so beat up from playing 14 previous games against bigger teams that they were just beat up physically and couldn't compete.

No matter what the excuse is, Pittsburgh dominated us in just about every aspect. Their defense was better than ours, their offense made our team, and goalie, look like swiss cheese, and we vastly improved Fleury's stats going into the Stanley Cup Finals.

All in all, it was an absolutely great run up until the Eastern Conference Finals. Honestly, I would never have believed it that the Canes would have made it to the Eastern Conference Finals, let alone the playoffs, if you had told me back in February of this year. There was just no way we were playing well enough. But after a great March, and April, we turned into a team that really believed in itself and took it to other great teams.

However, now that the offseason is upon us, the questions can start coming. Who will we try to resign, who do we not want, who will we try to go after? I'll try to come up with my answers to those this weekend, after I have a bit more time to digest this post-season.

Where's the Hops?

As I 've stated before, I'm a hop-head. For some reason, the most common definition of hop-head is a drug-addict. Not in this case! I love hops. I love a good IPA, or Imperial IPA, or if neither are available, just a good American Pale Ale. I also like to enjoy locally brewed beer (the most local being my house!). However, this causes me to have a problem.

For some reason, Triangle area Breweries don't seem to want to brew strongly hopped beers! Now, part of this is unfair to say. The one area Brewery that does offer an IPA that sells in stores, Carolina Brewing Company's IPA, I haven't tried. Their Pale Ale is excellent though. It's definitely got some hoppiness to it.

Here's my beef. Out of the nine breweries or brewpubs located in the Triangle region, only three offer IPA's, the aforementioned Carolina Brewing Company, and two brewpubs located in Chapel Hill, Top of the Hill Restaurant and Carolina Brewery.

Yes, I realize that there was a hop shortage a while ago, and hop prices haven't come back down to cheaper prices. I know, I buy hops too. So sell your IPA for an extra $.50 or $1 a glass.

If you guys hadn't noticed there's a trend forming, or has already formed, in craft brewing. More and more people are enjoying heavily hopped beers. New terms like hop-bombs(where enormous amounts of late-addition hops are thrown in to make for an explosive hop flavor and aroma) are being thrown around because more and more people are starting to enjoy the flavor profiles that American-style IPA's offer.

Where's our version of Stone's Ruination, Bell's Two Hearted Ale (my desert isle beer), Dogfish Head 90 Minute, or even Sierra Nevada Torpedo? There is already a big market for selling highly hopped beers, and it's growing.

Don't shy away from the IBU's, crank em up!!

Weekend Recap

Twas a brew-filled weekend! Since there was no hockey this past weekend, it gave me plenty of time to move things around on the old pipeline.

To start things off, I needed to bottle The Schitze! Barleywine Friday night. I tried cold crashing it before bottling. With Cold Crashing, you basically chill the bulk beer down so that more yeast and sediment fall out of it. This supposedly helps clear the beer more effectively, so you'll have a clearer final product. Here's a picture, along with Boone helping out.


Once bottling was done, there was about half of a pint left that couldn't fit into a bottle. So I had my first taste test of The Schitze!! Holy Cow! That stuff will knock your socks off! The initial taste is pure goodness. Smooth, sweet, some hoppiness and velvety. Then the alcohol kicks you right in the mouth. It's harsh. It's like jet fuel. However, this is why this beer is going to be aged for almost a year. It's a super heavy beer. It's going to take some time for that alcohol heat to mellow out. That initial taste though... That is really going to picque my curiosity as this brew ages.


Since the Secondary was now empty, that meant I had room to rack my IPA to the secondary. I couldn't really get my hop bag to work, so I just dumped in my hop pellets. I ended up using an ounce of Cascade, and a quarter ounce of Centennial to dry hop. If nothing else, this brew should smell pretty good. Here's how the IPA looks today.




So, with the IPA out of the Primary Fermenter, it just meant I needed to brew something to fill it up. For a nice simple summer brew I decided to make a Belgian Witbier. Here's the recipe:

• 6.6 lbs of Malted Wheat Liquid Extract
• 4 oz of Flaked Wheat
• The Zest of 3 Oranges
• Some Crushed Coriander (I'm not sure how much, I only had seeds and crushed them by hand)
• .5 oz of Centennial at 60 minutes
• .25 oz. of Centennial at 20 minutes
• Wyeast Belgian Wit Yeast

Presently, the Wit is bubbling away at about 68 degrees F. I plan on trying to keep the temperature as regulated as possible for this brew. This Beer will only be in the Primary for about 2 weeks, and then it goes straight to the bottle. Wits are not clear beers (mostly) and don't stand up to long aging so there will be no reason to rack this beer to the Secondary.

Round 3! Pens and Canes

Well, surprise, surprise! The Canes are still the predicted losers of yet another round of playoff hockey!

I, myself will call shenanigans on them all. And of course I would, I'm a Canes fan. But here are my points.

1. Our forwards solved Martin Brodeur of the 3rd seeded Devils, and the probable 2009 Vezina-winner Tim Thomas. Do you really think that Fleury is the same calibre of goaltender as Marty or Timmy? Fleury is 8-5 with a 2.72 GAA and .901 SV% in the post-season. Those numbers are NOT good enough. At the same time, Cam Ward has a 2.22 GAA and .927 SV% along with 2 shutouts this post-season. Goaltenders win playoff series. Who have the Pens faced? Biron? Varlamov?
   
2. Our "no-name," "bucket list," "non-scoring" Defense has somehow managed to hem in both #3 New Jersey and the number 1 seeded, 2nd-in-the-League-by-1-point-in-the-regular-season Boston Bruins. But somehow, Crosby and Malkin are going to score 7 goals each on them.
   
3. Look at the competition. Pittsburgh has had to play Philadelphia and Washington. Against Philly, they played against a crumbling team in front of a very shaky goaltender (yes, I know I picked Philly to go to the Finals. That was based on gut-feelings, not facts). They then played against the Washington Capitals, who they only had to keep up in score with. The Caps really had no defense(similar to the Pens), and their rookie goaltender turned out to be fluky. It was a matchup to see who could score 4 or 5 goals the fastest. The Canes on the other hand had to best arguably the greatest goaltender there's ever been along with a New Jersey team that is historically defensively-minded(although not as much so recently). The Canes then had to further beat the heavily favored Boston Bruins, the team that everyone had basically handed the Cup to already. Boston was supposedly the perfect team. They had scoring, they had massive shut-down D-men, they had a Vezina Candidate in goal. Yet, the Canes prevailed.
   
4. Lastly, the Hockey Gods are on our side. Yes, the Hockey Gods. The Hockey Gods are fair, they are balanced, they look down upon meddling Refferee's and officials. They do not turn a blind eye to fans who turn their zealotry into putrid vile toward others. They smite those who are not believers of truth, balance, and fairness.
   
   FACT: The Buffalo Sabres have never won the Stanley Cup.
   HOCKEY GOD INTERVENTION: Sabres fans are loud, obtuse, and remind one of the hooligans in England. The Hockey Gods have Smote them.
   
   FACT: The 2002 Stanley Cup Finals were determined by the Refs and NHL Officials, rewarding Detroit with the Stanley Cup.
   HOCKEY GOD INTERVENTION: In 2006 the Edmonton Oilers eliminated the Red Wing in round 1. Then, the team with less Stanley Cups, won the Cup that year (balance).
   
   FACT: The NHL did everything in its power to keep Carolina out of the 3rd round. The refs swallowed their whistles while looking at Chara and Ward abuse our forwards, disallowed a (ultimately meaningless) goal, and called phantom penalties on the regular season's least penalized team.
   HOCKEY GOD INTERVENTION: They influenced Colin Cambell's decision not to suspend Scott Walker for having Aaron Ward's face lose a game of chicken to Scotty's fist. Then, gave the series winning, OT goal to said Scotty.
   
   FACT: Brooks Orpik (Orprick?) viciously broke Erik Cole's cervical (that's neck folks) vertebrae (yes, that's spine folks) on March 4th, 2006. He was about 1 Newton of force close to killing, or permanently paralyzing Erik Cole. He was given a 3-day suspension. Not once did he call Erik Cole to apologize. Not once did he send flowers to Erik while he was in the hospital. Not once has he spoken to the man whom he almost killed, while playing on the same ice.
   HOCKEY GOD INTERVENTION: None.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Yet.
   

My Predictions So Far...

Well boys and girls, it appears that I am not clairvoyant after all. From my original pics here, I no longer have a single horse in the race. In my final four, I had Boston, Philly, San Jose, and Vancouver. Welp, not a single one of those teams is playing hockey right now. Instead they're playing golf. Good thing I'm a scientist and not a psychic.

So, let's start from Round 1 and see how I did.

Eastern Conference:

1 Boston 8 Montreal

I picked Boston to win it in 5 games, and they dominated the Habs in 4.

2 Washington 7 New York

I picked the Caps to win in 6, and they came back from being down 3-1 to win in 7. I said earlier that the only way they can win is to score more goals than Theodore let in. Well, the Caps didn't give themselves that opportunity and replaced Theodore with Simeon Varlamov in Game 2. This move helped push the Caps to the second round.

3 New Jersey 6 Carolina

Here, I picked a very tight race with the Canes prevailing in 7 Games. Maybe I am psychic?

4 Philadelphia 5 Pittsburgh

I got this series all wrong. I picked the Flyers in 7, but the Pens pretty much dominated them and won in 6.

Western Conference

1 San Jose 8 Anaheim

I think this series surprised everyone. I picked the Sharks to win it in 5, but they completely choked. Anaheim won the round in 6.

2 Detroit 7 Columbus

I figured Detroit would make short work of Columbus. I predicted it would take 5 games, it only took 4.

3 Vancouver 6 St. Louis

I really thought that St. Louis would put up a bit of a fight for this series. I picked the Canucks to win in 6, but they closed it out with a sweep.

4 Chicago 5 Calgary

I figured the Hawks to be slightly more powerful than they were. I predicted it would only take 5 games to dispatch the Flames, but it took 6.


Final Grade for Round 1. I gotta say, I'm not to disappointed in my first round picks. I picked all the correct teams except for San Jose and Philly to move on. That's 75%. So I'll give myself a B- for that one. We're not on a 10 point scale here :)

Round 2

Eastern conference

1 Boston 6 Carolina

I did predict the matchup to occur, but the actual outcome was very different (thankfully so) than what I predicted. I predicted the Bruins to just outmatch the Canes and win in six, but the Canes pulled through in 7 games, in overtime.

2 Caps 4 Pittsburgh (I predicted Philly)

So I thought that Philly would've won the first round, and this round as well. Either way I predicted the Caps to lose. I thought they would lose in 6, but it took 7 games for the Pens to win.

Western Conference

2 Detroit 8 Anaheim (Vancouver)

I figured that Detroit would be playing Vancouver in this matchup and that Vancouver would have won in 5. Well, Detroit beat Anaheim in a thrilling 7 game series.

3 Vancouver 4 Chicago

Here, I thought Chicago was going to be playing San Jose. I thought this was the year that the Sharks wouldn't choke, but they choked more than most years. Chicago proved me even more wrong and knocked out my predicted Stanley Cup winner in Vancouver in 6 games.

Grades for the 2nd round. F! I picked no one correctly. However, I did make my picks before the 1st round even started. So, F+! Oh yeah.

So, since there is no team that I predicted in the 3rd or final round, there will be no reason for me to post how I did for those either. I'll just go ahead and give me a preemptive F, minus. Minus.

That's Right. Game 7. Win. Nuff.

......
......

Gut-Check Time

Damn, and I was really hoping we wouldn't have to check our guts for this series. But, Boston went ahead and made a series out of this one and came back from being down 3-1 to force Game 7.

Crap. Crappity Crap.

But hey, we're going into Game 7 against the Bruins, how many people really thought that was going to happen at the beginning of this series? At the same time however, how many people thought we would go up 3-1 on them. At that very same time as well, how many people thought we would then blow that 3-1 lead and have to play a Game 7, in Boston.

After playing with very little heart and determination in the last 2 games, will the Canes finally step it up and give a solid 60 minute effort? Will Cam Ward return back to his Round 1 form? It's almost best not to ask or even attempt to answer questions before a Game 7. Just play you game. Play your best game.

And I'll finish following suit to another blogger:

Can't see nothin' in front of me
Can't see nothin' coming up behind
I make my way through this darkness
I can't feel nothing but this chain that binds me
Lost track of how far I've gone
How far I've gone, how high I've climbed
On my back's a sixty pound stone
On my shoulder a half mile line

Come on up for the rising
Come on up, lay your hands in mine
Come on up for the rising
Come on up for the rising tonight

Left the house this morning
Bells ringing filled the air
Wearin' the cross of my calling
On wheels of fire I come rollin' down here

Come on up for the rising
Come on up, lay your hands in mine
Come on up for the rising
Come on up for the rising tonight

Li,li, li,li,li,li, li,li,li

Meh, We Ain't Skeered

So the Bruins won last night, 4-0. No big deal. No one thought it was going to be easy any ways. This just allows us to use the excuses the Bruins' fans have been saying for the past week and change.

"We didn't play our best game. We lost the game, it's not that they won it."

This however, isn't that far off. The Bruins did play better, but only slightly. They didn't show any increase in playing level until they (Corvo) scored their first goal.

The Canes on the other hand, didn't seem all that interested in playing. They were not quick to get to the puck. They didn't step in front of shots to block them. One can only assume that they simply wanted to clinch the series at home in front of their own crowd. They never seem to do that against their 1st round opponent, but for this second round, it must be what their planning. I mean, it's not like the Bruins could beat us unless we wanted them to.

Let's just hope Scott Walker gets some leniency from the league.

Playing Catchup

That's what the Bruins said.

Wow, so the Canes find themselves up 2-1 in their series with the "juggernaut" Boston Bruins. They have done so simply by playing their game and keeping their feet on the gas. They've even kept Boston from throwing them off of their game by matching Boston's physicality.

One would have expected Boston to have come out with guns blazing last night, especially after being shutout at home 3 days earlier. This was not really the case as the Canes were able to effectively cut out the neutral zone.

I'm really looking forward to Friday's game 4. This will be the true test of this series. Will Boston continue to fold or will they roar back and make this a best of 3 series. Can the Cardiac Canes keep up the speed with which they're using to best Boston? Around 7:30 on Friday, we'll begin to find out.


Picture time! I've got plenty from the trips, plus some really cool eye candy. First off, the Desert pics.

The water in Lake Mead is looking pretty low at the Hoover Dam.

Constructing the new suspension bridge over the canyon at the Hoover Dam.

A little birdy decided to check us out eating breakfast.

The Vegas Strip shortly after takeoff.

The Grand Canyon, from 20,000 feet.

Now, for some Beach Pics.

Now, for the really cool pictures:

I've discovered HDR, or High Dynamic Range Photography and Tone mapping. It produces some really cool pictures. It basically takes several pictures of the same scene that are of different exposure levels and blends them together. The above picture is what happens when you merge and tone map the following three pictures together.

Here's a few more HDR images from the desert and the beach.

Whirlwind Trips

So I had to make and emergency stop in Las Vegas this week. Yeah, what? Well, my SWMBO has family out there, so we had some stuff that needed to be taken care of.

Hockey update: The Canes win Games 7 of the Devils' series in Hollywood fashion. I missed the game completely (Traveste'!) but to score twice in the last 1:30 is pretty damn awesome. We're now on to playing the top team in the NHL, the Boston Bruins.

This was the matchup that I dreaded. I wanted New York to beat Washington, just so we didn't have to face the Bruins. I don't get warm fuzzies about this series. We lost last night by a margin of 4-1. We didn't look flat like we did against New Jersey in the first game when we lost 4-1, it's just that the 4 mistakes we made in the game, Boston capitalized on. You have to play perfect to beat Boston right now. They're that good.

Currently, I'm down at the beach trying to catch up on sleep and get a little bit of relaxing done after being out in the desert for all of the past week. Expect plenty of pictures of sunsets and waves coming later.

Brew update! I only spent about 8 hours at home in between trips but here's what's happened since my last post. The IPA started fermenting, and I believe I was able to keep it at a fairly good temperature. That being said, I couldn't do much while out in Vegas. However, for some reason, 4 days after it started fermenting, when I came back to it, it had stopped showing activity in the airlock; but had a massive krausen on it. What? So maybe there's a leak in my fermenter that's allowing the CO2 to escape somewhere other than the airlock. Plus, the krausen should have fallen by now. Not that I'm on any needed schedule for it right now. It's going to be in the primary for a while, but it still seemed strange that there was a big krausen on there 6 days after pitching. It can happen, I just figured it'd be with a heavier brew.

Welp, on to more relaxin down here at the beach!