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.

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.