Ruuuu!'s Gonna be Hangin Around a Bit Longer

Our core nucleus of Finns won't be getting any smaller anytime soon.

Tuomo Ruutu inked a 3-year deal today that will pay him handsomely.

I for one am very glad, and look forward to more of this:

Boone Goons!

The SWMBO and I recently took a trip up to the North Carolina mountains this past weekend for a bit of camping in Julian Price Park. Since both of us went to Appalachian State University, we both know the area around Boone fairly well, and know quite a bit about the Northern NC Mountains.

The weather was absolutely amazing, cool days, chilly nights, and big puffy clouds that made for dramatic views! We visited Linville Falls and Howard's Knob, the mountain overlooking Boone.

Here's some pics from the weekend.

Apfelwine!

This past weekend I "brewed" up some apfelwine, or German hard apple cider. This is Edwort's recipe from homebrewtalk.com fame.


It's an extreeeeemly easy recipe and has quite a following over on the home brew forums.

• 5 gallons of apple juice
  
• 2 lbs of Dextrose
  
• 1 packet of Montrachet Wine Yeast

That's it. There's no boil. You just mix and wait.

Here's a few pics from day 4 after pitching.

Pics and Pucks

The past week has seen quite a bit of hockey news, with the Free-Agent signing day of July 1.

Marion Hossa signed with the Chicago Blackhawks for more money per year than I will make in 105 years. Does he enjoy signing with his previous teams' rivals, or is it just me?

The Canes re-signed both Erik Cole and Chad LaRose (the Chuck Norris of Hockey) to two-year contracts. Both players tested the open market, if only for a little while, before deciding to stay in Raleigh.

The more recent news is that Restricted Free Agent Tuomo Ruutu has filed for arbitration. I guess the Canes offered him his qualifying offer to retain his rights, but it must not have been up to what Ruutu wanted. Ruutu has definitely earned a raise over what he made last season. I would imagine he may only want a 1-year deal, arbitrators normally give 1-year deals, so that he can become an Unrestricted Free Agent next summer and cash in a bit more. I'd bet that the Canes have probably offered him a multi-year deal for a bit of a hometown discount.


And recently, we went down to the beach for the July 4th weekend for a nice little vacation. Here's some pics from the trip.

Next!

The Pale Ale is complete and bottled. I got it down to a SG of 1.014. I would've liked for it to have pushed 1.012, and gotten a bit more dry, but it will do just fine. I had a small bit left over to have a taste, and I was pleasantly surprised. There's quite a bit of hop flavor to it, although I don't think it will be unbalanced once it's conditioned for a bit.

Now that the IPA is done (for the most part) conditioning, it does taste a bit better. There is more hop flavor than there was 2 weeks ago, but it's still not quite enough. I'm going to stick to adding a lot more late additions to the next IPA to make sure it has the correct flavor I want.

The Witbier turned out really nice. Apart from just a small bit of extract twang, it tastes exactly like it should, and I think it may be the first beer I made to style that really resembles the style. That in itself makes me much prouder of that beer.

Let's Get Back into This!

Bleh, it's been a bit too long since I've written in here. Quite a bit has actually been going on that's kept me from posting. So we'll get it going.

A New Car!

The SWMBO and I recently picked up a new 2010 Honda Insight. Yep, a hybrid. I gotta say, I really enjoy driving it. It's a very interactive car. Through a dash-screen, it tells you if you are driving with a "ecological mind" or if you're using more gas than you have to. A 3-D display in the speedometer glows green if you are driving with gas-sipping practices, blue if you're a little lead-footed, and teal if somewhere in between. Plus, having a car that gets better that 50 mpg (unless you're driving in the "Blue") is definitely pretty nice. It'll only be nicer when gas prices start really creeping back up.

Now, on to the brews. The Belgian Witbier got down to a nice acceptable FG. 1.011. It was promptly bottled and is now aging along with the IPA. Speaking of the IPA, I'm learning more and more about making better beers. A lot of the learning process is making mistakes and figuring out what you've done, and what you need to do to correct it. I did an early tasting of the IPA after 1.5 weeks of aging, and although "green" I learned a bit.

The main point I used is that I need to use a lot more finishing hops if I'm going to want the flavor and aroma I want from my hoppy beers. My IPA really didn't have much flavor in the way of hops other than bitteness. ; It was pretty dissappointing. Including dry-hopping, I used 4 oz. of hops. When I plan another IPA, which may be soon, I'm easily going to double that amount. However, most of those will be late-additions.

I easily hit my targeted IBU's with my IPA. It's plenty bitter, but there wasn't much actual hop flavor. I was really looking forward to some citrus notes from the hops, but there really wasn't any. I probably didn't need any of the Summit hops I used, I just should have used a lot more from the other hops. So I took that lesson to heart and made an American Pale Ale.

The Pale Ale is a really simple quick recipe. Here it is as follows:

• 6.6 lbs. of Pale LME
• 4 oz Crystal 10L
• 4 oz Crystal 120L
• 4 oz Dextrose (to boost the final ABV)
• 1 oz Centennial at 20
• 2/3 oz Centennial at 12
• 1/3 oz Centennial at 10
• 1 oz Centennial at 7
• 1 pack of Nottingham Dry Yeast

Hopefully, with only late-additions will help this beer have the proper hop flavor that's it's supposed to have, rather than just bitterness.

We'll see...

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.