Beer, brewing, and a gear review

To absolutely no one's surprise, I've been drinking. And riding my bike despite sub zero wind chills, and brewing some beer too boot. I've been working through the last little bit of my previous home brewing efforts, the Surly beer I brought back from the Twin Cities, and odds and some of my standard "hey that's a good price on something I like" type beers. Something new was Magic Hat #9 Not Quite Pale Ale.


# 9 is roughly a regular pale ale crossed with a french farm ale. Very roughly. There's a bit of hop and citrus in there but it's a smooth inviting kinda thing, that is very mild and quite good. The flavor is hard to pin down, but interesting and pretty good. I could see drinking tons of this beer on hot summer days.

In my home brewing exploits, I've recently bottled a coffee stout, and I'm preparing to add bourbon soaked oak cubes to a porter to simulate bourbon barrel aging. Check it out:

Toasted oak cubes in some Gladware.

Eagle Rare Bourbon. Why cheap out? Plus, now I have most of a fancy bottle of bourbon.

Cubes soaking in booze.

In a couple days I'm going to dump the whole works into my carboy full of beer, then leave it for a couple weeks, then bottle. From the smell of the porter when I racked it to secondary, this thing should be great. *crosses fingers*

One last thing to write about, and that is my continuing commutes. As I wrote earlier, my gloves had become worn enough that they weren't as warm as I needed. I have found one helluva solution.

Bar Mitts

These things are great. They're like wearing a heavy pair of mittens over your heavy gloves/mittens. I've been able to use these with a light glove when the temps are in the 20s and the wind chill isn't too bad. Below that I've been wearing the Loius Garneau Typhoon lobster style mitten.

Warm, really really warm. Almost as warm as a heavy mitten but with almost the dexterity of a glove. These puppies would be plenty without the bars mitts down into the teens, but with the bars mitts, I've had no problems even when the windchill has been well below zero. I think the record this winter has been set at a -11F windchill, which was, of course, a headwind. The little reflective piping on the glove works great (as you can see) it sadly doesn't look that glowy in normal light, with the flash hitting it though it kinda looks like my hand belongs in the new Tron movie. My only complain with the glove is that the cuff isn't especially long. It's hard to get a jacket sleeve to tuck under it, and pushing it into a sleeve can be a trick too. The shorter liner + longer shell that my old Specialized gloves had was the right solution to the problem. With the bars mitts it is far from a big deal, but solo it could be.

Regular updates? miles and beers

In my attempt to keep updating this blog, I'm going to attempt to get on some sort of 2 or 3 or 4 times a week schedule. Not sure that's gonna work yet, but here's my second entry in the last couple days, so here goes nothin'.

As of yet my efforts to increase my fitness have been limited to doing some push ups and sit ups at home. The weather's been okay and riding outside wouldn't be too bad, but I've been busy getting caught up on stuff around the house that I neglected during the holidays. That said my outdoor mileage is not horrible. Total outdoor miles on the year sit at 28. I am still planning on taking some photos so I can track my progress and/or show off my terribly unsexy body. I'd wager cutting back on the booze and/or stopping all together would help me tone up, but then I'd go crazy, so it's a trade off. I'd rather eat and drink what I want (within reason) and just ride more/work out more than restrict myself. In that bent, here's some beers I had recently:

Apocalypse Cow from 3 Floyds. Quoth their website:

This complex double India pale ale has an intense citrus and floral hop aroma balanced by a velvety malt body which has been augmented with lactose milk sugar. With this different take on an IPA we have brewed an ale that is both pleasing to drink and, once again, “not normal.” Cheers! June release.

At 11% ABV and 100 IBUs, this is a serious IPA. The flavors are very much as described with a floral and dirty/dark citrus nose, and a thick, but smooth malt body. The milk sugar imparts a complexity and depth to the malt body that is very interesting, very unusual, and actually pretty good while drinking. The aftertaste however is not something I enjoyed at all. At first the tang and almost sour flavor is interesting and a nice addition to the intense citrusy hop flavors, but over time it builds to something that's coating and not that pleasant. If you like IPAs and unusual beers, give this a try, but I'd recommend sharing it. The 750ml is far too much of this to get through comfortably just because of the weird after taste. In all other respects the beer is outstanding.

Up next we have Heavy Handed IPA from Two Brothers.
Wet hopped, oak aged, six hop varieties involved, this thing should be all but custom made for a hop head who enjoys fancy IPA variations. I found it okay. Outstanding it was not, hoppy to be sure, and deep in hop flavor, but otherwise it was a beer that I feel like I've had a hundred times before. Not that is by an stretch of the imagination a poorly made beer, nor is there a flaw in the recipe; it is well made and a decent idea, I've just had it before. There was nothing about this beer that made it any different/special/interesting from other highly hopped IPAs. The oak aging was present but hardly noticeable under the piles of hops, and nothing else about it is terribly interesting. Perhaps I should find some of their regular IPA and try the two back to back, or maybe I should get other oaked IPAs so I can compare and contrast, but I probably wouldn't bother with this again, save for such situations.

Huge new year post

So yeah, been a while. With the previous couple weeks' holidays happening, me traveling a bit for such things, and general laziness, I haven't updated this thing in ages. Time to get caught back up.
First, I got myself a little xmas gift.
Look what came in the post! I wonder what's in there...
Two new, and redesigned tulip glasses from New Belgium! They're sturdier than the old style, and look great. Plus, while supplies last, they're $5.99. Get yours right here. I don't know if it's still happening, but I used the coupon code "free shipping" to get, you guessed it, free shipping. So for about $6, I got myself two pretty sweet beer glasses. You should too.
Those glasses aren't the only thing I've had from New Belgium:
Another pretty solid entry in their Lips of Faith series. This one is a "collabeeration" with Allagash, in which they've used hibiscus and endive. It sounds pretty weird, but it totally works. The floral notes are more subtle and less sweet than you'd expect, but they are very prominent. If you like lighter beers with complex floral notes and/or unusual beers in general, this one is certainly worth a shot.
That's not the only fancy beer I've been drinking recently though, in addition to some home brews, Surlys, and other standard bar beers, I've had a couple of recent stand outs.

Poppaskull from Three Floyd's and Dogfish Head in a collaborative effort to make a beer that will blow your damn mind. Holy cow is this thing great. Two of my favorite breweries joining forces to make a beer that kick ass. It combines their take on the Belgian golden ale with cardamom, then ages 35% of that in oak brandy barrels, which ends up being amazing. The way the cardamom and oaky brandy flavors mingle is nothing short of outstanding.
This next beer I ordered on a whim on New Year's Eve at El Bait Shop. The waitress cautioned me that it was a 750ml, and that it was $20. I said to bring it on, and I split it with a friend.
Big Sky's Olde Bluehair Barley Wine. That's exactly how it's listed in the menu. What isn't listed is that it's aged in bourbon barrels. The resulting beer is very boozy, with awesome bourbon flavors that have a fruity finish after a face assaulting barrage of barley and hops. I'm super glad I took the chance on this beer, despite the waitress's caution. She wasn't very knowledgeable anyway, which is weird for such an establishment, and she's likely the only poor server I've ever had there. But back to the beer, it rocks. Very similar to Boulevard's Bourbon Barrel Quad, save this is a barley wine vs. a quad, and this didn't involve cherries directly, though I can definitely taste a little hint of them in the aftertaste.

Other thoughts about life and the new year and all that jazz:

While self improvement shouldn't be a once a year thing, I've been eating like hell and not riding anything other than my commute for quite a while, and the holidays didn't help, so I'm going to try to get in better shape. In this vein I weighed myself and discovered, to my surprise, that I'm all of 182 pounds. Keep in mind I'm 6'4" and have a relatively thin build naturally. This is a "racing" weight for me, which means I've probably lost some muscle in the last few months, and I'm not eating as much of the terrible food as I thought I've been. I'll post some photos later so that I can try to force myself to not only ride more, but to do some work on the rest of me too, ie push ups, sit ups, etc.

2011 is likely going to be an eventful year for me, I'll turn 30 (about seven weeks is all that remains of my 20s), likely move (wife is finishing grad school), and with that move I'll have to get another job, and start a new life in a new town. Well, really continue my old life but damn near everything will be different. This is a bit intimidating, exciting, confusing, and (I hope) ultimately invigorating. So often I get stuck in a routine that I scarcely notice that things outside my routine are possible, and only a big change can shake me out of it, and get me on a better path. One thing's for sure though, I will still ride bikes, and I will still drink fancy beers.

More drink and thanks to the city of Ankeny

Surly's Coffee Bender. Very very interesting, with a hefty brown ale as a base, and a liberal dose of coffee. Most coffee beers are stouts or porters, I'm a fan of adding it to not super dark beers provided the base style can withstand the additional (and often strong) flavor. This beer certainly delivers in that regard. If you're not local to Minnesota, and particularly the twin cities, you probably can't find this beer, but if you see it, I highly recommend it.


While not actually a beer, I picked up something else in Minneapolis that I'm excited about: Rogue's Pink Spruce Gin. This is Rogue's interesting and delicious spruce gin aged in Pinot wine barrels, which impart more complexity and a lovely pink hue. If you like gin at all, give it a shot. I personally really like it, but find the cucumber notes to be a tad pronounced for my taste, but then again I'm not a big cucumber fan. While my photo above doesn't really show off the color, nor the taste to be fair, it does show off how good my martini looked.

Finally, I'd like to give a big 'thanks' to the city of Ankeny and whatever crew they've got that keeps the bike paths clean. For the past couple winters that I've been commuting to the shop, the paths are generally cleaned of snow quickly, nearly completely, and I am appreciative. Someone told me it's only done on school days, and I've noticed that big snowfalls on weekends is not cleared until midday on Monday, but I'm impressed they bother at all, especially as far away from any school that I ride.
The above photo is on my trip home after some snowfall both overnight and during the afternoon. If you look closely you can see the edges of the path, clearly piled with snow previously plowed, and the snow is obviously not very deep. Thanks Ankeny city workers!

Minnesota trip: beers and no bikes

This past weekend I went with a friend to Minneapolis to see some other friends' of ours play a kick ass metal show. We arrived Friday before the snow started falling, we fell asleep with the snow starting to accumulate, but we didn't think much of it. By the time Saturday afternoon came around and the snow was still coming down it became clear there would be no show, and we would not be going anywhere for any reason. Then this happened:


Yep. there was enough snow that the roof of the Metrodome fell in. Crazy. So we drank fancy beers and watched movies and football all weekend.
On Monday we finally ventured out into the world. Everything seemed fine, just snowy. We had originally planned to get to a beer store, a home brew store, and a few restaurants. We only went to the homebrew place and a beer store. And holy cow did we go to a beer store. Found all sorts of goodies, all of which I'm sure I'll talk about here in good time. That said I set a personal high score: $214. Sure there was a $40 bottle of gin + 6 Bourbon Barrel Quads + my normal amount of fancy beers, but wow, over $200. Guess I don't need to spend anything on beer for quite a while. I, of course, grabbed a 4 pack of each variety of Surly. Despite being from the Minneapolis area, the brewery has nothing to do with the bikes.
So far I've cracked open two of them, the Furious, and the Cynicale.
The Furious is Surly's 99 IBU American style IPA. Big hop flavor, smell that I noticed while pouring, easily 18 inches from my nose, and a solid malt back, all add up to a competent entry into the world of American IPAs. Nothing super duper amazing to report, but it is a quality beer. Maybe I'm getting burned out on monster hoppy IPAs or perhaps my palette is maturing, or I just need something more than a ton of hops to make me live a beer, but I'm not in love with this beer. Sure it's good and well made, but nothing about it stands out in a sea on similar brews. Certainly worth a try, and I'm glad I picked it up, but it wouldn't be my first choice in a bar that had other AIPAs.

The CynicAle is a very well made farm house ale. The French farm ale is either a new trend in craft brewing, or a style I'm just becoming more aware of, but either way, I dig it. Surly's example is really really good. Smooth honey and hop flavors in the nose and initial flavor which fads to a lingering peppery aftertaste. Easy drinkin and super smooth for sure. Not sure I like it more than something like Tank 7 from Boulevard, but it's pretty close, and a bit different flavor wise.

Cold commutes and ( you guessed it) new beers

Weather has gotten colder, the commute has required a bit more gear, and I've kept drinking.
Temperatures at my work bound commute have been in the mid-20s and the trip home has been that or colder, plus the unstoppable wind of course. As such I've donned my snowboard helmet and goggles, as well as an extra layer sometimes. Especially with the stronger winds, I've noticed my gloves aren't as warm as they once were. I'm using the Specialized Sub Zero, which is really a liner and an outer shell system, which as been working really really well, until recently. See:

I've got 2 full winters of every day use out of these things, and plenty of other use as well, so I'm not terribly upset that they're wearing out. I am a bit upset that the new model doesn't fit my hands worth a damn. I'd still wear these in a 40F rain storm, but for wind chills in the low teens, they aren't cutting it any more. Now I have to figure out new gloves. Pondering lots of things, lobster mitts are highly likely, bar mitts are also a possibility. Not sure what to do, and I kinda need to make a decision.

In less cold, and somewhat happier news, I'm still drinking fancy beers. Rye beers have been a recent "thing" in the beer scene. They've been around basically forever, but rye is having a huge resurgence in popularity as an ingredient. Perhaps the rye whiskey explosion of the last few years has spilled over into the beer world. Whatever the cause, I'm fairly excited about it. Rye has a spicy and deep flavor profile that adds an interesting flavor to any beer it's used in.
Left Hand Brewing's Rye Bock, is a smooth yet complicated beer, with a spicy nose, heady middle, and smooth finish. A traditional bock (which as you know is a lager) is smooth and full of flavor. This beer does not disappoint, big props to my buddy and drinking cohort Andrew for hooking this up.
Sour beers are definitely the wave of the future. Set to supplant ultra high octane IPAs as the way for brewers to show off their skills. Until know the way to (cynically) judge a brewer/brewery was to check their huge IBU IPA, both numerically and flavor wise. Sours are awesome, tart, complex, often fruity, generally aged, and they come in a ton of varieties. A hallmark of the style is the lactic/wild fermentation that imparts that wonderful tart/sour flavor. New Belgium's La Folie is a great example. Based on a Flander's brown and aged in spent wine barrels, it's tart, deep, with a sour finish that's outstanding. A serious top notch sour, and fairly readily available. Go buy some.

rough day? fancy beers to the rescue

Today was a bit rough. As it sometimes happens in retail, people all showed up at once, then no one was in the store for a long time. This went on all day; I rarely had just one person in the shop, but usually had 3-4 that all arrived at nearly the same time, and that's never a fun time. It started pretty much from opening the doors onward. Three people were in needing different things in the first 15 mins, two of them needing to get set up on our trainers, which can take a while. Anyhoo, somewhere in that process I pinched a finger in something and took a good chunk out of it. It was deep enough/a big enough piece missing that it quickly soaked through a single bandaid. It's on my left index finger so, while it doesn't hurt much, it's super annoying doing anything with two bandaids on a single finger. When I got home, I cracked open a couple fancy beers and promptly enjoyed the hell out of them. Enough petty bitching, on to the beers:

Three Floyd's Broo Doo Harvest Ale.

Wow. I can't believe I drank a beer with a wish troll on the label, but I'm really glad I did. This fall seasonal is wet hopped, which means the hops aren't dried before being added to the beer. In this case they claim 24 hours or so from harvest to wort. This technique enhances the aromatic qualities of the hop and impart a certain "fresh" characteristic. According the their website, this brew has 80 IBUs, which isn't surprising given the incredibly citrusy nose to the beer, but depsite the large-ish IBU count, it is smooth and entirely not bitter. The smell is the biggest attraction here, full of citrus, pine, floral notes, and more citrus. They don't say exactly which hops are involved but I'd be surprised if Cascades and Citras, weren't involved. There's enough malt to balance the potent hop dose, but not enough to muddy up the complex flavors involved. A++++ would drink again. Next up is a beer that is finally available in the US, and one all my globe trotting friends insisted I had to try:

Guinness Foreign Extra

A different version/style of their regular stout. It has finally gotten out of the UK and into my grocery store. It is different, richer, deeper, just a bit more flavorful. Certainly not going to be drinking this all the time, but it's a nice change. If you like Guinness, or darker beers in general, give it a shot. Decidedly not on par with something like Shakespeare Stout from Rogue, but it is an new option in the vein of "regular" Guinness, and that's a-okay.